Thank You Oregon Poetic Voices, A Wonderful Resource


Oregon Poetic Voices is a combination plate of both poets and poetics. The poets on this site were recorded from the Mountain Writers Series in Portland, the Fishtrap Writers Workshop, or culled from the fifteen years of weekly interviews conducted by Barbara LaMorticella and Walt Curtis at KBOO radio. On offering are hundreds of poets from Matthew Dickman to b.t. shaw -- both Portland poets; also Kelli Russell Agodon to Kary Wayson -- both Washington State poets. You will also find three poem by me from my reading at Wordstock Festival 2010.


"An Army of Ellipses Traveling Over All She Does Not Say..." is a favorite poem of mine. It was written for my student, Hodan Mohamed. The introduction to the poem explains that I was working on a project, Somali Voices in Poetry, and that this piece is the final one in the series.

Oregon Poetic Voices (OPV) allows you to listen and see the poem. The OPV includes a resource for teachers which is unusually well done. Oregon Poetic Voices is located at Lewis and Clark College. Doug Erikson and Melissa Dalton are listed as the contacts if you want to find out how you can get involved.

Are there other states with such programs? This seems like a wonderful model.

I must confess that I am a little in love with Oregon. This was my first experience living in the Pacific Northwest. I earned my MFA at the University of Oregon MFA program. This was my first time living anywhere (in the United States) other than Massachusetts. And I loved it. I lived in Eugene at an extremely difficult time in my life. When I moved to Oregon, my mother had just died and a year later, my father passed away. During that first year, I knew airplane schedules between Eugene and Boston the way others know city bus routes. The fact that I didn't leave the program still amazes me. I attribute that to a few different things ---one of them was certainly the Oregon landscape. All that green life.

Comments

  1. I just included this site in a post for a future Saturday Sharing. It truly is a wonderful resource with an impressive number of poets represented. It's fun to spot some familiar names.

    I haven't run across another state site as beautifully put together as this one. I agree it's a great model.

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  2. i've been to Paris, but i've never been to Oragon, nor do I expect to make it there...tomorrow will be part of something that I have not done...

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