Jon Raymond

"Tonight’s featured author is Jon Raymond. Jon is the author of a novel, The Half Life, and a short story collection, Livability.

”Words and Things,” one of the stories collected in Livability, is an examination of a budding romance between Jen, a sculptor, and David, a writer. Here is what Jen has to say about the difference between “words” and “things”:

“Writing, Jen thought, seemed like a very sad pursuit. Like painting, but worse. At least paintings had color. Writing, though, was just black marks on paper, standing in for people and objects and events that could never be seen or felt. It seemed pathetic in a way. Nouns were the saddest words of all, trying so hard to summon real objects to life.” (p. 141)

I was struck by that passage because it seems to me that this is exactly what a writer does. He uses the tools of his craft, those black marks on paper, to attempt to zoom in on people and objects and events so that we feel we experience them firsthand. Jon Raymond does this well.

I’m not a giant fan of Wilbur Smith, who wrote a number of historical novels set in Egypt. But one of his books in particular, The Sunbird, has remained in my brain for several decades. The book is really two separate narratives, the first about an archeological dig, and the second, set centuries earlier, the real-time story of the residents who had lived their lives on what is now the dig. Smith uses the two stories to pose these questions: Can the land retain memory, specifically emotional memory, of what has gone before? Can the land’s memory of times long past influence current events?

I wasn’t too far into my reading of The Half Life when it seemed to me that Raymond was suggesting something of the same sort. Rather than telling the two stories separately, as Smith did, he entwines the narratives of two pairs of unlikely friends taking place more than a century and a half apart. As the stories of Henry and Cookie and Tina and Trixie unfold, the reader journeys into unfamiliar territory. But it is the same territory in each narrative. As the modern story reaches resolution, it’s almost impossible not to ask: Would this tale have had the same ending in a different location? It’s a fun question to think about, and the book is a terrific read.

So without further ado, please welcome Jon Raymond." (Intro by Marianne Klekacz)



Video Copyright Carla Perry

Carlos Reyes

Carlos Reyes is a long-time noted Portland poet, writer and translator. Most recent book of poetry: A Suitcase Full of Crows (1995). Forthcoming poetry from Lost Horse Press in Spring 2004: At the Edge of the Western Wave. Books of translations: Poemas de la Isla/Island Poems by Josefina de la Torre (Eastern Washington University Press, 2000); Puertas abiertas/Open Doors by Edwin Madrid (2000), Hojas sueltas/Scattered Leaves by Josefina de la Torre (2002) and Páginas de Arena/Pages of Sand by Selena Millares (2003). Of interest is the fact that Open Doors has been translated into Arabic and this year was published in Baharain. Reyes has completed translating the Obra poética completa (Complete Poetic Works) of the preeminent Ecuadorean poet Jorge Carrera Andrade, which will be published this year in a bilingual edition in Ecuador. Current translation project: Mario Benedetti, Rincón de los haiku / Corner of Haikus. Publisher/Editor Trask House Books, Inc. Former poetry reviewer for Willamette Week, a weekly newspaper in Portland, Oregon. He travels often to Ireland where he maintains an 18th century Irish cottage and is a frequent visitor to Spain and Ecuador.

Carlos Reyes is an Irish-American poet blessed with a Hispanic name. He is the bard of Cloonanaha (County Clare, Irleand) and a poet in Portland, Oregon. Carolyn Kizer has said:

Mr. Reyes is one of our local and national treasures. His poetry is as clear and strong as his social conscience. One is always struck by his sensual and sensory qualities: the touch, taste, feel, color of things, and his ability to capture a mood, a world, in a handful of lines.

ALIVE, ALIVE OH!

--for Tonja Larsen and Judy Fisher

At the bar words in Irish
sough between publican and customer.

He looks our way, a fisherman up
since six this morning,

abandons his half-finished pint.
Foam slides down the glass

like the tide falling away
from the stone quay a mile from here.

Uncertain of his landlegs, he staggers
away toward hearth.

We finish Guinnesses at our ease,
return to the carpark.

A man sells mussels from a burlap bag
out the boot of his car.

On the road through Letterfrack village
the freshly laid tarmacadam sizzles:

smoke and fog burn away
the soft evening sky.

Walking Bridges

"Walking Bridges" authors featured at November 15 Nye Beach Writers' Series.

Seven contributors to the 70-poet compilation "Walking Bridges Using Poetry as a Compass," were featured on November 15, 2008: Jonah Bornstein, Don Colburn, Cecelia Hagen, Margaret Gish Miller, Rita Ott Ramstad, and Sandra Stone.


