Blonde Mermaid Caught by Orcas Island

I caught this mermaid while trolling off Orcas Island.  Suz' people go into the water to catch salmon with their teeth which seems more honest and direct than sportfishers who "play" fish on feathered hooks and light lines.

Eight of My Clay Pieces, Good for the Next Two Ice Ages, and Last Week's Melting Antarctic Glacier News

November

The Dream of Seven Tails (featured at The Trumpeter Journal of Ecosophy at Athabasca University in Alberta, Canada, and donated to Columbia Basin Fish & Wildlife Library,

a program of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission) 

October Chinook (sold at the The Spirit of the Salmon Fund's Wy-Kan-Ush-Pum "Salmon People"Gala in Portland, Oregon)

Steelhead Harp (donated to Washington State University, Vancouver Library)

Life Force (donated to Washington State University, Vancouver Library)

River Fire (sold at the The Spirit of the Salmon Fund's Wy-Kan-Ush-Pum "Salmon People"Gala in Portland, Oregon)

October River (donated to Columbia Basin Fish & Wildlife Library,

a program of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission)

Return to the Source (sold at Columbia River Gallery in Troutdale, Oregon)

What Happens Next 

Because of monetary belief, a few humans will soon decide the fate of Earth’s people, sea creatures, animals, forests, meadows, mountains, reefs, and islands.

According to Laura Barron-Lopez of thehill.com, Bill Gates hopes new technology will save us.

According to Bill Gates’ interview in Rolling Stone, Charles Koch says the problem is bigger than the USA can solve.

According to the WSJ, Warren Buffett is a “climate-change denier.”

When these billionaires discuss climate change at "dinner," you know there is a problem.

On May 13, 2014, Jason Hanna, of CNN, reported “The United Nations' most recent climate change report estimated sea levels could rise from about 1 foot to 3 feet by 2100. Such a rise could displace tens of millions of people from coastal areas around the world.”

Isaac Asimov responded in a Dissolving Boundaries film interview to Bill Moyers’ question about a global perspective, “It’s perhaps not important that every human being think so. But how about the leaders and opinion-makers thinking so? Ordinary people might follow them.”

In the film I Am, the Dalai Lama said the most important meditation of our time is critical thinking followed by action.

Black Elk said in Black Elk Speaks (translated from Lakota into English by Black Elk's son, Ben Black Elk, and written by John G. Neihardt), “Crazy Horse dreamed and went into the world where there is nothing but the spirits of all things. That is the real world that is behind this one, and everything we see here is something like a shadow from that one. He was on his horse in that world, and the horse and himself on it and the trees and the grass and the stones and everything were made of spirit, and nothing was hard, and everything seemed to float. His horse was standing still there, and yet it danced around like a horse made only of shadow, and that is how he got his name, which does not mean that his horse was crazy or wild, but that in his vision it danced around in that queer way. It was this vision that gave him his great power, for when he went into a fight, he had only to think of that world to be in it again, so that he could go through anything and not be hurt.”

This video has great Oregon scenery and an important perspective on climate change.

Practicing "the Speech"

One of the best spring salmon fishermen on a river I visit gave me "the speech" to get out of trouble with a girlfriend.  "I am sorry. It was my mistake. Please forgive me."  He had been a missionary on many continents so I figured it was worth a try.

The next time she and I had an argument, I tried but forgot a few words. "I'm sorry. It was your mistake.  I forgive you."

When I saw him on the river, I explained I messed up a few words so his "speech" didn't work.

"What exactly did you say?" he asked.

When I told him, he said I needed more practice.

Seattle's Monarch Review Published My Eco-Poem "Thinking About AWP 2014 in Seattle"

"Thinking About AWP 2014 in Seattle" (click if interested in a poet's perspective)

Fisher-in-Residence on Cascade Head

Some of the poems were written at The Sitka Center for Art and Ecology in Oregon.

I recall a scene in the film Fast Times at Ridgemont High when Sean Penn's character Jeff Spicoli says in a dream, "Well Stu I'll tell you, surfing's not a sport, it's a way of life, it's no hobby. It's a way of looking at that wave and saying, 'Hey bud, let's party!'"  I could substitute "fishing" for "surfing," and "river" for "wave," which I must do now more that ever, partly as a result of having too many community college students like Jeff Spicoli.  Yes, that means you Hieronymus!  My students said the film was based on Clairemont High, one of the feeder schools for where I teach.

