Poet for the People

[February 2nd, 2005] After counting 425 responses to our invitation to nominate a poet laureate for Oregon, the majority have elected Portland poet Judith Barrington for the, as yet, unofficial post.

Word has come to WW that we might have beat various local arts organizations to the punch by launching our search for a state poet before they could roll out official plans. We don't apologize for our wild impatience and, therefore, recommend Ms. Barrington to the various arts committees as a great candidate for the office of state versifier.

Barrington, an Anglo-American poet and memoirist, is the author of Horses and the Human Soul, Lifesaving: A Memoir and Trying to Be an Honest Woman.

Portland poets Paulann Petersen, Leanne Grabel, Dan Raphael and Carlos Reyes were runners up, while two young poets, Trevino Brings Plenty and Emily Riley, inspired an impressive write-in campaign after canvassing various bars and clubs with election posters.

In addition to the 10 names on our ballot, readers nominated another 28 poets, an impressive display of both the talent and the enthusiasm for poetry in Portland.

^Portland Confidential

By Phil Stanford

(WestWinds Press, 192 pages. $15.95)

Criminals of Portland, listen up! There was life before meth, burglary and car-prowling. In fact, your forebears were vastly cooler (if no less sociopathic) than you. Portland Tribune columnist Phil Stanford makes this case in an entertaining trip back to a film noir incarnation of the Rose City, via police files and the fading memories of a few old-timers.

Stanford's subjects are the mob bosses, crooked cops, petty thugs, bought-off politicos, on-the-make strippers and pro heist artists who apparently ran amok in Portland in the 1950s. Stanford, a former private eye, obviously loves this stuff, and he recounts the rise and fall of "Big" Jim Elkins, the era's premier crime boss, with a street-smart sneer.

Killings, ripoffs, whoredom and gambling-Stanford takes it all more or less in stride, as his cast of characters engages in prolonged battles for control of a "wide-open town." The zing and zip of the narrative make Confidential a fast read-it helps that the skinny volume is stuffed with dead-cool period photos (it seems Portlanders didn't always dress like refugees from an ill-fated Himalayan expedition). For all the fun, there's subliminal melancholy, too: The city Stanford writes about is a lost world, nastier, denser, wilder and more elegant than today. Zach Dundas