Sharon Wood Wortman, co-editor of the book, is also the author of "The Portland Bridge Book," which had its first and second editions published by the Oregon Historical Society Press in 1989 and 2001. "After OHS went out of the business of books, I founded my own press, took out a loan on our house, and published a third edition in 2006," said Wortman. That edition was awarded the 2007 Silver Medal from Independent Publisher. Wortman is also the driving force behind the ongoing "Portland Parks & Outdoor Recreation Bridge Walks" series held since 1991, which evolved into "Poetry and Bridge Walks" in 2006. Wortman is also involved with the 2009 Portland-Vancouver Bridges & Rivers Calendar, a fundraiser for the 100-year birthday celebration of the Hawthorne Bridge planned for 2010. Additional information about her many projects is posted at www.bridgestories.com.


Jonah Bornstein was raised in Southern California and received a Master's in creative writing from New York University before moving to Oregon in 1989, where he co-founded the Ashland Writers Conference. His published books include "A Path through Stone" and "Voices from the Siskiyous." His poem, "Night Blooming Men," was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2000 and two of his poems are included in the nationally acclaimed anthology September 11, 2001, American Writers Respond. His many accolades include the Oregon State Poetry Association Prize and the inaugural Southern Oregon Prize for service to the writing community of the region.


Don Colburn lives in Portland where he is a reporter for The Oregonian. A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in feature writing, he worked for many years at The Washington Post. Colburn became interested in poetry and started writing poems while on a mid-career Knight Fellowship at Stanford University. In 2006, he had two collections of poetry published: His chapbook, "Another Way to Begin," won the Finishing Line Press Prize; and his full-length book, "As If Gravity Were a Theory," won the Cider Press Review Book Award. He has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.


Cecelia Hagen grew up Norfolk, Virginia, and studied writing and dance at Connecticut College, later receiving a Master's of fine arts in poetry from the University of Oregon. Her work has been published in many national magazines, and in 2007, Passager magazine in Baltimore chose her as its poet of the year. Presently, Hagen teaches memoir writing and coordinates the monthly Windfall Reading Series for the Lane Literary Guild in Eugene.


Margaret Gish Miller was born in Palo Alto, California and now lives in the Willamette Valley where she is a retired English teacher. Her work has appeared in numerous publications and she has received awards from New Millennium Writings and The Writers Digest.


Rita Ott Ramstad's first book, "The Play of Dark and Light," won the 2003 Stafford-Hall Award for Poetry at the Oregon Book Awards; and her poem "Night Beach" traveled on Portland's TriMet buses and MAX trains as part of Poetry in Motion, a campaign that showcases the work of local and national poets on transit vehicles. She teaches English at the Center for Advanced Learning, a charter high school in Gresham.


Sandra Stone is the 2007 winner of the Dana Award in poetry, which is presented to an under-recognized American poet for mastery of craft, inventive use of language, and substance. Her first collection of poems, "Cocktails with Breughel at the Museum Cafe," was selected in the Cleveland State University annual manuscript competition. The following year, "Cafe" received an Oregon Book Award. Stone's work has appeared in numerous national publications and in several anthologies.

Barbara Roberts

by Carla Perry, founder/director Writers On The Edge.

I met Barbara Roberts two years ago when she was a featured author of the Nye Beach Writers' Series in July 2002. I was amazed at her frankness, her compassion and the urgency of her message about coping with the death of love ones and the necessity of allowing for individual responses to grief.

I knew she was a brave woman because I lived in Oregon during her reign as Governor. I have always been impressed with her courage to stand up and demand constitutional rights for the handicapped, seniors, children who are victims of abuse and neglect, and low-income families.

Barbara Roberts is a fourth-generation Oregonian; a descendant of Oregon Trail pioneers raised to believe that girls could do anything. She began her public service as a volunteer advocate for handicapped children. From 1981 to 1984 she served as a member of the Oregon House of Representatives and was elected Oregon's first woman House majority leader during her second term. In 1984, she was elected Oregon's Secretary of State, and reelected in 1988. In 1991, she was elected Oregon's first (and only) female Governor. During her four-year term, Oregon was recognized by Financial World Magazine as the seventh best-managed state in the nation. Her administration was known for its strong gay rights advocacy and its appointment of women and minorities to positions in state government.

After leaving public office, she had a five-year association with the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and taught at Portland University as an Associate Director of Leadership Development. She is on the Board of Trustees of the Oregon Hospice Association and the Human Rights Campaign. She is a member of the Advisory Councils for Compassion in Dying in Oregon and the Oregon League of Conservation Voters. She is involved in the new Relief Nursery in Portland, serving small children who are victims of abuse and neglect.