Anyway, since I had some positive responses on my last post, I decided to expand it.  Years ago, I  applied to be a writer-in-residence at The Sitka Center for Art and Ecology on Cascade Head partly because I wanted to catch winter steelhead close by. In case you haven't figured it out, most of my major life decisions are made based on proximity to salmon and steelhead fishing.

For eight years on The Starfisher, I trolled and drifted reefs off Cascade Head, and explored rivers north and south on my days off.  I was so excited when my application was accepted, I oiled my reels.

When I arrived in January 2004, the weather did not entirely cooperate.  A rare ice storm threatened my plans.  At the time, I was reading Early Morning by Kim Stafford.  The guest book in my Russ' Treehouse studio had entries by Kim, and this gave my adventure a meant-to-be feel.  Without hesitation, I put tire chains on to discover I was the only driver foolish enough to be on the road.  Later, Oregon.gov noted "President Bush issued a major disaster declaration for 26 Oregon counties affected by the winter storm."  I spent a large part of the morning weaving around, or physically removing, fallen alders on the way to my chosen river.

My car radio said schools were closed and issued a warning to "stay off the roads."  Like a wounded muskrat, I slowly maneuvered until I made it.  "Where in hell did you come from?” a local who had walked down to the river greeted me. “It’s 28 degrees,” he added.

I just smiled and unpacked my gear, thinking of warmer days when Chinese poet Li Po wrote his famous poems about this.

On the still-dark trail there was windless silence but ice-weighted branches fell like spears.  The water, however, flowed perfect steelhead green. I was dizzy with cold but determined.

Four hours later I had a fish on who threw the pink-cured prawn and orange Corky.  Suddenly, it felt a little warmer.  Two minutes after that, I had a really big steelhead on – maybe sixteen pounds -- who broke the line two feet from shore because the cold made me clumsy (fishing buddies would say it had nothing to do with the cold). 

Only minutes later I hooked a third steelhead who saw a huge branch floating through the far side of the hole and made for it like a wide receiver going for the end zone.  Downriver went the branch and steelhead.

My right brain and left brain, perhaps short-circuited by the cold, engaged in a quick argument.  Right – “We can do this.  Let’s scramble along that undercut bank and across those boulders.  See the river bottom over there?  The water can’t be more than five feet, even with the reflection, and you are six feet, more if you get on your toes.  Besides, we can cross farther down . . . What’s that? Sure the water is fast there, but it’s shallower too.  How bad do you want this fish? Chicken.”  Left – “Need I remind you the air is 28 degrees?  Can you spell h-y-p-o-t-h-e-r-m-i-a?  No fish is worth getting wet.  Live to fish another day.  You can’t be stupid enough to drive, and crazy enough to leap into a winter river, can you?” 

Right, as usual, won, and into the river I went.  Water poured over the top of my hip waders as the steelhead leapt in his cage of branches above the tailout.  I sprinted downriver to shallower faster water, rod tip high in the air, numb as an Alaskan cadaver in December, and 70 yards later, landed the fish and branch above rapids.  

I could go on but was told blog posts need to be short. Suffice it to know the branch was a 40-pound alder, a little smaller than the ones I removed from the road on Cascade Head, but entirely capable of putting up a good fight when attached to a winter steelhead in a swift tailout. I shared my steelhead and story with a painter-in-residence.

Years later, I took a wonderful workshop from Drew Myron at The Sitka Center, and had my all-time favorite reading experience at her Off the Page event in Yachats.

Fish or Cut Bait or Teach

Photo by John Campbell. Click photo to see text.

Four summers ago I taught a writing class at Columbia Gorge Community College in The Dalles so I could fish The Deschutes River.  The class had a big window overlooking The Gorge.  It was magical.  I loved the summer steelhead, redsides, smallmouth bass, and teaching among the wonderful people and students at that college.  I was a contender for their full-time English professor job a while back so I put a line in the water thinking they may hire me for the part-time gig.

