a new experience at a poetry reading

On Sunday I traveled with a few of my fellow MFA candidates to a poetry reading in a tiny town called Stayton. It's a small burg perhaps thirty miles to the northeast of Oregon State University. This reading was of particular importance, as Karen Holmberg, the director of our tiny program at OSU, was one of the featured readers. She read from an older book entitled The Perseids, but more from a manuscript of work yet to be published.

I felt intrigued to finally have the opportunity to hear Karen read. I has some preliminary experience with her work in the months leading up to my arrival in Corvallis, but that experience was only second hand--mostly from internet posting, periodical reviews, etc. Being so far away, her book was not readily available in stores or libraries. I suppose that is one of the many downfalls of regional notoriety. There are so many fantastic authors whose work may never be fully enjoyed on a wide scale due to the constraints of both cultural and social boundaries. This is not at all to say Karen's work, or any other regional author's work for that matter, is not worthy of such success, as it certainly is. I suppose I take issue most with the idea that some works, no matter how good, may never be fully enjoyed in the region of the country where I come from. It takes a real miracle to transcend the distance.

...Or perhaps it may only take one individual, being aware of the issue and taking note.

Check out these links for the featured readers:

Donald Wolff--http://www.eou.edu/~dwolff/SoonEnoughPressRelease.html
(I'm not too familiar with his work, but he has a very definite and interesting style. If you are a fan of a sort of Gothic Modernism, he is fabulous)

and of course, Karen Holmberg-- http://oregonstate.edu/dept/humanities/Newsletter/Fall%202007/Holmberg.htm
(This link will lead you to a informative release on her novella in verse, from which she read extensively at the reading.)