Iron Catastrophe

From yesterday’s blip, I bought this book at Annie Bloom’s Books in Portland. It is a collection of poems from my friend and mentor, Portland writer and poet, Kim Stafford. I found an interesting poem, “My Iron Catastrophe.” I was with Kim when he wrote this. In the summer of 2009, I was in a class of his at the Fishtrap Writers workshop deep in the wilderness in northeast Wallowa County in Oregon. One of our writers was a high school science teacher, and he gave us earth history/geology talks every morning. One was about a period in Earth’s history, the Iron Catastrophe. In the evening after dinner, we sat around a big bonfire and wrote for 20 minutes or so. I was sitting next to Kim when he wrote this. When we finished, we shared our writing, and Kim went before I did. He read his, and I thought, “Dammmmmmn. Genius. I don’t think I will be reading mine.” Ultimately, I did read, and Kim was encouraging.

But how cool that I could pick up a book, open its pages, and say, “I was sitting next to him when he wrote this, and then read it, deep in the woods of the northeastern corner of Oregon.”

I have been blessed with good writing experiences and teachers.