Poetry in public
Mateo Quispe, who was the Seattle Youth Poet Laureate from 2023–2024, is spreading their love of poetry with book nooks created by Muckleshoot Tribe carvers.
In his new book, “Leviathan Rising” (MW Editions), Seattle-based photographer Eirik Johnson, ’97, explores the surreal spaces beneath the massive hulls of transoceanic barges that travel along the Duwamish River, as in the pictured Dioskouroi. Navigating by sea kayak, Johnson photographed the patinated exteriors of these beastly structures. Angular steel ribs jut out from the sterns and bows overhead, while sunlight radiates across their oil-slicked and rusted skins, marking their voyages and the broader system of oceanic trade. The book, which also includes an essay by Sylvia Wolf, director emerita of the Henry Art Gallery, is the subject of an exhibition at the Tacoma Art Museum opening in late October.
Eirik Johnson snapped a photo from his kayak during a shoot for “Leviathan Rising.”