A4
V IEWPOINT
Hood River News,
Saturday, January 3, 2015
ABOUT LETTERS
JOE PETSHOW
Publisher/President,
Eagle Newspapers, Inc.
Hood River News reminds letter
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TOM LANCTOT
Past President,
Eagle Newspapers, Inc.
CHELSEA MARR
General Manager
KIRBY NEUMANN-REA
Editor
JODY THOMPSON
Advertising Manager
TONY METHVIN
Columbia Gorge Press Manager
DICK NAFSINGER
Publisher, Emeritus (1933-2011)
DAVID MARVIN
Production Manager
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NATIONAL NEWSPAPER
ASSOCIATION
OREGON NEWSPAPER
PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION
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recycled paper.
Official Newspaper, City of Hood River and Hood River County
Published Every Wednesday & Saturday by Hood River News,
P.O. Box 390, Hood River, Oregon 97031 • (541) 386-1234 • FAX 386-6796
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A YEAR OF POEMS
Trembling on the edge of maybe, with the priests of the invisible
By KIRBY NEUMANN-REA
News editor
In 2014 I read a poem each day.
One poem, sometimes more, and I would
always re-read it, either back to back, or
return to it later in the day.
In one of the craziest year-end lists
you’ll ever see, I’ve recorded all those po-
ets’ names, below.
(See hoodrivernews.com for a longer
version of this column.)
■
It was a daily ritual that, like others I
have done, gave my day structure. No mat-
ter what happened, I knew I had a poem to
read or return to. In years past I have
written a letter or a postcard each day, and
in 2013 I listened to no music but classical.
In 2015 I will listen to one record album
each day all the way through our collec-
tion. That’s VINYL — and yes, we do own
about 365 or so grooved such platters.
(Any requests? Send them to kneuman-
nrea@hoodrivernews.com. It will be inter-
esting to see where collections overlap –
but remember I am talking LPs only.)
And having enjoyed a daily poem so
much, I will probably continue that as
well. It was cleansing, uplifting, challeng-
ing. Most days it reminded me what real
writing is all about.
I read usually in the morning, or before
bed, for the poems created tent poles for
my shaky days.
Some poems I did not like, nor under-
stand, but nearly always felt challenged,
or moved, and I kept a list of all 365
poems.
I read some poets multiple times —
Yeats for example. I read mostly men, but I
made a point of reading Emily Dickenson,
Charlotte Bronte, Naomi Shabab Nye,
Christina Rossetti and others. In 2014 I re-
turned repeatedly to William Stafford,
Robert Lowell, W.S. Merwin, Rainer Maria
Rilke, and William Blake, and to Yeats.
I combed books we have at home (my
wife’s Norton Anthology of Literature
from college was a particular trove), chose
some intentionally and randomly at the li-
brary, took them from newspapers and
magazines. “Circles” by Carl Sandburg
was used in my high school yearbook —
never read the poem before — and
another was framed on a friend’s wall.
And no, not once this year did I WRITE a
poem; why would you bring PB and J to a
smorgasbord?
■
Below is the list, in order, of each poet I
read in 2014: a total of 267 writers, with
other powerful lines that grabbed me:
William Stafford
Yusuf Komunyakaa: “there’s a ghost
poised between free will and the gig”
David Spicer, Diane Dickinson: “I am
half alive the rest is anticipation ...”
Christina Rosetti: “... and what do we
see glancing back?”
