4 // COASTWEEKEND.COM
Shelley Rose
Sierra Golden at
Gas Works Park in
Seattle, Wash.
InTo tHe dEpThS
Fisherpoet Sierra Golden publishes her
fi rst poetry collection, ‘The Slow Art’
By RYAN HUME
FOR COAST WEEKEND
L
Jeff Golden
From left: Tyler Jones, Sierra Golden and Josh Corliss aboard the F/V Challenger with a deckload of
pink samon in Southeast Alaska in 2013.
ike a trawler’s crew
in search of rock-
fi sh, Seattle-area poet
Sierra Golden’s fi rst col-
lection mines the depths.
Plunging the reader into
the physical world of mar-
itime labor and the bliss
and hardships of a life at
sea (among other homes),
Golden pulls up unique
emotional revelations from
these experiences.
The seasoned FisherPoet,
winner of the 2018 Dorothy
Brunsman Poetry Prize, will
support her new book, “The
Slow Art,” at the 2019 Fish-
erPoets Gathering, taking
place Friday through Sun-
day, Feb. 22 through 24.
Coast Weekend spoke
with Golden by email in
anticipation of her upcom-
ing appearances. This inter-
view has been edited and
condensed for length.
Coast Weekend: First,
could you explain what
the title of your book,
“The Slow Art,” means to
you?
Sierra Golden:
Those words fi rst came
to me while I was writ-
ing the poem “Under the
Madrone.” In that poem,
I explore the idea of boat
building as a metaphor for
relationships and for love.
I specifi cally say, “the slow
art of bending ribs.” I see a
shipwright attentively cut-
ting, steaming and bending
a plank that will be shaped
into a wooden boat’s rib. I
imagine it’s a process where
you can go too far, and then
one is left with a broken
thing.
I think relationships are
the same way — we have to
learn “the slow art” of lov-
ing someone. We must be
patient and attentive and
also strong and creative and
demanding, and then the
relationship might become a
thing as beautiful and useful
as a boat.
CW: You’ve published
poems in literary journals
all over the country ... Is
this your fi rst collection?
SG: Yes. I’ve also pub-
lished a chapbook called
“Aristotle’s Lantern,” but
it’s basically a shorter, less
polished version of “The
Slow Art.” In the music
world, “Aristotle’s Lantern”
would be my EP and “The
Slow Art” would be my fi rst
album.
CW: From the con-
text of your work, it seems
like you have been steeped