Her book, Death Without Denial, Grief Without Apology, first published in 2002 is already in its fourth printing and is available for sale and autographing today.

Barbara Roberts is a brave, clear-spoken woman of indefatigable energy. She is the least pretentious governor Oregon has ever had. It is an honor to host her in Newport.

Please welcome Barbara Roberts.

Cole Robinson

COLE ROBINSON performs solo acoustic guitar. "Robinson's improvisational style is a fusion between organic acoustic precision and raw electric power, with overtones of American string band and East Indian raga."

COLE ROBINSON states that he has been greatly influenced by the music of Jimmy Hendrix, Miles Davis, Dave Matthews, and the Smashing Pumpkins. "I appreciate all forms of music but lately I've taken a particular interest in American string band music and East Indian raga."

Robinson studied with such notables as Dan Balmer, Tony Kaltenberg, Jeff Peretz, and Mel Brown. He has performed in numerous and varied venues including the E.M.U. Ballroom at the University of Oregon.

"I am capable of delivering a hard driving beat as well as employing the use of free time to create ambient modal soundscapes."

June & Joren Rushing

JUNE RUSHINGcomes from a large family of performers–including both parents, grandparent, aunts, uncles and cousins. Her roots are in Country Western and Germanic folk, with special training in jazz and classical.

Her husband, JOREN RUSHING, played his first live concert in July 1966 and has played most Friday and Saturday nights for the past twenty-six years. He has opened for Commander Cody, Big Brother & the Holding Company, Kingfish, New Riders of the Purple Sage, Robert Hunter, Merle Haggard, Ferlin Husky, Earl Thomas Connely and more. Both June and Joren have played with several bands, the most recent were Lonesome Ghosts and Three Bricks Shy. Their new CD features the title track "Walker After Midnight," a song with lyrics by Robert Hunter and music by Joren Rushing



June Rushing performing Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" with the June Rushing Band
at Cafe Mundo, Newport, Oregon, April 24, 2009.
Video Copyright Carla Perry

3 Guys from Albany

TOM NATTELL, CHARLIE ROSSITER and DAN WILCOX are friends who share the idea that poetry should be part of society rather than apart from it. Relevant, communicative and above all, honest. As they put it, "We’re trying to help more people find out how neat poetry is."

The 3 GUYS FROM ALBANY became a formal group 1993 and have performed their work throughout the Northeast and Midwest in coffee houses, bars, libraries, community centers, at colleges, and on street corners, mostly in towns named Albany.

Their Pacific Coast tour included a benefit performance for the Albany Regional Museum and West Albany High School on Thursday, a show at Café Lena in Portland last night, here in Newport tonight, Grassroots Books in Corvallis tomorrow, and at the Salem Book Bin on Monday, followed by a LIVE interview on KBOO radio’s "Talking Earth" show in Portland. Then they return home to New York.

DAN WILCOX’s poems have been published in a variety of small press magazines and anthologies. He is also a photographer who has accumulated what he refers to as the "largest photo collection of unknown poets in the world."

TOM NATTELL is an environmental and peace activist who believes in using poetry and the other arts to advance peace, justice and a sane approach to the environment. He originated and hosts Albany’s oldest continuous open mic series.

CHARLIE ROSSITER, producer and host of Poetry Motel TV, has performed on KPFA in San Francisco, at the Kent State Gathering of Poets in Ohio, the Forest Gathering of Poets in Eugene, Oregon, and he helped organize all-day readings at the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. He is also the co-creator of poetrypoetry.com, a brand new international audio poetry website. With links to major poetry sites in Australia, Canada and the UK already in place, poetrypoetry.com is aiming to become the premiere world poetry "gateway" site by leading visitors to the best sites on the globe for English-language poetry. The "3 Guys from Albany" will tape tonight’s open mike session for inclusion on this website.

Carlos Reyes

Carlos Reyes is an Irish-American poet and translator. His books of poetry include The Shingle Weaver’s Journal, a finalist for the Elliston Prize; Nightmarks, and A Suitcase Full of Crows. He has also published nine chapbooks including The Windows, The Prisoner, The Orange Letters, At Doolin Quay, Open Doors, and most recently a translation of Edwin Madrid’s Puertas abiertas.

