George Venn

DARKROOM SOLDIER: PHOTOGRAPHS AND LETTERS FROM THE SOUTH PACIFIC THEATER WORLD WAR II (2007)
DARKROOM SOLDIER features a young Photo Reconnaissance officer’s intimate one-of-a-kind record of the invisible lives of support troops and civilians behind the lines in the Pacific Theater. Between October, 1943, and October, 1945, Sergeant Fred Hill, a young Oregon photographer, sent his wife Martha hundreds of photos and wrote her more than 300 letters. She saved them all. The selected letters and photographs create a unique record of the Pacific Theater—at once verbal and visual, civilian and military, documentary and emotional, historical and personal. The letters which had to pass Army censors are brief, vivid, candid, erotic, and they frequently refer to the image(s) on the facing page. Hill’s work is original intrahistory—a record of daily life as lived by thousands of people—both American and indigenous civilians.

SOLDIER TO ADVOCATE: C. E. S. WOOD’S 1877 LEGACY (2006)
In this carefully researched, richly illustrated presentation of Lieutenant C. E. S. Wood’s Nez Perce War diary, George Venn offers readers a compelling introduction to a most unusual army officer. Wood appeals to us because of his modern sensibilities, compassion for the enemy, and generosity of spirit. His diary demonstrates the terrible cost of war. His life represents the potential for redemption. Wood experienced the dark side of conquest and tried to make amends—a legacy his descendants carry on today.

WEST OF PARADISE (1999)
"George Venn's scale is immense and inclusive... " --James Bertolino

George Venn is a "master of the detail that exudes the spirit of place, of time, of the hopes and joys of the human soul."--Karen Swenson

"West of Paradise conjures the rural Northwest's colorful characters and the hard-edged codes they live by...." --Craig Lesley

"George Venn is a poet of great heart for... the wilderness gone and the wilderness still left–inside and outside us." --Primus St. John

THE OREGON LITERATURE SERIES (1989-1994)
To be added

MARKING THE MAGIC CIRCLE (1987)
This is a multi-genre anthology of essays, stories, poems, Chinese translations, and photos.

Award: Silver Medal and Special Award for Oregon Literature, Literary Arts, 1988

Award: 100 Best Oregon Books (1800-2000), Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission, 2005

George Venn, in this collection of poetry, fiction, and essays both personal and literary, challenges his readers to root themselves in the strength of home, rather than looking for direction to far away intellectual and political centers. His writing resonates with the reality of life in the Northwest -- the spiritual richness of a life lived in harmony with the requirements of place, and the problems of unemployment and poverty faced by so many in the region. In his literary essays Venn explores the rich variety of the Northwest’s literary heritage, and undertakes to convince those who live in the region of the value and authenticity of this heritage. Venn’s blend of creativity and scholarship is unique in the Northwest, enriching both his scholarship with a poet’s vision and his poetry and fiction with a deep understanding of their context and roots in the region’s literature.

OFF THE MAIN ROAD (1978)
...is a first collection of poems that reflects his immediate concern with a world close at hand. His plants,animals, weather, rivers, birds, and people help him—-and all of us—-make some kind of sense out of the experience of living. Don Gray's five pencil drawings also have their origin in a local geography, but are rich in universal implications.

SUNDAY AFTERNOON: GRANDE RONDE (1975)
This chapbook-length quest narrative recounts the transformation of an Everyman as Gatherer rather than Hunter. During a late fall visit to a walnut orchard where the nuts are ripe, he meets the owner, a woman named Virgina,and in the ritual act of gathering her walnuts, Everyman is enlightened, transformed, and reconciled with the fertility, beauty, and abundance that sustains all life. Written in the tradition of the long poem--from Ovid to Wallace Stevens to Robinson Jeffers--the narrative is enhanced by Ian Gatley's eight elemental pen and ink sketches.