Celebration is in order this evening as Seattle University Creative Writing Program director and poet Sharon Cumberland reads from her just-published first full collection, Peculiar Honors (Black Heron). "Sharon Cumberland knows the forceful pronouncement, but also possesses the rarer gift for quietness and gentle naming—a contemporary Adam christening the hard-to-name emotions and perceptions of grief, happiness, faith." – Andrew Hudgins. "In these poems we meet Madonnas in jeans; Athenas in Greek widow's weeds; nosey aunts with faces displayed on Mylar birthday balloons; and medieval schoolmasters enjoining their pupils to write themes on those who have died by drowning, crucifixion, or pure joy." – Carolyne Wright.