PORT TOWNSEND — Poet Michael Daley will share tales and insights about his literary adventures as a young writer and publisher in Port Townsend in the 1970s and ‘80s during tonight’s Jefferson County Historical Society’s First Friday Lecture.
The lecture begins at 7 p.m. in the city of Port Townsend council chamber, 540 Water St.
Entry is by the suggested donation of $5, which benefits historical society programs, according to a news release.
Daley arrived in Port Townsend in 1972, according to a news release, and was both a witness to, and an instigator of, the city’s transformation from a quiet backwater to a town known for its art and artists.
In 1976, Daley, with Bob Blair, co-founded Empty Bowl Press, a literary magazine that provided a forum for environment issues, according to a news release.
The magazine was founded at a time when Port Townsend was experiencing a large influx of young people fleeing cities after the turmoil of the ‘60s, according to the release. Many were well educated artists and craftsmen ready to put their ideals into practice.
The first Empty Bowl publication was “Dalmo’ma I,” the first of a series of anthologies conceived and edited by Daley.
This and other Empty Bowl works will be on display in the Jefferson Museum of Art &History’s exhibit “The Printed Word in Port Townsend: Literary Presses of the 1970s and ‘80s,” which will open Oct. 20.
Daley was one of the publishers of Empty Bowl Press until 1985 when he left Port Townsend. By that time, it had evolved into a collectively published endeavor with a considerably more sophisticated presentation than the first publication which had been hand set on an antique printing press, according to the news release.
Daley has published four books of poetry — “The Straits,” “To Curve,” “Moonlight in the Redemptive Forest” and “Of a Feather.”
He’s written a book of essays, “Way Out There,” and translated Lucia Gazzino’s “After Mundus” from Italian.
Daley is currently working on a novella.
Empty Bowl Press continues to publish books as a division of Pleasure Boat Studio.
For more information, visit http://jchsmuseum.org/.
