MOST RECENT OPA NEWS
OPA 2018 Conference – Registration Opens
Calling all Poets: Register now for the 2018 Oregon Poetry Association Conference!
September 29-30, 2018
Valley River Inn, Eugene, ORUpdate: Final Conference Schedule (click on “Read all of this item” below to view schedule)
Saturday 9 a.m. keynote opens the conference
Kim Stafford, Oregon Poet Laureate: “The Flavor of Unity”Poetry Workshops, Book Room
Buffet lunch and OPA annual membership meeting
Readings by OPA contest winners and Open Mic
Early Risers Coffee and Poetry Art WalkSpecial Event on September 28th at 4 p.m.
The award ceremony for the first undergraduate poetry contest sponsored by the University of Oregon Knight Library/Special Collections and Oregon Poetry Association will take place on Friday, September 28, 2018 in the Browsing Room at the Knight Library from 4 to 6 PM. Refreshments will be served. The event is open to the public.The two undergraduate winners, Sarah Hovet and Joshua Plack, will be reading, as well as four other poets ... Read all of this item.
MEMBER NEWS
- Posted: August 25, 2018
Allan Peterson reading in Seattle
Allan Peterson will read August 29th at Elliot Bay Books in Seattle together with poets from Washington State: Maria Mills, Katelyn Kenderish, Edward Derby and Daniel Cecil. 7-8:30
LATEST BOOK REVIEW (EXCERPT)
Before Dreaming: Poems by Arn Strasser, reviewed by Gigi Cooper
Before Dreaming
by Arn Strasser
Budding Branch Books, an imprint of Asher & Merriman Publishers
ISBN# 978-0-9841874-1-6
2015, 89 pp., $19.95
www.buddingbranchbooks.com
Before Dreaming almost is correct; Between Dreaming would be accurate. Arn Strasser’s collection investigates the interaction between the dream state and wakefulness. He approaches the enigma of the dream world with both wonder and dread, exploring the boundaries between living and dead, youth and age, adventure and solace. Without magniloquence, he takes the reader on a journey from as close as the dining room and sofa to the markets and shores of Sardinia.
For Strasser, sleep is not a separate condition, but a way to access both memories and the future. Dream and memory inextricably intertwine in the book, most literally in the penultimate set of poems
called “The Wanderers.”
- Night
… so we may wander
the landscapes
of our dreams … .
these constellations of our
desires, a twilight of
remembrances.
- Awakening
… Do you hear
voices
of the dead,
who speak in memory … .
In ... Read all of this item.
MOST RECENT POET’S SPOTLIGHT
2017 Spring Contest, Theme – Oregon/Pacific NW: 1st Place Winner
September 10, 2018These poems were submitted for the spring 2017 contest themed category judged by Charles Goodrich, but were omitted from Verseweavers 22. Any future reprints of Verseweavers 22 will include the Oregon/Pacific Northwest category. They will also be Included in the upcoming Verseweavers 23 to be published late spring 2019.
Effigy of a Man
by Nancy ChristophersonWhat if, for
instance, thoughts flew from your mind
like seagulls crying for fish entrails
near a fisherman’s vessel at noon, fog
rolling in. Wouldn’t these be open.
Watch their wings. The boat
rocking gently on swells. Your name
could be Ahab or Ivan or Giovanni,
you might live in Havana
or Vancouver or Odessa. You could
be seventeen or seventy-five. Your sweater
could be dry or smeared with offal.
What can the nets bring toward you. What
might they reveal you don’t already know,
intimately. Your friend at home in his
clean apron setting the ... Read all of this item.