Hundreds of his poems appeared in national and international literary journals and anthologies including most recently, Let Us Drink To the River, an anthology of river poems, and O Poetry! Oh Poesía! Poems of Oregon and Perú. His poem, "Bridge of the World," appears along with other poetry on Max Cars and Tri-Met buses through Portland’s Poetry in Motion program sponsored by Literary Arts, Tri-Met and the Poetry Society of America.

Carlos recently completed a translation of José Martí’s Escenas norteamericanas (North American Scenes), a book which will be published in Havana, Cuba. And he has translated Poemas de la isla (Island Poems) by Canary Island poet Josephina de la Torre, scheduled for publication by Eastern Washington University Press.

Reyes has been a Yaddo Fellow, a fellow at the Fundación Valparaíso (Mojácar, Spain), and received an Oregon Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowship for poetry. Since 1964, he has been the editor and publisher of Trash House Books, Inc. He is a founding editor of Hubbub: A Magazine of Poetry, and is currently on the editorial board of Ar Mhuin na Muice (On A Pig’s Back), a journal of Irish news, music and culture.

Vern Rutsala

Vern Rutsala was born in 1934 and is a native of Idaho. He received his BA from Reed College and an MFA from the University of Iowa. Nine books of his poetry have been published, four chapbooks, and over 700 poems which have appeared in literary reviews and anthologies. He has won numerous prizes including the Carolyn Kizer Poetry Prize (twice), a Pushcart Prize, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Oregon Masters, and two from the National Endowment for the Arts. He received the Juniper Prize for his book, Little Known Sports, and won the Oregon Book Award in 1992 for Selected Poems.

Vern Rutsala is currently a professor of English at Lewis & Clark College.

Dmea Roberts

Dmae Roberts is an Amerasian playwright, actress and radio producer. Her first Drammy-nominated full-length play was the autobiographical Mei Mei: A Daughter’s Song. Other plays include Breaking Glass, produced in 1995, Janie Bigo, The Journey of Lady Buddha, her multimedia play about Kuan Yin, and Picasso in the Back Seat, which received the Portland Drama Critics Circle award for Best Original Play in 1996, an Oregon Book Award in playwriting.

Dmae has also written and produced more than three hundred features, audio arts pieces and documentaries for National Public Radio, MonitorRadio, the Osgood Files, and Public Radio International.

Her honors include the George Foster Peabody award for her radio docu-play Mei Mei, an Oregon Institute of Literary Arts award, and grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Endowment for the Arts, and fellowships from the Oregon Arts Commission and New Langton Arts.

Her 13-part radio series LEGACIES: Tales From America was hosted by James DePreist and broadcast on National Public Radio to more than one hundred stations. She just completed three one-hour radio documentaries distributed on National Public Radio called LEGACIES: Faith, Hope and Peace, winner of the Heart of America award for Best in Radio.

Dmae has also acted extensively on Portland stages as Mary Ann in ESCAPE FROM HAPPINESS, as Lizzie Borden in BLOOD RELATIONS, as Lady Macbeth in MACBETH, as Hortensio in TAMING OF THE SHREW (for which she received a Drammy nomination), and as Mistress Ford in MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR, for which she received a Drama Critics Circle award.

As the executive producer of MEDIARITES, a non-profit organization dedicated to multicultural arts production in radio, theatre and literature, she continues her personal mission to create works that bring diverse communities together.

www.mediarites.org

Scott Rosin

Scott Rosin began writing shortly after heading into the woods in 1971. "I've worked in nearly every capacity of forest labor over the last 28 years: fire-fighter, smokejumper, tree planter, pre-commercial thinner, timber-faller, logger. If it involved blood, sweat and lower back pain, I've done it."

Scott's poetry has been published in numerous woodland, firefighting, surfing, and literary magazines. He was featured as the world's foremost surfing poet in The Glide: Renaissance of Long-Board Surfing, a history and commentary about contemporary long-board surfing by Chris Bystrom, published in Australia every year since 1999. He has also written a novel about D.B. Cooper the legendary Northwest hijacker, a full-length children's book The Chronicles of Humbleton, is working on a collection of poems about surfing, and a novel The Secret Spot, which is near completion.

Scott began writing plays in 1984. The first three were one-act comedies about love-relationships collectively called "Problems in Natural Selection." His musical adaptation of O. Henry's "Gift of the Magi" transformed the original two-character short story into a stage performance with a cast of 59. In 1988, "O Dragon" was performed at the Next Wave Youth Theatre in Newport where he played the lead role. "The Stolen Hours," performed at the Newport Performing Arts Center in November 1996, was Scott's sixth play staged in Newport.

Scott is a competitive surfer, on the Board for the Oregon Coast Council for the Arts, and host of the Nye Beach Writers' Series.

