This overview of OSPA was prepared by Marianne Klekacz, President, May, 2003.
The Oregon State Poetry Association was created in 1956 as a statewide outgrowth of the Verseweavers Poetry Society of Portland, founded in 1936. A delegation of Verseweavers persuaded Oregon Governor Douglas McKay to designate October 15, 1950, as the state's first Poetry Day. They sought the appointment of a poet laureate to fill the vacancy left in 1931 when Edwin Markham resigned. Poet Laureate Ben Hur Lampman was honored at the 1951 Poetry Day Banquet. At OSPA's instigation, former board member William Stafford was appointed Oregon's fourth (and last) poet laureate by Governor Tom McCall in 1974; he resigned the post after 15 years. OSPA now sponsors the William Stafford Memorial Award as one of the annual contests offered by the National Federation of State Poetry Societies.
In 1998 and again in 2000, foundation grants enabled OSPA, in partnership with the Center for the Book at the State Library, to conduct Family Poetry Workshops at rural Oregon libraries; in each workshop, two noted poets guided 12 youngsters and their adult mentors in the creation of poems, then all involved produced a booklet of the workshop poems. In four years, the program reached into 25 small communities, from Agness, Manzanita, and Port Orford in the west, to Enterprise, Burns, and Ontario in the east. In the fall of 1998, the first issue of Verseweavers, a bi-annual chapbook of contest-winning poems, rolled off the press. The book became an annual publication in 2000.
OSPA's big success story in 1999 was the first Oregon Student Poetry Contest, which drew 1,011 entries. Winners were published in Cascadia, a chapbook anthology. Two young Oregonians were among the 10 Junior Division winners in the Manningham Student Poetry Trust Awards contest sponsored by NFSPS; one also was one of eight national winners of the 4th annual River of Words poetry/art contest sponsored by former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Hass, International Rivers Network and the Library of Congress Center for the Book. In 2003, entries exceeded 1600 poems from K-12 students.
In 2002, OSPA hosted the annual NFSPS convention, drawing poets from 26 states and three Canadian provinces for four days of workshops, readings, and other activities in Coos Bay. The all-Oregon cast of presenters included nationally recognized poets Lawson Fusao Inada, Robert McDowell, Judith H. Montgomery, Carlos Reyes, Primus St. John, Ralph Salisbury, Kim Stafford, and Ingrid Wendt.
In recent years, OSPA has been actively seeking to increase its presence across the state by a variety of means, among them, increasing the geographic range of locations for its annual October conference and April poetry festival, encouraging the formation of OSPA units in diverse locations, establishing contacts with English and writing teachers in schools all over the state, presenting programs in libraries and independent bookstores hospitable to poetry, and doing statewide (and, where appropriate, national) publicity for its programs and events. In 2004, the Association’s Fall Conference was held in Bend, drawing nearly 60 poets from central and eastern, as well as western, Oregon. In 2005, the Eugene/Springfield Chapter of OSPA was formed. Active support by the Chapter enabled a highly successful 2005 Fall Conference to be held there, with nearly 70 participating poets. In 2006 chapters were formed in Umpqua Valley, Marys Peak (Corvallis area) and in Spring 2007 the April conference was hosted by the Rogue Valley Unit in Ashland.
OSPA celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2006; Oregon Poet Laureate Lawson Fusao Inada was a speaker at our Anniversary Banquet and a presenter at the Spring Conference.OSPA's mission for the 21st Century is "to bring together, and nurture, the widest possible community of Oregon poets; to help Oregon poets, young and old, develop their talents and skills; to stimulate, at the grassroots level, a statewide appreciation of poetry; and, to raise public awareness of Oregon poets, past and present."
