Wednesday, October 11, 2017

Friends call him “Seattle Seuss,” but Dave Morrin is just happy to share his passion for rhythm and rhyme where his career as recruitment coordinator for the UW School of Social Work intersects with his innate ability to craft conscious, cleverly-wound verse.

“The words are really just products of the emotional clay that I play with inside,” says Morrin, who also performed improv at the Upfront Theatre in Bellingham for several years while completing graduate school at Western Washington University. The experience prompted him to start performing poetry aloud.

“My talent is writing more so than performing, but if I don’t perform, I know my words will just remain silent in a dusty notebook,” Morrin says. “So when opportunities like Ovations arise, I choose to share my passion because all of us have unique talents.”

Dave takes the stage at Meany Hall on Sunday, Oct. 29, as part of Ovations 2017, hosted by the UW improv troupe The Collective.

His poem “Noémi” was recently selected as one of the 2017 Poetry on Buses published winners. The subject of its title is 95-year-old Holocaust survivor Noémi Ban, with whom Morrin worked as a graduate assistant at WWU. Through his poetry, Morrin says he hopes to share more about himself, while also promoting awareness as to what social work involves and why it matters.

“Social workers help people and work to support those who are marginalized, vulnerable and oppressed,” he says. “If my poetry can entertain people while also promoting awareness about what social work is and why it matters, then I’ll have found that  balance between my UW job and my personal passions.”

You can find more than 170 of Morrin’s original poems here.