Stephen Dunn: “now might be the right
time to cultivate disbelief ”
Michael McGriff, Glyn Maxwell, Rebec-
ca Hoogs, Robert Pinsky, Hannah Stephen-
son, David Ferry, Rustin Larson, Robert
William Service, Donald Hall, Peter Mish-
ler
Gary Snyder: “lay down these
words/before your mind like rocks”
Robert Duncan: “Neither our vices nor
our virtues further the poem. They came
up and died just like they do every year on
the rocks”
Richard Wilbur, Lia Perpuera, Galway
Kinnell, Matthew Dickman, Gerald Green,
Chuck Klosterman, Suzanne Cleary,
Eileen G’Sell, WS Merwin, Robert Frost
Theodore Roethke: “all finite things re-
veal infinitude”
Ruth Padel, Bronwyn Lea, Don Pater-
son, Billy Collins, Yves Bonnefoy, Mar-
garet Levine, Lisa Ampleman, Ronald Ko-
ertge, Robert Browning, Andrew Frisardi,
Alfred Lord Tennyson, William Blake,
Jane Satterfield, e.e. cummings, Edward
Arlington Robinson, Wallace Stevens,
Edna St. Vincent Millay, Elizabeth Bishop,
Chana Bloch, Nick Norwood, Patrick Ban-
don, Chris Morrison, Benny Anderson,
Stephen Ackerman, Daisy Fried
Rusty Morrison, Dan Peterson, Edgar
Allen Poe, Gwendolyn Brooks, Robert
Duncan, W.B. Yeats, Elton Glaser, Katha
Pollitt, Robin Becker, Padraic Colum,
Thomas More, A.R. Ammons, C. Dale
Young, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Ralph
Waldo Emerson, Chad Davidson, Robinson
Jeffers, Billy Collins
John Keats, Maureen N. McLean,
Mitchell Gonzalez
Pablo Neruda: “Don’t go far off, not even
for a day, because — because — I don’t
know how to say it: a day is long and I will
be waiting for you, as in an empty station
when the trains are parked off somewhere
else, asleep.”
Dylan Thomas, John Skoyles, AJM
Smith, Edwin Brock, Judith Jedamus
Archibald MacLeish: “a poem should be
motionless in time ... A poem should not
mean but be ...”
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Carl Dennis,
John Hodgen, John Boyle O’Reilly, Wys-
tawa Szymborska, Lisa Williams
Walter Malone: “... each night I burn the
records of the day; At sunrise every soul
is born again ...”
Alan Feldman, Sarah Lindsey, Lord
Byron, H.N. Fifer, Jeffrey Harrison,
Anonymous, “My Life is but a Weaving”
Henry Rago, R.T. Smith, Tom Wayman,
Percy Byshhe Shelley
Karen Knapp Johnson: “my withness,
my here”
Mary Oliver, Ruth L. Schwartz, A.E.
Housman, Paul Blackburn, Stephen Berg,
Steve Kowit, Bob Hicok, Vijay Seshardi,
Julie Lechevsky, Doug Dorph, Dana Gioia,
Margaret Levine, Jon Agee, Kim Stafford,
Martin Espada
Rumi: “this being human is a guest
Chelsea Marr
General Manager
CMarr@hoodrivernews.com
Founded in 1905
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P.O. Box 390
Phone: (541) 386-1234
Fax: (541) 386-6796
Operations:
Joe Petshow
Publisher
President, Eagle Newspapers
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Front Office/
Classified Advertising:
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Circulation Manager
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ESmith@hoodrivernews.com
News:
Kirby Neumann-Rea
Editor
HRNews@hoodrivernews.com
house/every morning a new arrival ...”
that some fusion of force and form will
Martha Solano: “The Poet Is The Priest
save me.”
of the Invisible”
Charlotte Bronte, Verne Bright, Conrad
Jane Mead, Elton Glaser, Ryokan
Hilberry, Amit Majmudar, Robert Hayden,
Ted Loder: “Move
Ada Limon, David Whyte, Thomas Moore
with us now/in
Lucie Brock-Broido, “Moon River”:
our time of be-
“What exactly do you mean when you
ginnings,/when
call me your ‘huckleber-
the air is rain
ry friend’?”
and snow-
Kofi Awoonor,
washed/and
James Mangan,
the world
HC Wallace, Alice
seems fresh
Firman, Florence
and full of
Fogelin, Amy
possibili-
MacLennan,
ties,/and we
Robert Lunday,
feel ready
Sara Wallace, Jack
and full/We
Prelusky, Gwen-
tremble on
dolyn Brooks
the edge of
Elizabeth Bishop:
a maybe...”
“lose something
William
every day/Accept the
Carlos
fluster of lost door
Williams,
keys, the hour badly
Maya An-
spent/The art of los-
gelou,
ing isn’t hard to mas-
David
ter.”
