In notes for the reading, poet Samuel Green wrote: "Coleridge said, 'In the truly great poets . . . there is a reason assignable, not only for every word, but for the position of every word.' Ponsot would agree. [The Bird Catcher] is full of poems where care is everywhere apparent -- assonance, consonance, bold alliteration -- but never overwhelming; always, form is the servant of content."

The Bird Catcher, Marie Ponsot's 1998 collection, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, the Delmore Schwartz Prize, and was a finalist for the Lenore Marshall Prize. Her first book, True Minds, was published by Lawrence Ferlinghetti in 1957. Twenty-five years later, she published Admit Impediment, followed by the Green Dark. She has won a National Endowment for the Arts grant in poetry. At 80, she is preparing new and selected poems for publication in the coming year, and continues to teach in universities and poetry centers in New York City.

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Seattle artist Paul Hunter created an 8 1/2" by 11" broadside of the Ponsot poem, "What the Worn Rhymes Found," to commemorate her Seattle reading. Hunter carved a woodblock print and handset and handprinted the broadside. Click on picture on the left to see a larger image. This is a signed limited edition, available for $15 from Wood Works, 4131 Greenwood North, Seattle, WA 98103.