REVIEWS : : Lichen Songs
George Venn once wrote “poetry waits...for a voice from fire, water, wing, willow, wind.” All those elements infuse this collection of new and previously published poems from an authentic voice of the Pacific Northwest.
Inspired by insightful observations of nature, teaching, the hopes and disappointments of life—his and others'–Venn's work offers a realism rooted in his concrete experiences as a bee keeper, house builder, apple grower, musician, and teacher. Here are the eastern Oregon tomatoes picked green before the first frost, the deer in the bird feeder, the teacher pouring out life on dry ground, the happy and cruel memories of youth, the traveler who never planned to stay but is still here.
Venn retired from teaching English and writing at Eastern Oregon University in 2002 and still lives in La Grande. “This Could Be Our Story,” included here, wryly describes making the most of isolated, small college life; and a major lesson of his work is to confront life honestly and learn its lessons. His published poetry collections, original analysis of C.E.S. Wood's version of Chief Joseph's surrender speech, and edited six volume Oregon Literature Series, a major contribution to our cultural history, have earned many awards. Along the way he brought literary giants to La Grande audiences, fought the good fight to preserve the region's natural beauty, and generously shared his knowledge of teaching and writing throughout Oregon.
The title poem describes fungi and algae doing “the hardest job in the world—eating rocks, making dirt,” giving earth the gift of varied life. Yet death lurks. Every driver “Crossing the Blues in March” in a whiteout knows “You could die, here, tonight.” The grandfather who always slaughtered with a sharp knife so 'nothing should suffer' ends up in years of misery because the God he served is a “shoddy butcher.”
The dominant theme, however, is appreciation of the joys of life and readiness for what it will bring where “eternity is now—mysterious and whole,” where “an unchurched doe” seen out the window could be “enough resurrection” for an Easter Sunday. The collection's last line describes birds emerging from a La Grande blizzard, the doves “calling more love, more love, more love.”
Lichen Songs' readers will find more love here. Rooted in the experience of a thoughtful observer, it brings wisdom and beauty out of the local and specific, sharing what a good man has learned from real life.
Inspired by insightful observations of nature, teaching, the hopes and disappointments of life—his and others'–Venn's work offers a realism rooted in his concrete experiences as a bee keeper, house builder, apple grower, musician, and teacher. Here are the eastern Oregon tomatoes picked green before the first frost, the deer in the bird feeder, the teacher pouring out life on dry ground, the happy and cruel memories of youth, the traveler who never planned to stay but is still here.
Venn retired from teaching English and writing at Eastern Oregon University in 2002 and still lives in La Grande. “This Could Be Our Story,” included here, wryly describes making the most of isolated, small college life; and a major lesson of his work is to confront life honestly and learn its lessons. His published poetry collections, original analysis of C.E.S. Wood's version of Chief Joseph's surrender speech, and edited six volume Oregon Literature Series, a major contribution to our cultural history, have earned many awards. Along the way he brought literary giants to La Grande audiences, fought the good fight to preserve the region's natural beauty, and generously shared his knowledge of teaching and writing throughout Oregon.
The title poem describes fungi and algae doing “the hardest job in the world—eating rocks, making dirt,” giving earth the gift of varied life. Yet death lurks. Every driver “Crossing the Blues in March” in a whiteout knows “You could die, here, tonight.” The grandfather who always slaughtered with a sharp knife so 'nothing should suffer' ends up in years of misery because the God he served is a “shoddy butcher.”
The dominant theme, however, is appreciation of the joys of life and readiness for what it will bring where “eternity is now—mysterious and whole,” where “an unchurched doe” seen out the window could be “enough resurrection” for an Easter Sunday. The collection's last line describes birds emerging from a La Grande blizzard, the doves “calling more love, more love, more love.”
Lichen Songs' readers will find more love here. Rooted in the experience of a thoughtful observer, it brings wisdom and beauty out of the local and specific, sharing what a good man has learned from real life.
—Charles Coate, Portland, Oregon, 10/6/17
In this wondrous book, a winter storytelling-poem—a love poem—carries forty years of writing. The poem’s title transforms itself into the book’s title, and each of the book’s five sections has one of the poem’s stanzas as its epigraph. This guiding poem comes whole in the last section, in the present, "New and Previously Unpublished Poems," where it asks
Can you see this pair? Their furious old
feast? Your life a Lichen lover’s gift?
Here in the UK, with my feet in Oregon, I read George Venn in good company with his poet companions in the American West. Theodore Roethke, William Stafford, Richard Hugo, Vi Gale, Gary Snyder, others, a strong circle of friends and protégès, insiders and outsiders. Venn’s voice transcends the region of Eastern Oregon that feeds him its rocks and seasons, its people, its stories, which he sends echoing in finely named details into farther places. He finishes on a birdcall after a blizzard, not needing to make overt claims, but a call familiar everywhere in the world.
A wondrous book.
Can you see this pair? Their furious old
feast? Your life a Lichen lover’s gift?
Here in the UK, with my feet in Oregon, I read George Venn in good company with his poet companions in the American West. Theodore Roethke, William Stafford, Richard Hugo, Vi Gale, Gary Snyder, others, a strong circle of friends and protégès, insiders and outsiders. Venn’s voice transcends the region of Eastern Oregon that feeds him its rocks and seasons, its people, its stories, which he sends echoing in finely named details into farther places. He finishes on a birdcall after a blizzard, not needing to make overt claims, but a call familiar everywhere in the world.
A wondrous book.
—Wayne Hill, UK, former Associate Editor, Performance Research