POETS ON THE

RUNWAY

AT “BLOODSUGAR no. 7,” SEATTLE POETS SHOWCASED OUTFITS MADE BY LOCAL FASHION DESIGNERS IN RESPONSE TO THE POETS’ POEMS

PHOTOGRAPHY BY XANDRA YUGTO

Judging the Castle Climbing Club in West Seattle — a new-ish climbing gym located on the industrialized Western banks of the Duwamish — by its cover might lead you to assume that poetry readings aren’t exactly core to the club’s business strategy. You’d be largely correct; and yet, on a recent clear-skied evening, something akin to a poetry reading did take place, as a coterie of poets and fashion designers and dancers and musicians and visual artists congregated on the club’s roof.

Finding art in unexpected places is part of the raison d’être of Bloodsugar, an ongoing event series organized by local poet Sullivan Forderhase, whose work frequently contemplates how words and movement can interact. Bloodsugar’s seventh event — the one at Castle Climbing Club — came across as an outgrowth of Forderhase’s unapologetic interdisciplinarity: Local poets presented a poem to local fashion designers who, in turn, furnished outfits for poets to flaunt down a runway alongside a recitation of said poems. Literature met couture met Inception. Billed as an “inverted ekphrastic event,” the program also featured three sound artists, two movement artists, and two visual artists.

Bloodsugar’s one-night-only cast helped weld garments to stanzas, among other accomplishments. On the poetic front, many of the works meditated on the American project, including through the lenses of colonialism and consumerism and addiction. The fashion featured leather, denim, chains, red-white-blue color palates, and other hues and fabrics.

CHUM News dispatched photographer Xandra Yugto to cover the catwalk and its literary-aesthetic essence. Our gallery features the poets’ full-glam fits, identifies the provenance of their clothing, and previews the poetry. (Full versions can be accessed via hyperlink and were shared with us courtesy of Bloodsugar.)