Home Sweet Tent

A poet in residence sets up shop at Tent City.

It is the Sunday after Thanksgiving, and Lantz Rodland stands in a parking lot amid rows of blue tents at Seattle’s Tent City 3, where he is a resident, chatting with newcomer A. K. “Mimi” Allin about poetry.

“I don’t dislike poets,” says Rodland, who has been homeless for fifteen years. “I’m extremely well read and love plays – but even song lyrics turn me off.”

Allin is undaunted.

Photograph by Andrew Waits for City Arts.

“I’m going to run inside and bring back something that will move you,” she says. Rodland considers the offer for a moment.

“We’ll do that in the future,” he replies. “And I’ll think of a book I’d like to share with you.”

Yesterday, Allin helped Rodland and the rest of the camp move from St. Mark’s Cathedral on Capitol Hill to the parking lot of Maple Leaf Lutheran Church in north Seattle, its home through February. The camp moves every ninety days – per state law, religious organizations can host it only temporarily.

Today is Allin’s first day as poet in residence at the homeless camp. For a grant-funded project, the Seattle artist will live in the camp full-time in a canvas yurt with just a wooden chair, a patterned rug, a sleeping bag and books.

In November, Allin won one thousand dollars from Sprout, a Fremont Abbey Arts Center fundraiser, to stay at Tent City through December. At press time, she was seeking money to stay through February. The camp, run by the nonprofit SHARE/WHEEL, is home to up to one hundred people who live in tents without heat or electricity. The central tent has a microwave and a coffee pot – only one of which can run at a time. 

On this afternoon, residents fold blankets, hook tent poles, drape tarps and take breaks to sip coffee in plastic chairs or smoke. 

“I’m freezing!” Allin says.

“What do you mean? It’s beautiful today!” a man chirps as he passes.

Allin looks worried. “I’m going to have to get weathered.”

As poet in residence, Allin plans to host writing circles and hand out journals. “To help people focus on the imagination, the ability to think and dream,” she says. She’ll hold office hours daily at a desk outside her yurt to read, write and strike up conversations. She also plans to do weekly walking meditations and crafts with residents.

On her first day, Allin explores the camp and chats with those standing around. She and resident Roger Countryman, bundled in winter clothes, talk classical music, and he declares her residency “awesome.”

“Artists are able to see things in a different light,” he says.

Countryman studied music at the University of Washington and has played violin with Degenerate Art Ensemble. He shakes his head sadly when asked how he became homeless: “It’s a long story.”

Nearby, resident Mike Whistler helps two women set up their tent. When asked why residents approved Allin’s stay, he said they wanted to know more about her. “She’s very persistent. She’s a people person and can work physically too,” he says. Whistler is a former construction worker who’s unable to work, he says, because of a disabling heart condition.

This isn’t the first project of its kind undertaken by Allin, a full-time grant-funded artist who lives in a small boat on Lake Union. In January 2010, Allin was poet in residence at the architecture firm NBBJ, where she set up elaborate art installations and connected with workers. She has also created work for ACT, the Seattle Art Museum, Bumbershoot, artSparks and Urban Wilderness Project. 

In 2006, she set up a table at Green Lake and talked poetry with locals every Sunday for a year. The Green Lake environment is democratic, Allin recalls, with people from all walks of life – wealthy, poor, disabled. She encountered skeptics there, but most people enjoyed talking about poetry, an art form Allin says is disappearing from daily life. “I don’t know who’s buying poetry books anymore,” she says. “It’s not being passed down.”

Allin says she hopes her current project will bring visibility to those who might otherwise lack a voice. Tether Design Gallery in Seattle has offered to print residents’ poems in letterpress, and a publisher has shown interest in printing the work that comes from her stay.

“I’ll feel satisfied with this project if people see Tent City in the landscape,” she says. •