books

For the Love of Language

The following is by Writers in the Grove member Steve Morse. It is based upon the prompt: “What would Shakespeare make of a modern library?”

Noam Ludwig Shakespere strolled eager through the great glass doors into the mystic halls of the sacred Word. Unfolding infinite in all direction a demesne of towering tomes, each a dedication, a devotion to the Word. Not any particular word, but a world where each word is Holy. Each syllable and sibilant phoneme, each lengthy, nonsensical, joyously opulent example of ostentatious onomatopoeia. From “See Spot Run” to dimestore detectives and the dreadful, dark domains of Dante’s infernal circles. A linguistic lair where Lovecraftian nightmares dance gaily upon gambrel roofs, where George’s Dragon glares greedily at the gleaming golden horde beneath the belly of Smaug, and children sit rapt in tales of Pooh.

Poets and philosophers, scientists and theologians, the Mighty, the mini and the uncounted multitude come to pay homage in these hallowed halls of mystery and imagination, dedication to the sacred words that have changed us all, charting the human course through antediluvian epochs to the star strewn future.

Noam wandered far, seeking and soaking in the sanctified spirit, leaving long behind him the realm of Known, only to look around and find he’d barely begun.

Peggy, Among the Stars

The following is an excerpt from the new book by Bev Walker, “Profiles…” Bev is a long-time member of Writers in the Grove.

She may be the smartest person I’ve ever met, certainly one of them, and certainly a shining star in my life. And a prime example of how deceptive appearance and manner can be.

The plain house dress and sagging cardigan sweater were always a little rumpled. Some stray pieces of her long thin black hair never seemed to find a home in all the years I new her. The rest hung precariously in a knot at the back of her neck. There was no sign of grey. She was in her nineties, how far, she wouldn’t say. When asked, she’d reply curtly, “Age is irrelevant.”

She was four-foot ten, round, and quiet. Her large sleepy eyes and calm demeanor reminded me of Yoda, the wise old elf of the Star Wars movies. That suited her more than most people realized. She’d been a closet Science Fiction writer as long as she can remember. Not with any thought of getting published, but just because she loved doing it.

When her husband died, she and her four young children moved to Forest Grove, Oregon. She took classes at Pacific University where her guest instructor was famed fantasy writer Ursula LeGuin. LeGuin’s husband was a professor there at the time. LeGuin became a profound influence on Peggy’s blossoming style, a turning point.

“She is a woman of extreme integrity,” said Peggy, “and I learned more from her than I ever had from any other teacher.”

That is tribute indeed as Peggy was a straight A student all her life, an honor graduate of the prestigious Reed College, as well as the Episcopal Church’s Education For Ministry Course (FFM), which is the equivalent to a four-year seminary course in religion.

She and I had been friends for some time when she asked me to help her organize and sort her file of writings. She couldn’t do it herself because she was totally blind from Macular Degeneration. She could type, but she couldn’t see to edit what she’d written, so was in the habit of just starting over, again and again, resulting in many versions, pieces all mixed, some on computer, some in a paper file.

We got into a routine. I’d sit at her computer and read aloud what she’d written. She told me changes as we went along.

She wanted to focus on one novel in particular. It was the romance of an astronaut, born in another galaxy, who discovers a lost world, and the strange girl he falls in love with. It came alive for me in Peggy’s words. Her amazing images sometimes had my head spinning with colorful pictures of a whole new universe unfolding before me. I was mesmerized by her breathtaking adventures among the stars.

Then suddenly there’d be a section where she started typing with her fingers on the wrong row of keys and there were pages of funny paper cuss words! The journey halted in peels of laughter when I told her what she’d done.

Once a week after church, four or five of us went to brunch in the next town. On the way to the restaurant it became a game to ask our personal guru trivia questions. “Stumping Peggy” was always fun, and a challenge. It never mattered the subject, our Peggy had a story, or at least an answer, to engage us. We all came to firmly believe that our Peg knew everything there was to know about everything.

One day, I discovered another side to our friend. It seems that when we thought we were playing games with our brain trust, she was quietly, and with a straight face, happily playing a different game with us. I innocently asked, “Peggy, how did you ever become so knowledgeable about so very many different subjects.”

With those big sleepy eyes and pixie smile, she looked at me sideways and blithely replied, “Oh, sometimes I lie.”

She knew darn well we’d never know the difference.

When Peggy died in 2009, I imagined her out there exploring her beloved universe, going where she’d always imagined going, and smiling as she discovers reality is even more fantastic than she ever dreamed.

