Ode to Jim Harrison

First, let’s begin with your first places in the annals of American literature:

Best writer on the glory and danger of fantastic female fannies.

Best writer on dogs.

Best sentence written about dogs: “There is something about doing a favor for a dog that calms you down.”

Best writer on roughing it in cabins (sorry Henry David Thoreau).

Best writer on sleeping outdoors.

Best writer on stumps.

Best writer on rivers.

Best writer on fishing who didn’t claim fishing was the quintessential sublime metaphor for a good life.

Best poem of cultural protest and myth busting, “The Brand New Statue of Liberty,” where the poet constructs a necklace of Native American and animal skulls in a football field and then tosses it around Lady Liberty’s neck from a helicopter.

Best poem ever written about a modest dick.

Best novella, Legends of the Fall.

Best writer on preparing and eating camp food.

Best single essay on gluttony, “A Really Big Lunch,” that chronicled a 37-course meal that took eleven hours to consume.

Best writer on inspiring readers to want to live fuller, larger lives.

Best writer depicting the utter flaccid and petty nature of academics.

You wrote many sentences that changed my life and led me to become a writer, such as this one, “I sat on numerous beaches and stared at the ocean until it was an ocean inside my head. The ocean was a god unknown, galactic…”

You wrote a couplet about Lauren Hutton much in the same vein as Robert Graves’ poem about Ava Gardner!

You taught me the verb delaminated and made a strong case as the perfect verb to describe what happens to Americans when they don’t fulfill their promise or even try.

You wrote Dalva, the best novel about an American woman I have ever read.

You wrote, “How can you experience the rich fabric of life in a locale without visiting the bars? The answer is, you can’t.” Oregon’s taverns and dive bars became my first and perhaps greatest subject—300,000 and still counting.

You talked to me with your writing.

You infrequently raged in your poetry.

You wrote: “If you go outside you will not be taken as seriously (as a writer) as if you stayed inside feeding on your own brain snot.”

You wrote for an automotive magazine; I wrote for a PUD magazine, one feature about a craft fair at a senior center on Panther Creek in Otis that nobody attended and I ended up buying doilies in sympathy.

You made me look up many of the authors and poets you freely referenced. I found Lorca that way.

You played on the offensive and defensive lines of your high school football team and thank the gods for that because quarterbacks never end up as writers.

You snorted cocaine with Jack Nicholson and he cut you a check for $25k to support a writing career when you were flat broke.

You compared seeing a 49-year-old woman wearing a sundress bending over in front of flower shop to seeing a big bear below as you came over a sand dune.

You wrote: “On the fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost I rose early

and went fishing where I saw an osprey eat a bass in a tree.” I wrote a poem about an osprey man.

You wrote:

It wasn’t until the sixth century

that the Christians

decided animals weren’t part of

the kingdom of heaven.

Hoof, wing, and paw can’t put

money in the collection plate.

These lunatic shit-brained fools

excluded our beloved creatures.

Amen!

The East Coast critics never gave your novels proper attention and praise because East Coast critics never camped, fished, fought, hunted, cooked, ate, did drugs, drank or fucked like you and your characters did. You unnerved the critics with your verve, zest, insatiability, and most of all, pursuit of passions.

One of the most pivotal moments of life was meeting you. I share the story here in violation of poetic standard for odes because I have no choice. It was March 10^th, 1996, my 32^nd birthday. My girlfriend and I were living in a loft in Northwest Portland. I arrived home from a miserable teaching job in a suburban wasteland. I had to quit and take one last shot at creating a writing life after so many failed, pretentious attempts. My girlfriend knew how much I loved your novels (I hadn’t discovered your poems yet). She said you were doing a book sighing for a new collection of poetry at a bookstore 13 blocks from the loft. It was going on right now! I raced outside, jogged 13 blocks, and stopped. There was a line out the door to meet you. I waited in line wondering what I was going to say. I’d never attended a book signing before; I’d never met an author. The line moved slowly but eventually I made it inside the store. There you were, sitting at a table with a stack of books to your left and a golden, bejeweled goblet of wine. A tall, beautiful Native American woman wearing braids stood nearby ready to replenish the goblet. You looked like you’d gone the distance with Smokin’ Joe Frazier or survived Guadalcanal. Finally, I stood in front of you. I thanked you for writing novels that had so enriched my life. I told you it was my birthday. You signed my copy of After Ikkyu and Other Poems, “Happy Birthday! Matt.” I jogged all the way home, read the volume twice. Several months later I resigned my teaching job, and later that summer, moved to the Oregon Coast.

There it all happened: the ocean, Nestucca Spit, dogs, restoring a wildlife refuge, manual labor, burn barrels, barbecuing fresh tuna, planting gardens, understanding ecology, rural simplicity, learning how to teach a different, grittier way, walking through clearcuts, and, after a serious misfire trying to imitate John Steinbeck, at long last, the writing began and hasn’t stopped for 30 years. Your writing was a chief instigator. Thank you.