National Poetry Month with Jessica Gigot

Jessica Gigot – Contributed photo

Griffin Bay Bookstore and the San Juan Island Library are proud to be co-sponsoring an evening celebrating National Poetry Month with Skagit Valley poet and farmer, Jessica Gigot, on Wednesday, April 27, 7:00 pm at the Library.

Jessica Gigot returns to San Juan Island this spring with her debut collection of poems in ‘Flood Patterns’; she completed the manuscript during a residency at the Helen R. Whiteley Center at the Friday Harbor Laboratories in 2014.

The poems in ‘Flood Patterns’ vividly depict a lowland place and its people in the farthest northwest corner of the country. As Kevin Craft, editor of Poetry Northwest, writes, “The poems are informed by the determined if contested optimism of someone who knows the ground she walks on and its potential to yield both bounty and treachery.”

He goes on to say, “We discover the perishable joys and stubborn sadnesses of farm life, family life, writing life, even as each poem edges through unpredictable weather to unearth a hopeful patience, resilient and alert. Like rocks in a tumbler, these poems release ‘rhythm and rage / From their time at sea,’ emerging with the luster of hard-won truth.”

The noted poet and playwright, Jeanne Murray Walker, gives ‘Flood Patterns’ high praise: “In this debut collection, Jessica Gigot, farmer, scientist, and poet, writes about her territory, the Skagit River Valley. Her poetry is plainspoken, restrained, and entirely believable. Bypassing the ecstatic, she reveals a land and its species that are both threatened and provisional. Nevertheless, these poems rejoice in a quiet beauty that exceeds what is merely necessary for existence. As Gigot reminds us, ‘a fire breathes beneath the cold.’ ”

About the Author –
Jessica Gigot, Ph.D., M.F.A, is a poet, farmer, teacher and musician. Her small farm in Bow, WA –Harmony Fields – grows herbs, lamb and produce. She offers educational and art workshops through her Art in the Barn series, and has an academic background in horticulture and plant pathology. Jessica has lived in the Skagit Valley for over ten years and is deeply connected to the artistic and agricultural communities that coexist in the region. Her first collection of poems, ‘Flood Patterns’, was published by Antrim House Books in November 2015 and her writing has been published in Floating Bridge Press Review, Poetry Northwest and the forthcoming All We Can Hold, a collection of poems about motherhood from Sage Hill Press.

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