From Jan Christensen
A fascinating story of the annual meeting of poets and singers in
Astoria, Oregon. Use the URL below (free New York Times registration
may be required) to hear and see the interactive feature of poems and
songs, and view the slide show.
Jan
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/04/us/04poets.html?hp
Fisher Poets Gather for Verse, Song and Stories
Dave Densmore, on his boat, wrote his first poem as a joke in the
1970s. Now he studies writing.
By WILLIAM YARDLEY
Published: March 3, 2009 (The New York Times)
ASTORIA, Ore. — Work, sometimes just the memory of it, is what brings
the fisher poets to this faded port at the mouth of the Columbia River
for a weekend each year.
Stuart Isett for The New York Times
Max Broderick reads his poem. His father, Jon, helped start the Fisher
Poets Gathering in 1998.
They might wax about the versatility of a deck bucket or of romance in
rubber boots, but they also describe a livelihood that can kill those
who pursue it. And at a time when industries everywhere are in
decline, this year some said that increasingly restrictive fishing
laws had long ago taught them about struggle.
"The bailout is there for bankers," said Jon Campbell, a former
fisherman from Rhode Island, reading Saturday night from what he
called a work in progress, "but they're out to sink the fleet."
That line met rousing applause here at the annual Fisher Poets
Gathering. First held in 1998 with a few people standing on a stage in
a bar, the event now fills a weekend with verse, song and storytelling
across four sites. Given the economy, attendance was somewhat lower
this year than in the past. Then again, populism played particularly
well. Camp converged with oceangoing cred. Old salts dazzled
California transplants. Even a bad day of fishing, it seems, can
produce a decent rhyme. Or not.
"I have to set aside my English-teacher hat now and then," said Fred
Chancey, recently retired from Chemeketa Community College in Salem,
Ore., who showed up for the second year in a row, just to listen. "But
a lot of it is really good stuff. I like the blue-collar school of
poetry."
The gathering generates what Mr. Chancey called "friction," a
constructive tension between those who have accumulated real
experience at sea and those who are drawn to them. Looks can be
deceiving. Some participants seem more city than seaworthy but can
recount years on deck. Others look the part but mostly like the lore.
A few performers, like Mr. Campbell, have Web sites. Others, too busy
fishing, write only when the gathering presents a deadline. Still
others face parental expectations.
Max Broderick, 20, a junior at Humboldt State University who is
majoring in natural resource planning, has fished his family's
commercial site on Bristol Bay in Alaska each summer since he was 13.
On Saturday night, he recounted one dreamlike haul:
As it turns out, this set saves the day,
Because the fish train hits
and now we're being highly paid.
With each jag that comes over the roller of kings, reds and chums,
This business of fishing has instantly become more fun.
Mr. Broderick's father, Jon, teaches English and other subjects at
Seaside High School, just south of Astoria and helped start the Fisher
Poets Gathering. Jon Broderick said he was motivated by an interest in
storytelling and because "work was a better subject than love."
For a few fishermen, the event has helped introduce them to a new
audience. Dave Densmore, 62, of Knappa, Ore., said he wrote his first
poem as a joke while hung over one morning in the 1970s. He read it to
fellow fishermen over a VHF radio off Kodiak, Alaska. Now Mr. Densmore
gets calls to perform on Martha's Vineyard, Mass., in the middle of
salmon season and has to decide what to do. He says he chooses
fishing.
"Those are the people I want to talk to," Mr. Densmore said of the
affluent coastal residents who have shown a steady interest in his
stories. "Not that I want to benefit, but I want the industry to
benefit. We're being managed to death."
Mr. Densmore grew up on the Aleutian Islands, where his parents were
missionaries. Writing was not an early interest; now he studies with a
teacher from the local community college.
On Saturday morning, he held an "open boat," inviting attendees of the
gathering into the galley of his salmon fishing boat, the Cold Stream.
Retirees in trim weatherproof jackets marveled at his hard-work hands.
"This is the closest I've been to a boat like this," said Ted Osborn,
an architect who, with his wife Wendy, is waiting for their new
retirement home overlooking the Columbia to be completed. "We lived
for 30 years in Southern California, where pretentiousness is king.
This place is much more real."
The Clatsop County Historical Society is preparing for Astoria's
bicentennial celebration in 2011, two centuries after John Jacob
Astor's Pacific Fur Company established a trading post here. Timber
and fishing followed the fur trade. Struggle came when other ports
rose, dams were built and resource industries faded. The population,
about 10,000, has been flat for decades, though downtown is shifting
toward art and espresso. Victorian houses clutter hillsides, some
brightly renovated, others falling apart.
The most striking legacy of the past is the pilings that rise
everywhere out of the river, with no apparent purpose. They used to
support scores of salmon canneries. Now the new Cannery Pier Hotel
rests on one century-old set beneath the Astoria-Megler Bridge, which
crosses the river to Washington State.
Of course, fresh fish from the region is favored now, not canned.
Entrants in the gathering's "on-site" poetry contest on Saturday night
were told barely 24 hours earlier that submissions had to be at least
eight lines, take less than a minute to read and include the phrase
"you might be missing fish."
Rob Seitz, who cycles nearly year round through cod, whiting and
Dungeness crab seasons on his 80-foot steel boat, placed third with
these verses:
If your son is not intimidating
On the line of scrimmage,
If your daughter's report card
Is not the brightest image,
If your children are not turning out
As healthy as you'd wished,
Perhaps on your dinner table
You might be missing fish.
Mr. Seitz, 42, said he wrote only once a year, on gathering weekend in
Astoria. But he does prepare.
"On the boat, I don't have a TV," he said. "We just read."
