2025 Ground to Sound Film and Art Festival

PoetryFlash FictionMicro EssayThemed Call
Written By Creative Colloquy | Connecting Creatives

Winners from our themed submissions call!

 

For the Second Annual Ground to Sound Film and Arts Festival we encouraged wordsmiths to submit works of flash fiction and poetry exploring the intricate connection between the bustling Tacoma landscape and its unique watersheds. We wanted to explore themes centered around our shared waterways and stewardship of the sea.
This program was in partnership with Foster’s Creative and City of Tacoma' Environmental Services.

Pieces selected for performance:

  • Ripples in the Water

  • Feels Like Plastic

  • The Orange Moon, and Everything Else

Honorable Mention:

  • Sea Glass

Ripples in the Water


by Meghan Feuk

My grandfather grew up in Salmon Beach
back when there were bison at Point Defiance Park,
those he teased to charge him as a boy.

He told these stories and laughed while cruising the Sound
with me in his flat bottom boat lined with fake green turf
as he showed me how to fish for salmon.

For years he worked in the mills that poured slag in Commencement Bay,
poached fish his whole life, had a penchant for making trouble,
and he also taught me that to know life we must love where it comes from.

If you look hard enough my blood is here in the water.
I know that from cutting myself gathering oysters,
my grandfather who hooked himself, and my boys who scrape their knees.

My father says there must be a wave breaker off Owen Beach
from all the beach stones we have all skipped there.
How each little act gathers. How we are bearers of consequence.

My boys come with me to beach cleanup and pick up pieces of humanity,
especially those who leave confetti on Les Davies Pier,
and we pick up every tedious gender reveal piece

from the same place I lined up with lights at night jigging for squid
shoulder to shoulder. Where we live topsoil was removed because of the smelter
plume, and in these layers, you will find my family.

If I can tell you anything at all, what we do with our past
as we venture out means something. We toss hope to the water.
Flip a rock at low tide to find an octopus.

Meghan Feuk is a professional wastewater scientist and mom joke expert. Her work explores her messed up heart, tiny tender moments, and the natural world as she learned it as a kid who wanted to dissect her big brother’s guinea pig. She has been published through Creative Colloquy, Spell Jar Press, and Free Verse Revolution, and recently earned a Master in Public Health.

Feels Like Plastic

by Valerie Carr

Let's count the moon snail egg cases
They are round and rubbery and feel like plastic
Or maybe it is plastic
Mucus and plastic and sand
We’ll move on tires that choke
We’ll follow the rain
To creeks, to rivers, to breaches
And find the power it invokes
Let's look for clams and crabs
And sand dollars and sea stars
And hope they are untouched by the waste.
Oh, a crab
A really big crab
I’ve never seen a crab this big
I need to take a picture of it
They are usually so small
Hiding under rocks and bits of trash
This one is big, big enough to eat
Buzz buzz “Everyone look at this crab”
Now, now, now
Look, now
Digital, dollars, new
Plastic, disposable, new, chemicals, now
Look, new, now
Polyester, ash, dust and plastic
We swim here
We eat here
We leave our neighbors
Here hurting
From rain
To creek
Oil and trash
To rivers
Kill fish
To beaches
Turned ash.

Valerie Carr (She/Her) has been a long time hobby writer from Federal Way, WA. She often writes poetry and short stories. The poem titled Feels Like Plastic combines ideas of consumerism as it affects the natural world and how it affects our reactions to the natural world that we are a part of. If selected, she can be contacted by email: Nobleindieartistry@gmail.com or by phone: (805) 889-2931. Thank you for your consideration.

The Orange Moon, and Everything Else

by Kayla Boland

If you have a broken heart, take it to Tacoma. You’ll know you’re there when you see a
viridescent wash over everything that is entirely unique. Let the green envelop you, and try not to forget that it’s there.

Look out at the Sound, like we all have at one point or another, for one reason or another. Do you remember the time your first love ended things at Owen Beach, and the moon was the biggest and orangest you’d ever seen it? Or when you took your baby sister to the art museum and you saw her eyes, wonder-filled, reflected in the glassworks bursting with color? Remembering her that way now shatters you for reasons you can’t even begin to explain. Your tears tumble into the Sound, time and time again, wordlessly absorbed. You’ve heard it before: we’re all mostly salt and water. And what a relief it is that the land understands.

Now turn around and marvel at the urban sprawl. Think of all the doorways you’ve stepped into, and all the ones you haven’t. Some buildings are old, some new, some beautiful, some neglected. None of them are very tall, and not for a lack of dreaming. Some of the dreams were myopic fantasies that poisoned the ground and the life around it. Some dreams clean the air and feed people, a patchwork quilt of gardens. Some dreams you wake up from in the middle of the night and reach for a glass on your end table. And the thing they all have in common is water, the ultimate sustainer of dreams, of building, of living.

Don’t forget to see the parts of Tacoma that aren’t so close to the Sound. In some areas, you’ll find seas and seas of concrete. At night it’s almost apocalyptic. Can you believe your precious pet was adopted in this desolate place? Even here, they were sheltered, nurtured, and hydrated. Even here, you’re defined by water. It’s out of sight from where you’re standing now, but put it at the front of your mind.

Because if Tacoma is a living body, the Sound is the heart and its watersheds are the veins, spreading life throughout itself. Its trees are the lungs, its creatures are the spirit. Can you really look out at this place and say it’s inanimate? The city has its scars, too. Like you, it’s alive and brimming with dualities and multiplicities. It’s fragile and resilient, friendly and gruff, hopeful and gloomful. There are buildings with sharp metal edges and soft forest floors dripping with moss. Just like you, through time and care from fellow life, it heals with its losses. It slowly gets better. And what a relief it is that you
understand.

So if you have a broken heart, take it to Tacoma. If it seems quiet, just lean in a little closer and look for the green. This city isn’t indifferent. Tacoma just looks you straight in the eye, pats you on the back and says, “I get it.”

Kayla Boland (she/her/hers) is a writer from Lakewood who enjoys exploring memory through flash fiction and poetry. She earned her Master’s degree in Art History from the University of York and has a career background in cultural heritage and communications. In 2024, her poem was among those selected for the Winter Garden Poetry contest at Lakewold Gardens. Kayla now lives in University Place with her husband, dog, and bunny.

Sea Glass

by Rebecca Amina Echeverria

I praise how you
may have come from violence
but now bring beauty
and renewal.

I prase how you become
and become
each break a transformation
a chance to serve
homes for barnacles
seaweed anchors

You are spice and tang
popping against
slate gray
standing still
in ocean-rain-sky.

You are tossed
and torn
apart
now, broken
then sanded
decades old
and turning towards the sun.

Rebecca Amina Echeverria is a Queer Muslim poet who lives and teaches in Tacoma, WA. She has poems published in "Voices of Tacoma" edited by Burl E. Battersby, and "Dear Sister" edited by Lisa Factora-Borchers. She enjoys walking her dogs, cooking, and spending time with her children.

 
 

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