Oregon’s poet laureate brings verse to every corner of Oregon

interview by Cathy Carroll

Ellen Waterson of Bend is midway through a two-year term as Oregon’s poet laureate. Poetry has always been at the center of her writing, and she is also the author of three award-winning literary nonfiction books: Walking the High Desert, Where the Crooked River Rises and Then There Was No Mountain.

Waterston founded the Writing Ranch, offering retreats and workshops for established and emerging writers, and the literary arts nonprofit, The Nature of Words, which she directed for more than a decade. She also founded the Waterston Desert Writing Prize, annually recognizing a nonfiction book proposal that examines the role of deserts in the human narrative, now a program of the High Desert Museum. Her latest book is We Could Die Doing This, Dispatches on Ageing from Oregon’s Outback, a collection of essays.

What are some of your most memorable moments as Oregon’s poet laureate thus far?

As I gallop back and forth across this magnificent state (think Poetry Express!), I can honestly say every workshop, every formal event or conference, every gathering large or small, whether in rural or urban settings, has been truly memorable. Wherever I have gone, both on Oregon’s dry side and wet side, the appetite for poetry, to hear it and write it, has been staggering.

I have a theory about that. I’m struck by the fact that when words are strung together with creativity, intention and compassion, they elicit the same response from everyone, be they fourth graders, National Guard cadets, residents at senior centers, ranchers, CEOs or community college students. It gives me hope like nothing else.

Poetry, liberally defined, is an agent of understanding. … Particularly at this time in Oregon’s and the nation’s history, I see the importance of reinforcing this, our common language.

What are your hopes for the second half of your term?

I hope to go to the counties in the state I’ve not yet visited. To date I have visited fourteen at least once. I look forward to visiting the remaining twelve in year two.

The high desert has long been your muse. What inspires you now?

The high desert landscape remains my muse. I wouldn’t dream of changing horses now. I often say I believe we are led to the landscape that teaches what we need to learn. For me, it is Oregon’s Outback. And what a teacher it has been—in patience, subtlety, humility, tenacity, gratitude and awe. I don’t always succeed, but try to bring those qualities to the page and to each day. For others, the muse might not be a landscape, rather a person or life event. Whatever it is, the muse is both partner and taskmaster in writing the story each of us came to tell with our lives. As I work on a new collection of poetry and a creative nonfiction project, my muse sits me down, gets me going.

What impact do you think your teaching and writing has had in the region?

I do know my teaching (I started the Writing Ranch in 2000) has launched emerging writers as well as helped established writers. Many have been published. More importantly, and I think this is generally so, is that all come away from a workshop with a deeper relationship with a renewed commitment to writing.

As to the impact of my own writing, my experience is that slaving over a manuscript, poetry or prose, then offering it in book form to readers, is tantamount to blowing a small feather off your palm, watching it get picked up by a breeze and blown away. You never really can know what will grab hold, if it will, and, if so, when.