EDITOR’S NOTE: Previous articles:
“Poetry in motion: Writer Carver inspires dance”: https://www.peninsuladailynews.com/article/20130509/NEWS/305099982
“Raymond Carver Festival starts Thursday (May 9) in Port Angeles”: https://www.peninsuladailynews.com/article/20130508/NEWS/305089988
PORT ANGELES — The inaugural Raymond Carver Festival, a celebration of the late writer’s life and work in Port Angeles, is under way, promising 20 events including movie screenings, literary readings and a dance performance.
Two events are this weekend.
The festival marks the 75th anniversary of Carver’s birth.
It is presented by his widow, writer and Port Angeles native Tess Gallagher, and by Peninsula College.
Carver, who died at age 50 on Aug. 2, 1988, lived the last 10 years of his life in Port Angeles.
He enjoyed a creative resurgence here with Gallagher, as he wrote poetry and short stories that have inspired writers, readers and filmmakers around the world.
Movie tonight (May 10)
The festival’s first movie is showing tonight: “Jindabyne,” a 2006 picture based on Carver’s story “So Much Water Close to Home.”
The critically acclaimed film stars Laura Linney and Gabriel Byrne, and will light the screen at 7 p.m.
Admission is $5 or free for students with identification at Maier Hall, the small performance space at Peninsula College, 1502 E. Lauridsen Blvd.
In one of the festival’s more unusual events, the Vicki Lloid Dancers of Walla Walla will come to Peninsula College’s Little Theater on Saturday night (May 11) to offer “Even So . . .,” a dance-theater piece inspired by Carver’s poems about love.
As with most Raymond Carver Festival events, admission to the 7 p.m. performance is free.
The festival continues into the next two weeks, to conclude with a traveling reading, at significant sites across Port Angeles of Carver’s writings, on his birthdate of May 25.
The festival also brings together an exhibition of photographs, mounted excerpts of poems and stories by Carver and Gallagher, and paintings by Seattle artists Alfredo Arreguin and Susan Lytle.
The festival art show will fill the PUB Art Gallery, just outside the Little Theater at Peninsula College, starting Monday.
For more information about this and next week’s events, visit the Carver festival page at www.PenCol.edu or email coordinator Bruce Hattendorf at bhattendorf@pencol.edu.
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Peninsula Daily News Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5062, or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
