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Two views of life from Bellingham
This week, let’s see how
two poets living in the same
mid-sized town in the Pacif-
ic Northwest tackle some of
life’s intangibles and try to
make them somewhat more
effable. We’ll join them in
combing through the woolly
tangle of love, dreams,
privilege, malady, morality
and moods.
MoonPath Press, which
recently relocated from
the Puget Sound region to
Tillamook, has just pub-
lished “Patriarchy Blues,”
by Lummi tribal member
and Bellingham-based poet
Rena Priest.
Dedicating this collection
of poetry to the “subterra-
nean homesick matriarchy,”
Priest juxtaposes safety with
risk, fl uidity with stability,
and the stinging pink of a
slapped cheek with someone
who’s feeling blue.
The very fi rst poem,
“Toward a Beautiful Flare
of Ruin,” suggests that
there are no pat answers.
Priest considers self-control
against pursuit of one’s crav-
ings — and fi nds that each
pathway has its perils.
As we’re well into the
21st century, we might have
hoped that all of that Freud-
5:00 pm
Downtown Astoria
Every month, year ‘round!
ian hooey about the Madon-
na-Whore Complex could
have been ditched by now,
but Priest’s work suggests
that our society is still im-
pacted by those archetypes.
Her poems like “Mrs.”
and “Faithful” nibble away
at conventional expecta-
tions of marriage and the
construct of the wife as a
“faithful household angel.”
Contemplations of desire
— both succumbed to and
thwarted — carry on in
poems titled “Lament for
the Love of Bunny,” “Pink
Frosted Cake” and “Desire
is a Scissor” (“unraveled
into a dazzle”).
Meanwhile, “Billboard
Dream Girl’s Waking Life,”
“Window Dressings” and
“Nail Salon” provide searing
critiques of our society’s
most cynical commodifi ca-
tions of desire.
Pungent observations
and skillful use of language
abound in “Patriarchy
Blues.” But it may be one of
Priest’s shortest poems —
“Pruning the Wilderness”
— that best crystalizes the
conundrum as she sees it:
“Nature makes you pay/ for
wanting something easy./
The trick, you see, is/ you
have to conquer your mind.”
Another Bellingham poet,
Rick Hermann, has self-pub-
lished “Nooksack,” a modest
book that fi ts pleasingly
within one’s hands.
Hermann’s perspectives
are shaped by his gender, his
generation, and his diagnosis
of Parkinson’s disease. Like
Rena Priest, he also grap-
ples with mind games that
can bedevil one’s sense of
purpose and well-being.
The fi rst section of his
book, called “Good Reasons
To Stay Alive,” includes
a journal entry from a day
when he was feeling sickly
and discouraged, and shows
the way he wrote himself
into a better frame of mind.
“Being awake to the
breath we are taking or let-
ting go of is a good practice.
And not too scary, after all,”
NW
1. to cast a magic spell
or curse upon someone; to
bewitch
word
nerd
BY RYAN HUME
June
10 th
Visit Downtown Astoria on the
2nd Saturday of every month for
art, music, and general merriment!
Presented by the Astoria Downtown Historic District Association
astoriadowntown.com
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FOR COAST WEEKEND
Hex [hɛks]
noun
1. a magic spell or curse
that has been placed upon
someone
2. obsolete. a witch
3. an extraordinary run of
bad luck
verb (used with object)
Origin:
Hex emerges from the
Pennsylvanian German
immigrants as hexe from the
German verb hexen; the noun
form is also “Hexe,” and
the German word means the
same thing. This comes from
the Middle German “hecse.”
As a verb, its roots can
be traced back in use to
the mid-19 century. This is
unrelated to the prefi x hexa-,
which comes from the an-
cient Greek word for “six.”
MOONPATHPRESS.COM
Rena Priest, author of “Patriar-
chy Blues”
THEPOETRYDEPARTMENT.
WORDPRESS.COM
Patriarchy Blues –
Rena Priest
MoonPath Press –
66 pp - $10
Nooksack – Rick
Hermann
94 pp - $9.95
he counsels himself.
Poems that follow in-
clude one on “Breathwork,”
another on “Night Airs” and
a joyful and hilarious “Ode
to Geese.”
With the 50th annu-
al Astoria Scandinavian
Midsummer Festival coming
up, know that the Finnish
has many words for “a hex”
or “to hex,” including the
nouns noita, taika and loitsu,
and the verbs kirota and loit-
sia, while the Norwegians
have forhekse among others.
“Miss Denmark Meisha
Boettcher was crowned Miss
Scandinavia 2015 on Friday.
Following the coronation
ceremony, she led the Torch-
light Parade to the bonfi re
where festival-goers threw
straw hexes into the fi re. The
Other sections focus on
dreams and mortality — a
mix of free verse and rhym-
ing poems — there’s even a
ditty about life-prolonging
medical intervention.
This may be more of a
grab bag than you would
fi nd in most books, but when
you are your own publisher,
you can do what you wish!
The Bookmonger is Bar-
bara Lloyd McMichael, who
writes this weekly column
focusing on the books, au-
thors and publishers of the
Pacifi c Northwest. Contact
her at bkmonger@nwlink.
com
tradition symbolizes getting
rid of bad luck for the year.”
— Joshua Bessex, “Mid-
summer fun and folklore:
Scandinavian Fest crowns a
new queen, honors tradi-
tions,” The Daily Astorian,
June 22, 2015
“A hex-making event for
the Scandinavian Mid-
summer Festival has been
rescheduled for 5 tonight.
It will be held at the First
Congregational Church, 820
Alameda Ave.”
— “Festival helpers to
make hexes,” The Daily
Astorian, March 24, 2003