Jed Myers & Michele Bombardier — 'Can't Be Far' & 'Don't Ask Me How I Know'

Third Place Books welcomes poets Jed Myers and Michele Bombardier to our Ravenna store to present their new collections, Jed's and Michele's .

This event is free and open to the public. For important updates, RSVP is highly recommended in advance. This event will include a public signing and time for audience Q&A. Sustain our author series by purchasing a copy of the featured books!

This event is free to attend. Registration is recommended in advance.

Please note: While RSVP helps us anticipate attendance, your RSVP may not guarantee a seat. Seating is first-come, first-served, and all events at our Ravenna neighborhood store are free and open to the public. Only standing room may be available for events with high interest.

We are happy to accommodate any accessibility concerns. Please contact us at [email protected] or call our Ravenna store at (206) 525-2347.

"In his poetry collection Can't Be Far, Jed Myers writes with masterfully restrained music and luminous imagery as he questions how to survive the losses and griefs that haunt us all-the aging body, the deaths of family and friends, and a world of tyranny and violence so distorted by "the makers of our new facts" that we barely recognize it. Guiding us through the dark, Myers, who claims to be "Late // for my remedial lessons in gentle," helps us "untie beauty // from horror" in this "muffled chorus" of "hundreds on hundreds / of hunkered souls," while paving the way toward "love's presence," and therefore love's courage, that surely Can't Be Far."
—Jill McCabe Johnson, author of Learning to Spar and Tangled in Vow & Beseech

"Don't Ask Me How I Know tenderly reveals the forces that shape human experience are more essential than having all the answers. We witness and grieve with her on tarmac and in stairwells, save old yellow sheets from the hospital shredder, reconnect over social media only to then let go. We too grow protective over the most vulnerable, the buck restfully hiding in her yard before making his escape, the beauty of one more day."
—Rosebud Ben-Oni, author of If This Is the Age We End Discovery

Jed Myers’ fourth book of poetry, Can’t Be Far (MoonPath Press, 2026), was a finalist for the press’s Sally Albiso Award. His prior collections are Learning to Hold (2024, winner of the Wandering Aengus Press Editors’ Award), The Marriage of Space and Time (MoonPath Press, 2019), Watching the Perseids (2014, winner of the Sacramento Poetry Center Book Award), and six chapbooks. Poems have appeared in Rattle, RHINO, Poetry Northwest, Southern Indiana Review, The Southeast Review, Greensboro Review, and other journals and anthologies. Myers lives in Seattle, where he’s Editor of the journal Bracken.

Michele Bombardier is the author of Don't Ask Me How I Know (2026), runner-up for the Alibso Prize and long-listed for the Washington Prize from Word Works, and What We Do (2018), finalist for the Washington Book Award. She is the winner of the 2024 NORward Prize, the founder of Fishplate Poetry, and the inaugural Poet Laureate of Bainbridge Island, Washington, where she was designated an Island Treasure for her contributions to arts programming.

Founded in 1998 in Lake Forest Park, Washington, Third Place Books is dedicated to the creation of a community around books and the ideas inside them. With locations in Lake Forest Park and Seattle's Ravenna and Seward Park neighborhoods, Third Place Books is proud to serve the entire Seattle metro area. Learn more about their event series at thirdplacebooks.com/events.

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