A year ago, and seven years ago, I did sabbatical work at Pacific University's Residency-only M. F. A. Program in Seaside, Oregon, partly to catch winter steelhead.  I caught the two above at sunrise just before my creative nonfiction workshop taught by the smart and humorous Craig Lesley, author of the novel The Sky Fisherman.  The photo above ended up in Pacific's M. F. A. brochure I found wandering the tables at AWP 2014 in Seattle, oddly thinking maybe I should be fishing for late-run winter steelhead.

The idea of combining fishing with my job may have come when I read how Jack Hemmingway, author of Misadventures of a Fly Fisherman and son of Noble Prize-winner Ernest, "managed to smuggle his fly rod along on his [WWII] French mission and was almost captured while trout fishing" according to New York Times writer Paul Schullery.

Then again, maybe the idea came when I was a deckhand off Depoe Bay, Oregon, saw a wedding party offshore on the mighty Tradewinds Kingfisher, and wondered aloud, "Man, there is a truly great tiderip moving toward them.  It's probably full of salmon.  What's wrong with dropping a baited hoochie and flasher into the sea?  The poles are right there."

It's nearly killing me now to be in San Diego during spring chinook season, but, unfortunately, tenured professorships in creative writing in Oregon are nearly as rare as barcodes on wild chinook.  Maybe if I spent more time writing, and less time fishing, some day in the distant future I may have a chance. Nah.

Spring Chinook in April 2014

 

                                                        Here is my first spring chinook of April 2014.

                                                       I caught these in 2013 in a few good days.

                                         Ted Hughes wrote in his book River my favorite fishing poem 
                                                      "After Moonless Midnight."  Here are two lines:
                                                      "Their eyes waited, furious with gold brightness,"
                                                      "Their savagery waited, and their explosion."

 

                                                       The infamous skunk cabbage is a harbinger of spring on the 

                                                       Pacific Northwest coast.

                                                                    Spring sun warms through a big tree over the river.
Spring chinook season is my favorite.  I wait all year for the tug of a monster silver slab from the deep, followed by delicious red flesh with basil, olive oil, and lemon pepper.  A few days ago I was lucky enough to land two on spinners, which I quickly clubbed, along with three bonus wild steelhead I quickly released.  While I love teaching creative writing and world literature in San Diego, I'm envious of Pacific Northwesterners who get to fish every day this time of year.  Their stories, generosity, and laughter show evidence of lives well-lived. 

Warm sunny days mixed with rain and gray clouds make this a time of transition. Winter's mold and moldy thoughts vanish with the cry of "Fish on!"

I mentioned Ted Hughes' writing about fishing in my first blog post called "Metabolism of Stars," and again above, because Pacific Northwest spring is about circles and renewals.  In my first blog post, Senegalese environmentalist Baba Dioum was quoted, "In the end, we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught."  It reminds me of a poem by Thomas Rain Crowe in his book Zoro's Field titled "May It Continue." I use Zoro's Field in my creative nonfiction classes, and many students love it.

Regarding the eco-theme, thanks to poet Miriam Sagan for interviewing me on her blog, Miriam's Well: Poetry, Land Art, and Beyond  with these three questions: "1. What is your personal/aesthetic relationship to the poetic line? That is, how do you understand it, use it, etc.; 2. Do you find a relationship between words and writing and the human body? Or between your writing and your body?; and 3. Is there anything you dislike about being a poet?"  Thanks also to Beverly Faxon at Skagit Valley Food Co-op where I shop for her brief review of my book The Other History, and for placing that review beside an article on "The Hidden Secrets of Chocolate."  Life is good, for now, and I hope to catch more springers in late May when I return from teaching.

The Godfather Box and the Net of Indra

I know there is some kind of synchronicity in the universe.  The Hindu concept of the Net of Indra was right about that.  Not far from The Raven Chronicles J29 table I staffed at the AWP Bookfair in Seattle was The Converse College Low-Residency MFA table which runs South 85 Literary Journal, publisher of my eco-poetry post "The Godfather Box" the week before.

