“JUST IMAGINE: OREGON HORIZONS” POETRY READING

A member of North Salem High School’s Hall of Fame, the former Sandra Klein (class of ’67), writes under the pen name Alexandra Mason. She and other prominent Oregon poets will be the featured readers at Salem Poetry Project’s Saturday May 16 event at 2:30 p.m. at the Baxter Hill Community Hall, 1780 Baxter Road SE, Salem.

They will read from the new anthology “Just Imagine: Oregon Horizons,” which is the second in a series of work by Oregon poets about their homeland. The first is “The Grace of Oregon Rain.” From our grand shoreline on the Pacific to our volcano peaks, our lush valleys and bubbling streams, from basalt outcrops to a deep lake caldera and high deserts with colonial wild mustang herds, our impressive waterways including the wide Columbia, and always, our prolific forest lands, poets place us in this environment along with the dreams it carries, from the past and for the future. We do not forget those who came before us, in our Native American sites and place names, in our rutted traces of the Oregon Trail, in our small towns of industriousness and our valued unsettled lands. We recognize our diversity and our western character, independent but socially conscious, closely tied to our places, and joyful in living day by day in its glories and vicissitudes. This set is a welcome addition to any Oregonian’s library—and to those who’d like to know more about this promised land on the western edge of our nation. This is a rare chance to meet several of our poets.