Stephen Meadows and Brigit Truex
Monday May 21, 2012 at 7:30 PM
1719 25th Street
Host: Bob Stanley
Stephen Meadows is a Californian of pioneer and Ohlone Indian descent. He earned degrees from San Francisco State University and UC Santa Cruz, where he worked under National Book Award winner Lucille Clifton. His poems have appeared in anthologies and journals nationwide, and one graces a bronze plaque in San Francisco. A twenty-year veteran of public radio and a former West Point cadet, Meadows now lives with his family in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. His first book is called Releasing the Days (Heyday, 2011).
Tenmile
In a logged over meadow
looking down into the mouth
of the valley at dusk
it is quiet here
but for the sound
of the oncoming wind
in the stunt growth fir
the long crease
that Suicide Creek makes
toward the dim lights
on the Umpqua river
falls away into shadow
there is still red sky
to the west
where the sun parts again
the logger’s slash
far toward Coos Bay
they have left nothing here
but the names
and the brain like silence
— Stephen Meadows
Brigit Truex has lived in the four quarters of the States since beginning her writing career. In each locale she has also established workshops to help others hone their prose and poetry as well, but her primary focus is on poetry. Her mixed ethnic background (French Canadian-Abenak/Cree and Irish) has been a theme she continues to explore in her work, approaching it from various angles. She has been published in various literary journals and anthologies including Atlanta Review, Tule Review, Native Literatures, Yellow Medicine Review and others. She is a board member of Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers and Native Writers Circle of the Americas.
