Mountain Writers Series

Remembering Tom Spanbauer

1946 - 2024

Remembering Tom Crawford

 

 

Be Broken To Be Whole: New & Selected Poems

by Tom Crawford

 

Just out from publisher Empty Bowl is Be Broken To Be Whole, a handsomely designed and produced selection edited by his widow Mary Judge, with a foreword by David James Duncan. On August 3, we'll celebrate the launch of the book, and friends and others will read selections from this posthumous collection of poems. Copies of the book will be available for purchase.

Poet, birder, contemplative, and activist Tom Crawford, an integral part of the Oregon literary community in the 1990s, lived and taught throughout the western USA, and in China and South Korea. He published nine books of poems, including Lauds, The Temple on Monday, and The Names of Birds. He died in Santa Fe in 2018.

Tom Crawford is a poet who has labored long in the vineyard,  yet remained somehow a well-kept secret within American poetry. Thankfully, his gifts of audacity, of acute detail, natural astonishment and of enacted wonder save his place for a ‘now’ in our current attentions. — Tess Gallagher

Tom Crawford’s translucent poetry shimmers with gratitude for life that only someone who has come through deep sorrow can feel, and approaches the uncanny wisdom of the twice-born. He is one of my favorite poets. — Edward Field

 

 

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From the Archives -- Mountain Writers Series 1973 - 2024

AWP 2019 - Portland OR

Celebrating 45 years of serving the literary community

In March 2019, Mountain Writers Series hosted two events at the AWP Conference in Portland. The first all-day, off-site event (11 AM - 10 PM) featured 28 poets and writers paying tribute to over two dozen Mountain Writers Series "alumni" readers from the past 45 years. There were three special tributes recognizing former Oregon Poet Laureate Peter Sears; award-winning author and poet, Denis Johnson; prize-winning poets W. S. Merwin and Donald Hall. Others among those recognized were Oregon authors Katherine Dunn, Ursula K. Le Guin and Vern Rutsala; Nobel Laureates Czeslaw Milosz and Derek Walcott; and a dozen other recipients of Pulitzer Prizes, National Book Awards and more. This event celebrated 45 years of programming and serving the literary community in the Pacific Northwest and beyond.

Mountain Writers also presented a panel at the AWP Conference at the Oregon Convention Center: "Mountain Writers Center: A Non-Profit Model," featuring a panel that included Michael Dickman, Jennifer Grotz, Dorianne Laux, and Joseph Millar. The panel detailed the decade that Mountain Writers Center operated in SE Portland: "After twenty years of building a regional network, in 1993, Mountain Writers opened the first writer’s center in Oregon, immediately increasing funding for NW literary activity—readings, workshops, craft talks—featuring acclaimed poets and writers: Bei Dao, Lucille Clifton, Billy Collins, Mark Doty, David James Duncan, Jack Gilbert, Yusef Komunyakaa, Denise Levertov, Louis Simpson, James Tate, C.K. Williams, and hundreds more. Former Center staff, faculty, and students discussed the impact."

 

 

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In October 2010, Oregon Poet Laureate, Paulann Petersen, gave the following opening remarks as introduction to the events on the Mountain Writers Series stages for Wordstock 2010. 

Remarks at the Opening of Wordstock, 2010

It’s a delight and an honor to help launch the Mountain Writers’ readings at Wordstock 2010. Two stages. Two days. Sixty writers. Remarkable.

Mountain Writers has been a fixture at Wordstock since its inception. Over 300 writers have appeared on the Wordstock Mountain Writers stages since 2005, and Mountain Writers has been the force establishing and sustaining poetry’s presence at this festival. For that, I give particular thanks to the entire Mountain Writers’ board of directors and staff.

Orchestrating over 60 writers on two stages for two days is a formidable undertaking. But it’s only one of Mountain Writers’ ongoing programs. Mountain Writers sponsors the monthly Press Club readings on Clinton Street in Southeast Portland. Third Wednesdays. Mountain Writers offers the bi-annual Columbia Gorge Writers’ Conference, which—in June of 2011—will feature on its faculty Annick Smith, William Kittredge, Barbara Drake, Vern Rutsala, and Gerald Costanza. And that’s only what MW is doing currently.

Established in 1973, Mountain Writers has spent 37 years enriching our region with visits, readings, and workshops by many of the world’s finest writers. The list of writers who have given readings and workshops and talks under the aegis of Mountain Writers and its partners includes W.S. Merwin, Rita Dove, Sherman Alexie, Lucille Clifton, Czeslaw Milosz, Jamaica Kincaid, Charles Simic, and Derek Walcott. The whole list is hundreds of names long.

I took workshops led by Sharon Olds, Martin Espada, and Carolyn Forché, thanks to Mountain Writers. I heard C. K. Williams, Eavan Boland, Jane Hirschfield, and Galway Kinnell give readings, thanks to Mountain Writers. My West Linn High School creative writing students had workshops led by Li-Young Lee, Naomi Shihab Nye, Agha Shahid Ali, and Cornelius Eady, thanks to Mountain Writers.

For decades, through its Northwest Regional Residencies Program, Mountain Writers toured stellar writers through Oregon and Washington. For years, Mountain Writers opened the doors of its Center (on Milwaukie Boulevard, in Portland), inviting the public to readings, workshops and gatherings.

Am I listing all of MW accomplishments? No. I’ve mentioned only a fraction of them. The 37 years of Mountain Writers’ existence hold a remarkable variety and number of programs. But there is one constant in the Mountain Writers’ story. 

Sandra Williams.

Sandra founded Mountain Writers in 1973. She’s been, all along, its sustaining force, its guiding vision. What our community of readers and writers owes to Sandra Williams is immeasurable. Offering Sandra our praise and gratitude today is a pleasure.

                                                                                               —Paulann Petersen

 

Link to Donation RequestConsider Mountain Writers Series for Charitable Giving

Please consider Mountain Writers Series for a tax-deductible contribution. We appreciate whatever gift you can make.

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