Dan Raphael

Dan Raphael gives innumerable readings all over the Pacific Northwest. Most of his e-mail correspondence is a litany of the dates and places where he will be performing, or places where he is hosting readings of the people he publishes. He’s recently performed at Portland’s Artquake and Poetry Festival, Seattle’s Bumbershoot and Red Sky Poetry Theater, at Eastern Oregon State College, Blue Mountain Community College, Linfield College and Southern Oregon State. One enigmatic e-mail message said he’d just given a reading that night at Merry’ Barefoot Boutique. Last month he held a reading called 26 WOMEN, which featured several women represented by his press, 26 BOOKS. Tomorrow he will be reading at Oregon Books at noon in Depoe Bay, where, by the way, Walt Curtis, Glegg Kleiner, Clemens Starck, and Carla Perry will also be reading.

Besides his job with Oregon’s Department of Motor Vehicles, his family -- which includes a wife and very tall son-- and other interests like home brewing, basketball and computers occupy his time.

Dan Raphael is the publisher of 26 BOOKS, which so far has published 17 of its planned 26 books of 26 pages by 26 Northwest poets. The newest of the series is TEXTS, by Tom Taylor from Oysterville which has just been released. Dan also hosts a monthly reading series at Borders Books in Downtown Portland.

Trees Through the Road is Dan Raphael’s 13th book of poetry. Other recent books include Molecular Jam (published by Jazz Police Books, La Grande), The Bones Begin to Sing (published by 26 BOOKS) and Rain Away (from Leaping Mountain Press, Fort Collins.) Some, or most of these books are available here tonight.

Dan claims, and I have no reason to doubt him, that over 300 of his poems have been published in over 100 magazines, most recently in Hubbub, Tight, Paper Radio, Talus & Scree, and The Temple.

Six Local Writers

SIX LOCAL WRITERS!

SHEILA EVANS spent years teaching in California’s Central Valley. Her articles appeared in local newspapers, the Oregonian, Eugene Register-Guard, Newsweek, Oregon Coast Magazine, Northwest Travel, Creative Woman, and Portlandia Review of Books. Her 1996 novel Maggie’s Rags, is set in a small town resembling Yachats.

HOWARD OSBORN abandoned a career in poetry to become an agricultural economist. His career took him from Oregon to Boston to Washington, DC, to most of Latin America. He served with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and with the Organization of American States. He has written two books of poetry and a chapter "Research Technology and the Small Farm" which appeared in a compendium Alternatives in Food Production. He will be reading from his recent poetry chapbooks: Decision Tree and Moon Meanderings and Reflections.

RUTH HARRISON was born in Kansas, grew up in Colorado, and has been an Oregonian since 1950. Her first teaching assignment was in a one-room school. She is now a retired professor of medieval literature who writes and gives occasional poetry workshops. Her poems appeared in regional, national and international publications. Her poetry collection, Bone Flute, was published in 1996 by Cape Perpetua Press of Yachats. She has just completed work on a second book, Nightwalk.

MICHAEL BURGESS is a columnist for Upper Left Edge and the author of Uncle Mike’s Guide to the Real Oregon Coast, a tongue-in-cheek guide for tourists who should vacation elsewhere. Magic and Magicians, an introduction to magic for young readers, was published in 1991. He was founding president of Northwest Writers, Inc. based in Portland, has written for film and television, and has provided humorous social commentary to local radio and television stations. He and his partner, Darlene Dubé recently opened OREGON BOOKS in Depoe Bay. The bookstore is the first and only bookstore devoted solely to books about Oregon and books by Oregon authors. He also writes horoscopes that appear monthly in Inkfish.

SCOTT ROSIN headed for the woods of Toledo, Oregon in 1971 and began writing in 1978. His first three plays were one-acts. Longer plays have been performed at the Next Wave Youth Theatre and the Newport Performing Arts Center. His most recent work, "The Stolen Hours," was produced in November 1996. He is currently working on a collection of poems about surfing, a collection of woods poems, a screenplay, several short stories, a novel, a play and prose poems. In addition to his work as a writer, Scott has been a fire fighter, smoke jumper, tree planter and timber faller.

CARLA PERRY is the founder and coordinator of the Yachats Writers’ Series, co-editor of Talus & Scree International Literary Journal, a photographer, book publisher, and a poet. She received a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Iowa Writers Workshop. Her work has been published in national magazines and is the author and illustrator of two books: No Questions Asked, No Answers Given, published in 1971 and Laughing Like Dogs, published by Cape Perpetua Press in 1996.