Footnote: Today, as I write this, it is the 24th of April 2017, and I’ve been watching the news. By remote satellite hookup, a woman astronaut, age fifty-seven, is being interviewed. Among the records she’s set is one for the longest time living in space. She’s been orbiting the ear in a US spacecraft for almost two years. The newscaster notes, “There’s a Velcro strip on the outside of her pants, probably to stick her to the wall while she’s sleeping.” Her name is Peggy. Peggy Whitson. And I whisper, “Go, Peg, go.”

Writing Workshop at Oregon City Library July 30, 2017

Oregon City Library is celebrating its 175th anniversary with a free writing workshop with Cindy Williams Gutierrez and Paulann Petersen on Sunday, July 30, 2017. The workshop will help participants generate new writing of prose or poetry on their library experiences, “with treasured books, with the magic process of reading.”

The workshop is from 1-5PM, followed by a dinner (bring your own sack dinner) together, and a reading that is open to the public at 6:30PM at the newly expanded and remodeled library in Oregon City, Portland.

Please register for the workshop by calling the library at 503-657-8269 ext. 1017.

The Book

The following is by Writer’s in the Grove member, Bev Walkler, a poet, author, painter, and family historian.

It laughs, it cries, it shouts, it sings,
  and makes no sound at all
It’s a photo, a painting, a place to live
  you can hold in the palm of your hand.
It holds everything you can ever imagine,
  and sees nothing.
It has no hands or feet or brain
  to do what it proclaims, still
It builds a house, makes a quilt, sees an atom,
  takes you to the moon.
It comforts, cajoles, strikes terror, or peace,
  Depends on what you put in it.
It is the still small voice
  of all there is, was, or ever will be.

Seeds of…Volume II: Anthology of Pacific Northwest Writers

SEEDS OF…Volume II: Anthology of Pacific NW Writers (Volume 2) is the latest collection of writers from Writers in the Grove and community writers from around the Pacific Northwest published by Tawk Press.

Complied, edited, and published by Writer’s in the Grove leader, MaryJane Nordgren, the anthology features a wide but cohesive collection of stories, poems, and prose that will delight you and keep you reading page after page, even out loud to friends, family, and strangers on the bus.

The publisher’s description on Amazon describes the book best:

This second collection of essays, stories and poems by writers from Oregon and Washington varies in outlook and philosophy, in form and style as widely as does the Pacific Northwest community.

Diana Lubarsky leads off “Coping” with a hilarious crisis in the lives of her characters from Dante’s Angels. Mark Thalman reminds of the fragility of the line between life and death. Ross Hall, Lois Akerson and Bunny Hansen grow from loss. In a letter to Dorothy, Fred Melden contemplates where we are after life’s experiences. Joe Schrader follows poachers from Minnesota who are little better off hunting in Oregon. Mitch Metcalf engulfs us in a disaster in the North Sea. “Relating” brings Roger Ritchey, Rebecca Robinson, Hannah Kolehmainen and Matthew Hampton in touch with Nature. Beverly Walker and G.A. Meyerink rely on love of animals to bring out the best in people. Charles Pritchard, Joan Graves and Everett Goodwin define self in relationship with another. Joan Ritchey is reminded of generations of love by the family mantle clock. Bill Stafford’s humor wrings joy from plays on words beginning with ‘O.’ In “Finding Self,” Jessica Morrell’s planned escape to Nature becomes a lesson in tolerance and the joy in giving. Nel Rand, near the end of life, returns to what has mattered most. Paula Adams’ fearful tadpoles ponder one of their own who reaches beyond the known.

Rosemary Lombard, Barbara Schultz and Susan Munger reach into foreign settings. Karen Hessen, Eva Foster, Sarah Hampton and Gerlinde Schrader grow from difficult childhood challenges. Julie Caulfield and her brother’s inability to swallow at the dictate of their father brings challenges to their mother. Sandra Mason’s heart is beside the Pacific, but her roots are deep in the Midwest in “Remembering.” Susan Schmidlin wrestles with the hitches in farm maintenance. Susan Field and Muriel Marble remember life changing in a hurricane and a war. In “Reflecting,” Marilyn Schmidlin leans on and learns from a strong tree of life. Phil Pochurek and Wafford Tornieri explore humanness in the cycles of season and the moon. Alisa Hampton and M.J. Nordgren ponder the interconnectedness of seen and unseen.

These thirty-nine authors scatter wild and domestic seed abroad into the far-flung, fertile soil of imagination. But uniting them all is the love of the strength, beauty and challenge of Pacific Northwest area of the country.

Seeds of…Volume II is available in print on Amazon.com as a paperback.