The daily Astorian., April 19, 2018, Page 15, Image 14

APRIL 19, 2018 // 15
Continued from Page 9
Her first book, “The Other Door: Poems
& Glimpses,” was released in 2015.
McAuley’s husband, local painter Rob-
ert Paulmenn, supplied the artwork for the
front cover of “Nine Hundred Moon Jour-
ney.” Christi Payne designed and formatted
the book. The cover is one of McAuley’s
favorite works by Paulmenn, but it’s ac-
tually the reverse image of the original. “I
loved that painting,” she said. “I wept when
the original was sold.”
While Paulmenn has his own studio,
there was a time when the couple shared
the same room — Paulmenn painting,
McAuley writing. “We work really well
together,” she said. “We rejoice with each
other, support each other and maintain that
mutual respect.”
McAuley credits Paulmenn’s work ethic
as inspiration for her own work. “Robert
teaches me to go to work everyday. No
matter what, he goes to his studio every
day. His example is more supportive to my
work than praise.”
Visions of the coast
McAuley first came to the coast based
on a vision she had of opening a used
bookstore in Cannon Beach. She founded
COLIN MURPHEY PHOTO
Mary Lou McAuley reads from her new book of poetry at WineKraft in Astoria.
“McAuley’s New and Used Books” in
1988. During this period, she made fre-
quent trips to Astoria and fell in love with
the Columbia River.
Still, McAuley said, “as soon as I got
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to the sculptures of the Southwest.”
In 1992, she sold most of her posses-
sions and embarked on her “walkabout”
— a road trip around the country. Her
dog “Banjo,” a stray she had adopted a
few years before and described as having
“long legs, a wiry coat, a monkey tail and
the sweetest disposition,” stood in the
backseat of her car “with his jaw resting
on my shoulder the whole way,” McAuley
remembered.
The pair first headed to Santa Fe, where
McAuley was appalled by the “dazzling
abundance of the rich and the abject
poverty of everyone else.” In 1993, she
and Banjo landed in Lake City, Colorado,
the end of a yearlong road trip that she
described as a time “I never felt so free
or rich traveling through such wonderful
country.”
Banjo died in Colorado at age 16 and
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McAuley met Paulmenn during her
eight years in Colorado. “While I love the
mountains, I missed the river,” she said.
“The river kept pulling me back. In the
high desert there was never a cloud in the
sky.”
She and Paulmenn made their way west.
“I knew I had to get back to Astoria,” she
said. “First to Bandon, then to Ashland,
Portland and then finally Astoria. We
bought our house — just in time, we think
— in 2014.”
Once McAuley and Paulmenn were set-
tled, she was drawn to the Astoria Library,
which served as her workspace for writing
most of her first book and part of her sec-
ond. “I was there all the time,” she said.
When a position for a part-time librarian
opened up, she applied and got the job.
McAuley’s mother was also a librarian,
and it felt natural to follow in her mother’s
footsteps. “I love talking to people about
books,” she said, “but we don’t sit around
reading all day, though, either.”
McAuley’s mother played another piv-
otal role in shaping her identity as a book
lover.
“From early childhood, if I could
read something and picture it, I would be
captured. I would write and draw my own
stories, which usually had the same plot
as something I had just read.” McAuley’s
mother played classical music frequently
in the home. “I would listen to the classical
music and tell my mother what I was see-
ing, and she said just go write it down. So I
did,” McAuley said.
Influences and inspirations
Jim Dott, an Astoria poet, retired
elementary school teacher and author
of “A Glossary of Memory,” first met
McAuley at a reading for North Coast
Squid in Manzanita in 2014. She read her
poem “River Paths” which appears in her
first book. “I was immediately impressed
by her clear, concise language and the
insightful turn at the end,” Dott said.
“What I admire about Mary Lou’s
writing is her ability to capture a moment
and connect it to her reader in less than a
page,” he said. “Her poems reveal amuse-
ment, reverence and, yes, sometimes
anger with the world. They are worth
revisiting to savor a phrase or image —
to reveal a deeper mystery.”
McAuley has observed a tendency in
our culture to focus only on the end goal.
“It took me about two years to write this
book. I try not to focus as much on the
end product but more on the process of
creating,” she said. “We are, sadly, a very
end-result-oriented culture.”
Seeking approval is also a block to
creativity. “One of the saddest things I
see is regret at not having tried some-
thing. I think the hardest thing for me in
the past is that if I didn’t get approval
from others, I stopped. It’s taken me so
many years to get away from that,” she
said.
McAuley’s books can be purchased from
any local bookstore as well as Amazon,
Barnes and Noble and Riversea Gallery. CW