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Poet Spotlight: Ralph Salisbury

My Teachers, An Appreciation and Some Recognitions

Mind snagged on thorns of literary study, I send
my years of teachers the centuries of poetry's roses,
which seem to redeem:

varicose veins’
River-Styx-slow flow into darkness

and hands quavery from restraining decades of urges to slap
or to caress,

the fingers, so bold
with zippers of lovers, are, now,
the eons-in-forming-under-megatons-of-sea
chalk, with which they will write
numbers and letters until

both teacher's and learner's lifetimes, banged
from erasers, become sun-struck dust,
that snow gust sum, that cloudburst poem.

 

Poet's Commentary

My Teachers, An Appreciation and Some Recognitions," came out of gratitude for my teachers, not only Robert Lowell, James Hearst, R.V. Cassill, Paul Engle and other well known writers but, also, my underpaid and overworked teachers in the one room rural school I attended and, later in high school.  Nor would I forget the college-educated army buddies, who loaned me books and talked with me when we were not in the service of the huge bombers in which we flew.

Like most of my short poems, this one came in a burst of creativity, but I spent some weeks in afterthought, hoping not to disgrace the teachers I sought to praise.  The rose, symbol of beauty in centuries of poems, came to mind very naturally.  What might be called the Freudian dimension of the poem, the duality of urges to slap and to caress took some thinking not to seem too coarse but to be realistic and honest.

The ironic conclusion renders all the words taught as erased from a blackboard, acknowledges the mortality of all humans, teachers and students.  All knowledge is minimally evoked in the arithmetic sums and in the life-giving but potentially destructive force of cloudburst poems.
 

Biographical Statement

Winner of River Teeth's 2012 Literary Non Fiction Book Prize and a Rockefeller Bellagio Award in poetry and fiction, Ralph Salisbury will publish his eleventh book of poems, Like Sun in Storm, with Habit of Rainy Night's Press, Autumn 2012. Like his previous books of poems and short fiction, it evokes his Cherokee-Shawnee-Irish-English-American heritage. He has presented his work on stage, on radio and on TV, in the U.S., Canada, Europe and India. His poem "In the Children's Museum in Nashville" was published in the New Yorker, in 1960, and has attracted attention as a precursor to the contemporary Native American literary movement.  In selecting his Rainbows of Stone as an Oregon Book Award finalist, Maxine Kumin wrote: "Nature in Ralph Salisbury's conception is a Presence to be addressed...  His book deserves a broad audience." His recent books, 2009, are Blind Pumper at the Well, Salt Press, Cambridge, UK;  The Indian Who Bombed Berlin, fiction, Michigan State U. Press and Light from a Bullet Hole, poems new and selected, Silverfish Review Press, nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

 

OPA History

Founded in 1956, the Oregon Poetry Association (OPA) OPA is Oregon’s oldest literary organization, and with over 350 members, we are Oregon’s largest literary organization. OPA was a state-wide outgrowth of Portland’s Verseweavers Poetry Society, which was founded in 1936. The OPA constitution and by-laws were created in April of 1956, and the first annual meeting was held in April of 1957.

David Hedges, who was OPA President from 1982-1983 and 1997-2002, revitalized the organization during his second term. He initiated the Student Poetry Contest, Poetry Day readings at book stores, and the Family Poetry Workshop Project. He was instrumental in the society’s success. 

In 2011 our name changed from the Oregon State Poetry Assocation (OSPA) to the Oregon Poetry Assocation (OPA).

OPA Members

We welcome all poets, regardless of publishing history, academic background, and writing experience. Our membership includes winners of the Oregon Book Award (Ingrid Wendt, Willa Schneberg, Penelope Schott and Judith Montgomery), Pushcart Prize nominees, Academy of American Poets award winners, journal editors, and small press editors, as well as beginning poets, poets with a recent first chapbook publication, and experienced poets with no publication history. Our past board members include former Oregon Poet Laureate William Stafford, and the current Oregon Poet Laureate, Paulann Petersen, is an OPA member. Our members reflect the variety of poetry writing in Oregon.

Download our membership brochure.

Contests

  • OPA sponsors two poetry contests each year for adults and one poetry contest for children; members receive a lower price to enter the contests
  • The student contest culminates in a reading by the winners and a reception for the young poets and their guests
  • The student contest has monetary prizes and is free for the students to enter
  • The adult contests always include a category just for New Poets (those poets who have never before received a monetary award for their poetry)

Conferences

  • OPA hosts two annual conferences, held in different Oregon locations, in the fall (closest weekend to October 15, National Poetry Day) and in April (National Poetry Month)
  • Recent conference locales include The Dalles, Newport, Eugene, Portland, and Roseburg
  • Conferences are open to OPA members and non-members; registration is cheaper for members
  • Workshop leaders at OPA conferences include visiting and local poets
  • Conferences always include plenty of open mic readings as well as readings by OPA contest winners

Units

  • OPA has five units, all of which host a variety of activities
  • Unit activities include critique groups, hosting visiting poets, visiting local schools, and doing readings in their areas
  • Units include Eugene/Springfield, Marys Peak (Corvallis area), Umpqua Valley (Roseburg area), Rogue Valley (Ashland/Medford area), and Portland
  • Salem is working on forming a unit at this time

Activities

  • OPA has partnered with the Oregon State Library in establishing and maintaining the Oregon Poetry Collection held at the State Library in Salem, and now containing over 1,100 titles
  • OPA has had a booth at Wordstock for the past three years
  • OPA publishes Verseweavers, which contains poems from the adult contests, and Cascadia, which publishes the winning poems from the annual student contest

The National Federation of State Poetry Societies:

  • OPA is part of the National Federation of State Poetry Societies (NFSPS); all OPA members are automatically members of NFSPS
  • NFSPS sponsors an annual contest, with 49 categories; these contests are very inexpensive to enter if one is a member
  • With over 350 members, OPA is the largest society in NFSPS
  • NFSPS has an annual convention, held every June in a state with a state society; recent conventions were held in Memphis, San Antonio, Duluth, and Oklahoma City.
  • Recent keynote speakers at NFSPS conventions include Lola Haskins, Mark Doty, David Lee, and Naomi Shihab Nye
  • OPA members are often winners in the national NFSPS contests
  • Our student poetry winners are often winners in the national student contests sponsored by NFSPS
  • NFSPS sponsors the Stevens Manuscript Award, an annual contest for a poetry book manuscript; the submission fee is less for members of NFSPS
  • OPA has had 2 Stevens winners: Karen Braucher (Aqua Curves) and Jane Bailey (The Art of Postponement)