Saturday, March 16 4-6:30 PM: Oregon Poets Clem Starck, Erik Muller, Charles Goodrich and Jenny Root. Musical interlude provided byFisher Poets John Broderick and Jay Speakman, who will also accompany Clem in a magical final set. Clem will be celebrating the publication of his newest book, “Cathedrals and Parking Lots: Collected Works.” Erik’s new book, “And Yet: Selected Poems, 2011-2018,”will truly be hot off the press. Charles’ poems reflect his life as a professional gardener for over 25 years. Jenny’s first full-length book of poems, “The Company of Sharks,” was published in 2013.
Light refreshments.
CLEMENS STARCK is a Princeton drop-out, a former merchant seaman, a retired union carpenter and construction foreman, and the author of seven books of poems—including the award-winning Journeyman’s Wages(1995). The others are: Studying Russian on Company Time(1999), China Basin (2002), Traveling Incognito(2004), Rembrandt, Chainsaw(2011) and Old Dogs, New Tricks(2016). A book of his Collected Poems, Cathedrals & Parking Lots,was published in the fall of 2018. A widower, he has three grown children and lives outside of Dallas in the foothills of the Coast Range in western Oregon. www.clemstarck.com
EVEN SHORTER BIO NOTE: Erik Muller
A poet for sixty years, most of them lived in Oregon, Erik has been engaged in local poetry as an editor, publisher, essayist and self-published poet. He has editedFireweed: Poetry of Western Oregonand Traprock Books. Durable Goods: Appreciations of Oregon Poets (2017) is from Mountains and Rivers Press. Erik is currently an OPA Board member.
Charles Goodrich had a long career as a professional gardener, and a good stint as director for the Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature, and the Written Word at Oregon State University. These days Charles grows poems and composes fruits and vegetables from his Knot House abode near Corvallis. He’s the author of three books of poetry, A Scripture of Crows; Going to Seed: Dispatches from the Garden; and Insects of South Corvallis, and a collection of essays, The Practice of Home, and has co-edited two anthologies, Forest Under Story: Creative Inquiry in an Old-Growth Forest and In the Blast Zone: Catastrophe and Renewal on Mount St. Helens. His poems and essays have appeared in Orion, High Country News, The Sun and many other journals and anthologies. FMI: charlesgoodrich.com
Jenny Root’s poems have appeared in many literary journals including basalt, Crab Creek Review, Cloudbank, Four Ties Lit Review, Common Ground Review, CIRQUE, Elohi Gadugi Journal, Panoply and Windfall, and anthologized in New Poets of the American West and What the River Brings: Oregon River Poems. Her full-length collection of poems, The Company of Sharks, was published in 2013. She has twice been a fellow at PLAYA Artist & Writers Residency in southern Oregon. With a background in publishing, bookselling, and organizing events for and by writers, she currently hosts the Springfield Poetry Series in Springfield, Oregon. She lives in Eugene, Oregon, and works as an editor and event planner for an educational nonprofit in the field of criminal justice.