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February, 2010
February 12, 2010, 7:00 pm - Second Friday Literary Night presents "Two Davids," David Axlerod and David Memmott with an evening of poetry.
David Axelrod’s new book of poems, Departing by a Broken Gate and David Memmott’s book, Giving It Away, were recently released by La Grande publisher, Wordcraft of Oregon.
Axelrod’s fifth collection of poems, Departing by a Broken Gate, brings together 44 nature poems that the author describes as “perambulations in the hills and mountains of the interior Northwest.” If the poems collected here are nature poems, they are also, as the title suggests, departures into a natural world that has been altered, perhaps permanently, by human indifference.
The poems in Memmott’s collection cover a wide range of interests, forms and lengths. His narrative poem, “Where the Yellow Brick Road Turns West” was published on-line on the Web del Sol site. His poem, “Ice Storm,” was just published in the January 24th issue of The Oregonian and his poem, “Crossing the Blues” appeared in the new anthology, A Sense of Place, published by Libraries of Eastern Oregon.
David Axelrod is a professor of English at Eastern Oregon University where he has taught since 1988. He is also an editor of Basalt: a journal of fine & literary arts.
He is the author of numerous books, most recently, of The Cartographer’s Melancholy, which won the 2005 Spokane Poetry Prize and was a 2006 finalist for the Oregon Book Award. Of that collection, the poet Ai wrote: “[Axelrod’s poems are] a moving journey into a landscape where we are all pilgrims making our way down dark roads in search of some transcendent moment that may never occur, yet the will to keep traveling impels us ever forward until we reach a kind of solace and release.”
David Memmott is the publisher of Wordcraft of Oregon and, in addition to his own writing in multiple genres, has embarked on a journey into the world of digital art. He is the featured artist at Blue Turtle Gallery for February.
Wordcraft of Oregon, LLC is a literary small press that has been publishing for over twenty years with sixty-five titles to its credit. The press has garnered three publishing fellowships for literary excellence from Literary Arts, Inc., of Portland, and its titles are consistently recognized among the best. Last year, two of the ten finalists in fiction for the Washington State Book Award and the Oregon Book Award were Wordcraft of Oregon titles.
Both books will be available at the reading and the authors will gladly sign copies afterward.
Saturday, February 13, 1:15-3 pm - WGEO Meeting
WGEO regular meeting at Baker County Library on Resort Street in Baker City. Bring something to read or just sit in on the conversation or get information about your next publishing project.
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