Save the dates, April 16-17 (Friday & Saturday) for the Oregon State Poetry Association Spring Conference, which we will be hosting right here in Eugene. Stay tuned for details or check the OSPA website: www.oregonpoets.org.
A POEM ON CIVIC STADIUM
Note: Han Yu (768-824) wrote the supplicatory “A Poem on the Stone Drums” because he wanted
the elaborately carved stones preserved from the elements and vandalism. From The Jade Mountain, Witter Bynner’s translation serves as the inspiration for this Civic poem; in fact, it provides substance, sequence, even lines for this adaptation more than eleven hundred years after Han Yu.
Scott handed me this photo of the field,
Beseeching me to write about Civic Stadium.
George Hitchcock is tired. James Hall is dead.
What can my poor talent do for Civic Stadium?
. . . When the Depression’s grip loosened,
When the next world war was beginning to brew,
Oregon’s Works Progress Administration
Started building a metropolitan stadium, a hub
For games and the crowds that cheered them.
Signatures on plans allowed funds to flow
To hire carpenters, engineers, quartermasters
To marshal materials, especially wooden beams
From Doug fir felled in the Coast Range,
Tall and straight to support a dream,
Leveled where they grew against a jutting cliff,
Washed by rain, baked by sun, scorched by wildfire.
Where could Scott have found this photo,
True to the moment, not altered by a hair,
The focus deep, not difficult to read?
Greg Luzinski rounds third for home
The year he led the Pacific Coast League.
Looking at this image, I see the years
Have not diminished the stadium’s grandeur,
Nor dampened the enthusiasm of fans
Who wore more straw hats than we do now.
Behind the base path action, the crowd,
Restless as the ocean, seethes and sways,
Its roar breaking like a comber on rocks,
Like a sharp wind in treetops surging
As one timber, then the next, splinters and drops,
Like three Southern Pacific diesels straining on grade.
Historians writing about our time will not
Neglect to include this stadium, its magnet
Drawing thousands, its infield green
The commons where our thoughts graze
To fatten and grow thick wool
In the surety of being one flock.
I who am fond of antiquity am born too late
To see the fir beams rise and settle in place
For grandstands facing east and south.
I came after Luzinski and the Philly stars,
Though I recall a friend of mine
Who saw their games, sat below
The highflying roof, stared down
Into pooled light of an evening game,
While players tensed, fidgeted, sped,
As the palm-held white leather ball
Was fired, swung at, and lofted
Through a summer everyone owned,
Maybe a homer for us, maybe a catch at the wall.
I remember when Vince and I debated
Whether one could write a good baseball poem.
If he lived here, he would add to the clamor
Of fans who love Civic Stadium,
Who respond to its tide of sounds,
To its community of carefree fun.
What if we had a monarch who commanded
Civic to be saved, restored, expanded,
Engaging university faculty and students
As designers, landscapers, re-builders!
We fear the inertia of our leaders,
Their slavish search for precedents,
Their shying away from investment.
Do they forget the city let the schools
Take Civic for one dollar? Then let a judge
Assign it back even if never used again,
Even if like the downtown Park Blocks
With classic courthouse and grand hotel,
It might be leveled, swapped out
For the new, which speculators concoct
With their eye on cash and fashion,
Lots of flanking glass or a skin
Of impermeable metal, impregnable
To time or protest. Shouldn’t
More people care about our stadium?
Can poets make a din? What petition
Should be made? To whom? Forgive
My voice, hoarse in this song of
The times and timbers of Civic Stadium,
Sounding a supplication choked with its own tears.
Erik Muller
Eugene, November 2009
“The Northwest Poets Concord in Newport was one of the best poetry conferences I’ve ever attended. Great people, great discussions, great poems.”–Henry Hughes
“The Concord gave me a cherished sense of connection with other Oregon poets.”–Penelope Scambly Schott
This year’s NORTHWEST POETS’ CONCORD will be on May 7-9, 2010 at the Hallmark Inn and Resort in Newport, Oregon. This notice is a call for proposals for participation. In 2009 we had readings from new books by northwest poets; talks about various topics like revision and writing from history or writing from political experiences; interviews; demonstrations of simultaneous poems and complementary poems; and so on. The Concord will include a Book Fair and a contest for the best submitted poem. Once again we will conclude with Young Poets, and college students will be in attendance working on a specific poet. More open mic opportunities this year….
Please specify the kind of presentation you propose:
1. Individual reading
2. Collaborative presentation
3. Interview
4. Workshop
5. Panel
6. Critical commentary
And please specify the length of time needed: 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 50 minutes.
Let me know if you would moderate a session.
There will be reduced rates at the Hallmark (the same rate as last year, $89 per night)—and I will send out options for less expensive accommodations as well. There will also be a registration fee yet to be determined, probably in the range of $50. This covers the cost of the meeting rooms and the keynote presentation as well as a steady stream of excellent food and drink.
Please submit your proposal by February 14, 2010 to ellstons@gmail.com. Note that all correspondence will be electronic. Look for Northwest Poets’ Concord on Facebook for updates and information.
“The Northwest Poets Concord complemented other Oregon poetry conferences and festivals, which have a few featured presenters whose workshops and readings everyone else attends. At the Concord, in contrast, virtually all the poets attending were true participants in the event–nearly everyone both gave a workshop or reading and attended those of others. This produced a lively interchange.”–Eleanor Berry
“The Concord is anything but ‘conventional.’ It is an intertribal gathering where precious things are admired and exchanged, and new friendships forged amidst the roar of the Pacific… It is the newest important ritual involving all tribes of Northwest poets. The best sort of serendipity lives here. “–Scot Siegel
–
Sandra K. Ellston, Ph.D.
http://www.eou.edu/~sellston/
Kay Ryan, U.S. poet laureate, will visit Lane Community College on May 13
and 14. Ryan will give a public reading on Thursday, May 13, at 7 p.m. in
the Center for Meeting and Learning, building 19, main campus, 4000 E. 30th
Avenue, Eugene. She will meet with students on Friday, May 14.
Ryan is 16th poet laureate of the United States. Last fall, she initiated a
project called Poetry for the Mind¹s Joy, in collaboration with the Library
of Congress and the Community College Humanities Association. The initiative
³highlights poetry being generated on community college campuses, as well as
the vital role played by community colleges in nurturing lives and minds.²
For details go online at www.loc.gov/poetry/mindsjoy.
Ryan¹s visit is part of the Reading Together project at Lane which engages
students in reading and discussion of shared texts, with each other, with
the greater campus community, and with the community at large. Reading
Together is indebted to Jane King, a long time supporter and patron of
interdisciplinary studies at Lane.
Toni Van Deusen has had three poems accepted by Yellow Medicine Review (guest editor Ralph Salisbury).
The Lane Literary Guild is pleased to announce that it will sponsor up to 10 paid scholarships to attend the OSPA Spring Conference April 16-17 for poets with verifiable financial need. Scholarships are for conference registration only. Please send a brief statement of personal finances and explain why you would be a worthy recipient for financial support to Charles Thielman blueearth4u@hotmail.com by April 2, 2010. Scholarships are not transferable.
For information about the OSPA Spring Conference go to www.oregonpoets.org
Scholarships are also available for John Morrison’s Poetry Craft Workshop on March 9 (see “Workshops”). The Lisa Rosen Memorial Scholarship makes funds available to women for LLG-sponsored workshops. Get in touch with Charles Thielman (see above) for further information.