Probably the best AWP 2014 panel I attended was Rounding the Human Corners: Writing the Truth about the Changing World. (Marybeth Holleman,  Linda Hogan,  Ann Fisher-Wirth,  Eva Saulitis,  Juan Carlos Galeano).  In that panel, Linda Hogan spoke about migratory birds no longer showing up in the far north where the Gwich'in people live, and how some of our vets are trained to be business people instead of healers. Eva Saulitis spoke about a group of orcas called the Chugach Transients going extinct due to mortality and reduced reproductive capacity which may have resulted from the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill in Prince William Sound.  Marybeth Holleman spoke about the "first-ever recorded" helicopter observations of four drowned adult polar bears due to global warming, and how a yearling wolf in Denali helped wolf cubs on a dangerous river crossing thereby showing these wolves function in the wild as families (I noticed there is a Hafiz quote on her site so there is another Net of Indra moment if you read my post "January in Oregon" below.) AnnFisher-Wirth read amazing poems about the Mississippi Delta area.  Juan Carlos Galeano explained, through poetry, how to use one's imagination to enter the ancient mystery of the predator/prey relationship in Amazonia and elsewhere.  The whole event was wise, informative, and facinating.  In more enlightened times such as those experienced by the the Hau de no sau nee (ho dee noe sho nee) of the Six Nations, also known as the Iroquois Confederacy, these speakers would have greater say in how things are run in the U. S. Congress instead of the oil companies that commonly puppet our elected officials.  

On a personal note, Marybeth Holleman's wolf part brought memories of waking up in the middle of a caribou herd just before crossing nontechnical Anderson Pass in Denali.

Other fine panels I attended included  The Literary Legacy of Nirvana and Kurt Cobain,  True North: Alaskan Literary Nonfiction, A Tribute to the Poetry of Raymond Carver, and The Greening of Literature: Eco-Fiction and Poetry to Enlighten and Inspire (in which Ann Pancake spoke of her novel Strange As This Weather Has Been about mountaintop mining in Appalachia).

At Kells, my colleague Bonnie ZoBell read from her new book What Happened Here. I enjoyed visiting with Alaskan fiddling poet Ken Waldman again. 

Tanya Chernov visited my table with postcards to help promote her new anthology Burden of Light, Poems on Illness and Loss from which 100% of the proceeds will benefit the National Colorectal Cancer Research Alliance.  I am honored to have two of my audio/print poems (click orange button left of sound wave graphic) included about my former life partner, the artist and writer Shura Young who died April 27, 2011.

This morning before my planned fishing trip, I met with writer Sheryl Clough to get my free copy of her new anthology Through A Distant Lens: Travel Poems since she included two of my poems.  This beautiful book "celebrates the joys, pitfalls, and surprises that come along with traveling.  The four thematic sections are illustrated with black-and-white photos from diverse locales including Bhutan, Costa Rica and London." My two poems in the book are about Depoe Bay, Oregon, and the Columbia River that separates Oregon and Washington. Another anthology poet was there from Coupeville, a neighbor of a doctor who recently took me squid and English sole fishing on his boat.  Sooner or later, you knew fishing was going to appear in this blog post.

I'll Be Signing River Walker and The Other History Books at AWP 2014 in Seattle

 

The good folks at The Raven Chronicles invited me to sign my books at their J29 table on Thursday, February 27, 2014, from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m., and Saturday, March 1, 2014, from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m., at the AWP Bookfair in the Washington State Convention Center.   The Saturday Bookfair is free and open to the public from 8:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.  the Stranger noted, "It will be the biggest bookstore in Seattle for the one day that it's open."  

"An annual showcase of over 650 exhibitors, AWP’s bookfair is the nation’s largest marketplace for independent literary presses and journals, creative writing programs, writing conferences and centers, and literary arts organizations," according to the AWP site. 

While the Saturday Bookfair is free, panels/presentations require registration with deep discounts for students. 