Orr, Ju-
Robert Duncan,
liana
Harold Schweizer, Au-
Waters,
thor unknown, CS
Ted
Lewis, Carol Frost
Kooser,
Bill Coyle: “lost conti-
Don
nents and present discon-
Rea,
tents”
1982 ‘Do
g River R
Elise
Elinor Wylie: “poets
eview’
Paschen, Julie
make pets of pretty, docile
Lechowsky, Denise Levertov,
words; ... I like words
Yves Bonnefoy, Eaven Boylan, David
opalescent, cool, and
Lehman, Michael Chilwood, Major Jack-
pearly... Gilded and sticky, with a little
son, A.E. Housman, Charles Simic, Carol
sting.”
Snow, Howard Nemerov, William
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Matthews, Kay Ryan, Connie Wanek,
Archibald MacLeish: “A poem should
Harold Johnson, AJM Smith, Albert Gold- not mean but be.“
barth, Mary Oliver
Ezra Pound, Mercedes Lawry, Galway
Stanley Kunitz: “oh, I have made myself Kinnell, Debra Kang Dean, Billy Collins,
a tribe of my true affections ...”
Lawson Inada, Floyd Skloot: “first the
Franz Wright, Tom Wayman, Dorianne
sheen, then the shock of all we have seen
Laux, Phillis Levin, Robert Francis, Liesl
comes clear.”
Mueller, Denver Butson, Alexander Mac-
Frannie Lindsay, Helen Hunt Jackson
Donald, John Milton, Robinson Jeffers,
Jean Pedrick: “just keep walking and
Irish author unknown, Giolla Brighde
I’ll presently be where you are.”
MacCommidhe, Tony Wallace, Robert Bly,
Marge Piercy, Harold Notice, Vern Rut-
Daniel Hoffman, Ralph Waldo Emerson,
sala,
John Woods
Herman Melville: “audacity — rever-
Wendell Berry: “for a time I rest in the
ence. These must mate.”
grace of the world, and am free.”
Randall Jarrell, William Cowper, James
Matthew Sweeney, Naomi Shibab Nye,
Thomson, Thomas Parnell, Ted James,
Mark Strand, Susan Ludvigson, Claudia
Eugenio Montale, F. Scott Fitzgerald,
Emerson, John Ashbery, William Shake-
Aaron Balance
speare, Wilfred Owen, James Lasdun,
Edgar Lee Masters: “Deities!/Inexorable
Julie Sheehan, Mary Tall Mountain,
revealers,/Give me strength to endure/The
Richard Wilbur, Wallace Stevens, B.H.
gifts of the Muse …”
Fairchild, Robert Frost, Robert Lowell, Al-
Fanny Howe, Richard Robbins, Ella
ison Fell, Wilfred Noyce, Susan Mitchell,
Wheeler Wilcox, Robert Burns, Jennifer
Jack Gilbert, Seamus Heaney, Carl Sand-
Rondeau, Steve Langhorst, Thomas James,
burg, Peter Meinke, Robert Watson, Olav
Stuart Dybek, Aaron Fagan, Robert Ser-
Hauge, Alberto Rios, William Wordsworth, vice, Herman Hesse, Jonathon Cupp, John
Ron Padgett, Charles Wright, Richard
Dryden, Michael Bruce, Rainer Maria
Wilbur, Sandra Lim, Mark Halliday
Rilke, Allen Ginsburg, Rabindrath Tagore,
Christian Wiman: “I have no illusion
T.S. Eliot, Roger Weaver.
Trisha Walker
News/Features
TWalker@hoodrivernews.com
Production:
David Marvin
Production Manager
Adam Lapierre
Ailene Hibbard
Archivist
DMarvin@hoodrivernews.com
News/Features
Advertising:
Jim Drake
ALapierre@hoodrivernews.com
Jody Thompson
Advertising Manager
JThompson@hoodrivernews.com
Production/Commercial Printing
Liana Stegall
Advertising Sales
LStegall@hoodrivernews.com
Production/Commercial Printing
Ben Mitchell
News/Features
BenMitchell@hoodrivernews.com
Jim Drake
Entertainment
JDrake@hoodrivernews.com
Kirsten Lane
Advertising Sales
KLane@hoodrivernews.com
JDrake@hoodrivernews.com
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ATaylor@columbiagorgepress.com
Allen Diers
Commercial Printing
ADiers@hoodrivernews.com
419 State Street
Hood River, OR 97031
P.O. Box 390
Phone: (541) 386-1234
Fax: (541) 386-6796
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(541) 386-1234
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