circus

May 13, 2022

A New Poet for Oregon—Lee Meier

My good friend and Oregon legend Lee Meier has published an extraordinary new collection of poems called Circus Machinery. It’s his first book.

I urge everyone out there who cares about Oregon literature and who wants to support local poets and writers to check out this book. The link to purchase a print edition is:

Lee and I go back to 2002 when I discovered that back in 1970, he was one of the four young people who approached Governor McCall to ask for a site to hold a rock festival outside of Portland with the idea of a “defusing mechanism (McCall’s words) to avoid violence downtown during the national convention of the American Legion. This was right after the invasion of Cambodia and Kent State and well, you know the rest—a terrible time.

Lee was 20 years in 1970, and his successful and far out effort helped elect McCall to a second term and change the course of modern Oregon history for the better. When I was writing my Vortex book, Lee was beyond generous and sat with me for a long interview and gave me the use of all the incredible photos he took at Vortex. His generosity was one of the more inspiring moments of my creative life.

These poems were written over the span of his adult life and take the reader on an unforgettable journey through Lee’s life and the landscapes that enchanted him. I know I will be reading these poems again and again, for a long time.

Get the book. Support a new Oregon poet.

Support Meditations Blog

The Old Crow

Book Club

$11.99 + $3 Shipping

In December of 2020, author Matt Love moved to Portland to care for his elderly father.

Returning to the Rose City jolted Love after 23 years residing on the Oregon Coast. In the Sellwood neighborhood where he lived, Love met a homeless man named Mark. They formed a friendship over literature and the unforeseen magical discoveries in street libraries. They created The Old Crow Book Club, and yes, sometimes that involved drinking Old Crow on a sidewalk.

The club also included several other Sellwood homeless men and women cut from John Steinbeck's Cannery Row cloth.

In due course, Love learned the members' stories of homelessness and how they survived. He wondered what happened to his beloved state of Oregon and attempted to help Mark get off the streets only to run up against the seemingly futile policies to address the crisis.

Along the way, he had the best conversations about books in his life and wrote The Old Crow Book Club, where he recounts his interactions with the homeless people in his neighborhood and offers some suggestions how to alleviate what he considers the greatest man-made American humanitarian disaster of his adult life.

The Old Crow Book Club is available for purchase here and select independent bookstores in Oregon.

Choice Cuts

of Oregon Fiction

$22.99 + $3 Shipping

Choice Cuts of Oregon Fiction by Matt Love contains 20 stories, all set in Oregon. The cast of characters includes a depressed Santa Claus, Steve Prefontaine, Jack Ramsay's fast break offense, socialist squirrels, a clearcut, a dead deer, a junior high football team, a high school tennis player, a dissipated teacher, a man who evolves into a beaver, a homeless vet, a jilted preacher, a double date to a prom, rural degenerates, a wily caterer, and much more.

The publication of the collection culminates a quarter century of the author's writing about Oregon and rambling around the state.

Choice Cuts is available for purchase here, through Amazon, or select independent bookstores in Oregon.

The Savage

of State Street

Nestucca Spit Press is proud to present The Savage of State Street: The Thieving and Literary Lives of Smoky Epley. He is the greatest unheralded writer in Oregon history and also one of its more mediocre, colorful and persistent thieves.

$19.99 + $3 Shipping

In 1973, Oregon State University Press published Men in Exile: An Anthology of Creative Writing by Inmates of the Oregon State Penitentiary. Twenty-two of Smoky Epley's pieces appeared in the book.

Smoky spent most of his adult life in state and federal prisons for robbery. In 2008, during one of his brief stints of freedom, Smoky became friends with Matt Love, an Oregon author and publisher. They met after Love discovered Men in Exile and wrote a newspaper column about the landmark book. Smoky read the column and reached out.

He returned to prison in 2009 after forging a check. Upon his release in 2011, Love encouraged Smoky to write a memoir. He completed half of Auto before dying in February of 2013.