MOST RECENT OPA NEWS
Poets of Oregon: Keep in Touch
Read all of this item.Dear fellow poet,
We know that many of you are evacuating, preparing to evacuate, or at risk of having to evacuate. Even those of us who are not in such danger are suffering from heavy smoke, and we are all anxious about friends near and far.
Please feel free to update us via a Member News post: use this form
Or email your webmaster: use this form
We don’t need personal details. We just want to know you’re safe.
MEMBER NEWS
- Posted: August 24, 2020
August Wilson Red Door Project
Dear Family, Friends, Acquaintances & You,
I am, 87 years old, August 30, 2020, with more to do than time allows. You don’t have to be this old to have these thoughts, but imagine being 87? What, on Earth, do I want to do next?
This morning I have a ...
LATEST BOOK REVIEW (EXCERPT)
The Barbie Diaries by Dale Champlin, reviewed by Paul Telles
Read all of this item.The Barbie Diaries by Dale Champlin
Just a Lark Books (November 17, 2019), 65 pp $14
ISBN #: 978-1708450267
Available at: dale@champlindesign.com
Is it possible to say anything new about Barbie? Since her introduction in 1959, the PVC fashionista has been reviled and revered, loved and loathed. Her literary footprint includes adoring preteen blogs, scathing doctoral theses, and an authorized biography from Random House.
Still, I’d be willing to bet that Oregon poet Dale Champlin is almost alone in considering Barbie a fit hero for epic poetry. In her 2019 book, The Barbie ...
MOST RECENT POET’S SPOTLIGHT
2020 Spring Contest Winners: Poet’s Choice: 1st Place Winner
June 3, 2020Baby, It’s Cold Outside
(a Vivianne sonnet variation)
As embryos we each explore the wall
of womb that holds us. It’s the first place joy
is felt—mom’s heartbeat like a lullaby.
Cocooned in touch, that’s how we interact.
We’re chastised just as soon as we can crawl
or walk. Just look! Hands off! That’s not a toy.
We’re told to view, to listen, smell that, try
a taste of this—but touch … and hands are smacked.
And so begins our isolation. All
those inhibitions finally destroy
instinctive comfort found in touch, deny
the core of who we are. Our lives contract.