From Sea to Dark and Unseen Sea

View from the Poet Hut to the Real House, Portland, Oregon (5 November 2011)



My original plan for the night was to write a modestly detailed review of the Object Poems exhibition that opened in Portland, Oregon, last Friday, but I do not have the energy for that at the moment, so I'll write about one of the ways in which poets succeed at what they do: support from others.

The reason I finally decided to visit Portland for the weekend wasn't because I really wanted to attend the opening of this exhibition (though I did) or because I really wanted to take part in the reading the next day (though I did), but because Maryrose Larkin offered me lodging in her and her husband Eric Matchett's house for the weekend. That significantly reduced my costs, and gave me an experience I would not want to have missed. For that reason, I flew from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific on a quest for poetry.

Maryrose is the one who picked me up at the airport at about 4:15 in the afternoon, just after my plan arrived, and then drove me to the opening, getting me there before it started at 5:00 pm. Even though she was taking a three-day workshop while I was in Portland. She returned to find me after the exhibition opening, and she joined a group of us at Spints (no-one knew how to pronounce it) for dinner and drinks. Then she drove me home. She missed much of the reading, but still made it to the venue in time to see one set, including my piece.

My friend and fellow archivist Terry Baxter also attended the opening, bringing with him his belle, Debbie Jewell. I had a great time with the much-tattooed Terry, and even decided that he himself, his body itself, was an object poem, since all of his tattoos were primarily textual. He intends to donate his body to poetry some day, or so I hear. It was great to have a good friend in attendance, and to spend time with him where we'd never been before.

A number of poets came to the show and reading from out of town, even Joe Keppler, coming from Seattle. I haven't seen Joe in a few years, but Joe was an important person in my poetic life. His magazine Poets. Painters. Composers. was one of the mainstays of my life during the late 1980s. In those years and the early 1990s, Seattle was really my literary home; I was more connected to what was happening in Seattle than anything going on anywhere else. And seeing and talking to Joe reminded me of the strength of those bonds that those of us Seattle poets had, no matter where we lived.

I was carless (not careless) in Seattle (neither was I sleepless), so I needed help getting around. When the always attentive Maryrose wasn't available, Eric drove me to Powell's, where I bought many books. And after that, David Abel picked me up at Powell's and we had a great lunch at Pho Jasmine and then visited his studio, where I bought more books, including a few great items of visual poetry. After the poetry reading, many people offered me a ride to dinner, but I stayed with David, since he had my bags. After the après-poésie dinner and postprandial bar visit, Nico Vassilakis took over and drove me back to the Poet Hut.

And so we return to the end, for the Poet Hut (AKA the Poet Huth, for last weekend) is that outbuilding behind Maryrose's house, and I enjoyed a last night there. I was quite tired, but I packed all my bags quite carefully, being especially careful to protect my books, and then I slept the night away in a comfortable bed piled high with blankets and pillows. I didn't pay Maryrose back well for her generosity. I did get to pay for parking at the airport (three dollars? is it even worth charging for so little?) and for her dinner on the first night. And I did give her a book of mine and mIEKAL aND's, but they were just pwoermds, and do one-word poems really county?

But there's no paying people back for this generosity of spirit. The world of poetry, as my friend Anne Gorrick likes to say, is a gift economy. I'll have to give another poet a gift of great but inaccessible value sometime to pay Maryrose, and all these other folks, back.

Huth ffrey (AKA I) Pay My Dinner Billecr. l'inf.