Insects of South Corvallis by Charles Goodrich
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Charles Goodrich honed his eye for the details of nature in his long career as a professional gardener. His poems and essays have earned him fellowships from Fishtrap, the Oregon Arts Commission, and the 2001 Walt Morey fellowship from Literary Arts. Five of his poems have been read by Garrison Keillor on National Public Radio. Goodrich works for the Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature and the Written Word at Oregon State University.
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Praise for Insects of South Corvallis:
"The authentic presence of these poems is remarkable and offers the genuine protein-the verbs, the nouns, the images, and the voice-that only the best poetry has. Each poem is loaded with discoveries and gives us both an immediate and particular event and the distillation of long experience. This is one of the finest books I've read in years."
Vern Rutsala
"Spiders, sow bugs, aphids, house flies, cabbage moths, stinging nettles-not to mention beans, peach pits, and the pockets of warm air lingering under willows-Goodrich's concern for all of nature, including us, is extraordinary, and absolutely genuine."
Ginger Andrews
"There is something quintessentially northwestern about Goodrich's poems. They have the simplicity, grace, and wistful humor of the poems of Kenneth O. Hansen as well as the commitment to daily life that marked William Stafford's poems."
David Romtvedt
"His seemingly casual poems have the artful simplicity of Japanese flower arrangement. Each one is a little object to behold and ponder. Basho would have liked them."
Clem Starck
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Charles Goodrich worked for twenty-five years as a professional gardener and has also worked as a correctional work crew supervisor, a short-order cook, and a carpenter. Presently he is an instructor for the Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature and the Written Word at Oregon State University. His poems and essays have appeared in Orion, The Sun, Open Spaces, Willow Springs, Zyzzyva and many other magazines. A number of his poems have been read by Garrison Keillor on his National Public Radio Program, The Writer's Almanac. |
excerpts
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Sowbugs:
Vagabonds, hobos, they trundle in
through a crack in the wall by the back door
and congregate under the washing machine
to drink soapy drainwater.
I'm not running a bug hotel. My home
is no flophouse for backyard dropouts.
But these folks are easy company.
They aren't evangelists
reveling all night in confessional raptures
or teenage sons of bankers
cranking stereos and snorting coke.
They aren't revolutionaries or reactionaries,
atheists, pagans or co-dependents.
They're just little bugs
who've seen the world some
and like to swap stories around the floor drain.
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Winter Seeds
Peas, beans,
haws, hips-I am
a superstitious man.
That's why
I've gathered all these seeds
and placed them around my desk
to help me germ through
winter's dark:
grass seed half-filling a water glass,
a peach pit seated next to a chestnut,
five acorns leaning together
like tired school kids,
a sake cup brimful with rice.
I light a stick of incense,
finger my beads. A man
could spend his whole winter
arranging seeds,
scrawling proverbs in a tray full of flax,
stacking up kernels of dry corn
like a human spine,
or just listening
to the mind inside a walnut
preparing to speak.
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