At the conference, I am looking forward to "R278 -- The Literary Legacy of Nirvana and Kurt Cobain,"  Room 302, Western New England MFA Annex, Level 3,  Thursday, February 27, 2014, 4:30 p.m. to 5:45 p.m., and Saturday events.  Saturday events I plan to attend are:

12:00 p.m. to 1:15 p.m.:
Aspen Room, Sheraton Seattle, 2nd Floor	S166. The Greening of Literature: Eco-Fiction and Poetry to Enlighten and Inspire. (John Yunker,  JoeAnn Hart,  Mindy Mejia,  Ann Pancake,  Gretchen Primack ) From mountaintop removal to ocean plastic to endangered species, ecological issues are increasingly on writers’ minds. Authors on this panel discuss how their ecologically themed fiction and poetry engages readers in powerful ways that nonfiction can’t. Panelists discuss writing in these emerging sub-genres as well as their readers’ responses and offer tips for writing about the environment in ways that are galvanizing and instructive without sacrificing creativity to polemics.
3:00 p.m. to 4:15 p.m.:
Room 302, Western New England MFA Annex, Level 3	S254. A Tribute to the Poetry of Raymond Carver. (Justin Bigos,  Rick Ryan,  Ashley Reis,  Jynne Dilling Martin,  Carol Sklenicka) Raymond Carver is widely considered a master of the short story form, and yet Carver was also, from the time he began writing in 1957 and until his death in 1988, a poet. Carver’s partner, Tess Gallagher, describes the poems as the spiritual current running through the stories. While this is true, the poems also ask to be reckoned with in their own right. This panel gathers three poets, a poet/eco-critic, and Carver’s biographer in order to praise the poetry of Raymond Carver.
4:30 p.m. to 5:45 p.m.:
Room 613/614, Washington State Convention Center, Level 6	S276. Rounding the Human Corners: Writing the Truth about the Changing World. (Marybeth Holleman,  Linda Hogan,  Ann Fisher-Wirth,  Eva Saulitis,  Juan Carlos Galeano) Straddling mass extinctions and shifting ecosystems, how do we write about the more-than-human in a way that avoids simple metaphor? And how do we write of degradation and extinction in language that engages the (human) reader and remains truthful to these “other nations?” Discussing a diversity of approaches are five authors of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction about horses, wolves, birch trees, killer whales, polar bears—the depth and range of the world just beyond our human skin.

Remembering the 2013 Humpy Invasion

Brought by the moon and high tide, swarms of pink salmon arrived in July to shouts of men and women up and down the beach casting with joy of sea-abundance like 20 or 30 thousand years ago.  For 2 1/2 months the swarms made some of us forget all that we must forget to feel truly alive and free.

Two for the Road

                                                        This steelhead took the first bait.

                                                        The second bait produced another steelhead.  
                                                         I like how raindrops on the lens float like planets.

                                                       Civilization Prophecy

The first two baits this morning morphed into two buck steelhead.  I had time to rest on a rock, set the camera self-timer, and enjoy a Columbia River spring chinook sandwich.  How can I take the generosity of Washington's coastal people, and stunning beauty of their fish, back to my teaching job in the city?  The truth is I can't for very long.

Waders quickly and necessarily left in cramped places get moldy just like my soul in the city.  I will fly back occasionally to shake off some of that, and, if funds allow, return for a 3-month stretch in late May to catch spring chinook and summer steelhead from rivers I fished over 43 years. 

Driving back to Whidbey today, I saw an unmanned, lighted, with engine humming garbage truck parked alongside a river above a fishing hole.  I recalled how my Tigard, Oregon, boyhood friend, Mark, a very serious fisherman, used to get angry when I called a passing garbage truck his "mobile home."  It would be ironic, wouldn't it, in a poetic way if that was Mark fishing below?  Stranger things have happened.  But I would understand it because, glancing at the perfect steelhead-green current, I would stop too.

The reason is I'm totally against work.  It gets in the way of life.  Kids know this, and the Machine spends lifetimes trying to convince them otherwise.  Therefore, the trick is to have "work" that doesn't feel like work because you enjoy it so much.  I had this a few times like when I ran The Starfisher, wrote for Newport News-Times,  wrote for Tigard-Tualatin Times, wrote The Valley Times in Beaverton, did online course innovation for Lake Land College in Mattoon, Illinois, taught writing at Columbia Gorge Community College overlooking the Columbia River which was close enough to The Deschutes to fish after work, and currently when I teach creative writing and world literature in San Diego.