Where Grasses Bend: Poems from Portland to Steens Mountains in the time of plagues
By Mimi German
()
About this ebook
March 2020. America began to shut down due to the Sars-COVID pandemic. Travel was halted. Workers were required to stay home. Medical facilities became flooded with sick and dying patients. Senior living homes locked their doors to family members. But what of the lovers? Part l of this book is dedicated to all the lovers
Mimi German
Mimi German is a poet and subversive artist dividing her time between life in the wilderness of Oregon's Steens Mt. and the urban strife of Portland, OR. Her first book of poetry, Beneath the Gravel Weight of Stars, was released in 2022 weaving her experiences as an advocate for unhoused Portlanders through poetry. Born a wanderer, Mimi left Philadelphia for NY in '82 for college. It was in NYC during the Reagan Administration that her first of a few non-violent disobedient arrests occurred. After college she joined the peace movement, Shalom Achshav (Peace Now), in Israel arriving just before the first Palestinian uprising. After returning to the US, Mimi split time between Cambridge, MA, and Halifax, Nova Scotia eking together money through nude modeling and as a musician busking on the streets of Halifax and Cambridge. In 1995, Mimi hit the road to head west to Oregon where she still resides. In 1997, Mimi was arrested again, this time on Shoshone land in Nevada with the late Chief Corbin Harney protesting against a proposed uranium dumpsite. In 2011 after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Mimi started an international group called RadCast which documented citizen radiation readings post-Fukushima, from around the globe. She was often asked to speak about the reality of radioactive toxicity around the globe on national and international talk shows. She was a frequent guest on Michael J. Ruppert's show, The Lifeboat Hour, and had a special weekly spot for radiation readings on Thom Hartman's show. After many years after it was clear that we as a society would never be rid of nuclear power, Mimi chose to act locally instead by doing direct support for unhoused people in Portland, OR. She is still doing that work today. Mimi is co-teaching an ongoing poetry workshop with unhoused poets at the offices of Street Roots, a newspaper written by the Portland unhoused community. Where Grasses Bend is Mimi's second book of poetry that was written from the start of the pandemic through today. The poems are about loss, longing, humanity, and the regeneration of Love as it presents itself in the wilderness of Oregon. Mimi's poetry has been published in the New Generation Beats Anthology 2022 and in the National Beat Poetry Foundation's, Remembering Jack Kerouac On His 100th Birthday. Her poems have also been published in the UK in International Times (IT), Steel JackDaw Magazine, and in the US, Sublunary Review, The Hopper Magazine, The Mantle, Three Line Poetry (Vols. 51/52), New Verse News and was a finalist in The Poetry Box and The Hopper for best chapbook manuscript. Her poems can also be found in the testimony files of Portland City Council sessions between 2017-2020. Beat Poet Laureate for the State of Oregon
Related to Where Grasses Bend
Related ebooks
phases: poems and musings Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNo Time Under the Sun Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChild in the Road Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPoems of My Soul Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsthe darkest bird: a slim book of poetry Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDeciduous Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSuicide Poems: A Widow's Journey Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Hollowed Edge of Almost Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFrom Persephone, With Love Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Thoughts Unlocked: Poetry from a Locksmith Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Toga and the Rose Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmused to Death Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Reason for Rhyme Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOf Time and Again Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPitchforks With Cyanide Laced Angel Wings: Ninety-Five Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Water Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGypsy Shadows On A Wayward Sky Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAll the Names Between Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsYellow Stars and Ice Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Body Of Winter Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEndless Space Between Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBite Down Little Whisper Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDream Work Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Small Things Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSo Far So Good Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hopes and Memories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRumble and Flash Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLaurie Lee Selected Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In the Light of the Full Moon: Dispersions, Glimpses, and Reflections Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHearthbeat: Poems of Family and Hometown Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Poetry For You
Beyond Thoughts: An Exploration Of Who We Are Beyond Our Minds Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Pillow Thoughts II: Healing the Heart Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Way Forward Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Things We Don't Talk About Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Love Her Wild: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bedtime Stories for Grown-ups Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Selected Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You Better Be Lightning Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Leaves of Grass: 1855 Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rumi: The Art of Loving Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dream Work Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Daily Stoic: A Daily Journal On Meditation, Stoicism, Wisdom and Philosophy to Improve Your Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Odyssey Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Prophet Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Tao Te Ching: A New English Version Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Iliad: The Fitzgerald Translation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Waste Land and Other Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Enough Rope: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Poems of John Keats (with an Introduction by Robert Bridges) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Inward Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Edgar Allan Poe: The Complete Collection Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Twenty love poems and a song of despair Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey: (The Stephen Mitchell Translation) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dante's Inferno: The Divine Comedy, Book One Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Divine Comedy: Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dante's Divine Comedy: Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5For colored girls who have considered suicide/When the rainbow is enuf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Where Grasses Bend
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Where Grasses Bend - Mimi German
"A paean to love in the time of plagues, a poignant precise elucidation
of the desolation row death of the American Dream, and a rapturous ode
to the mysterium tremendum the awe inspiring terrible beauty of
the high desert. With raven eyed razor sharp lyricism Mimi German's
WHERE GRASSES BEND is a masterpiece of poetry."
--Ron Whitehead, Lifetime Beat Poet Laureate
Mimi's verses elevate and embrace the voices of the vulnerable, forgotten, and disenfranchised. These words are weapons sheathed in love.
--Peggy & Brian Manning, Owner's of Revolutions Bookshop Portland, OR
"German is a grit queen of the outlaw rebel poet tradition, of the oral tradition of the Beats, Howling in anger and truth."
---Karlostheunhappy, International Beat Poet Laureate (England) 2022-2023
I love these new poems by poet/Beatmaster, Mimi German. I recommend you get a copy of Where Grasses Bend, but instead of reading the poems alone--at least--on the first time through--read them with a friend…
--Dennis Bernstein, Poet and Award Winning Investigative Journalist, Host of Flashpoints on Pacifica’s KPFA station.
They come to me like Sapho's poems, which I like very much.
---Dr. Ignacio Gotz, Professor Emeritus (Philosophy and Religion) Hofstra University
Words like waves of memories longing…
----Michael Orr, Intermedia Artist of Visual Poetry
Where Grasses Bend
Poems from Portland
to Steens Mountain
in the time of Plagues
By
Mimi German
my witness is the empty sky
Jack Kerouac
A close-up of a drawing Description automatically generated with medium confidencePUBLISH
A black and white drawing of a sheep Description automatically generated with medium confidenceEYEPUBLISHEWE
PUBLISHING POETRY, LITERATURE, ART, MUSIC
FOR HUMANITY’S SAKE
A BRAND NEW PUBLISHING COMPANY
SAN FRANCISCO
FOUNDED 2020
Copyright © 2023 Mimi German
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 979-8-9870259-4-9
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023943577
First Edition 2023
EBOOK ISBN:979-8-9870259-5-6
For
all the desert beings
Acknowledgments
The Scenic View was published in Remembering Jack Kerouac On His 100th Birthday by the National Beat Poetry Foundation in 2022
Barking At Crows was published in Sublunary Review, 2022
A Thousand Grains of Sand was published in International Times in 2022
A Thousand Grains of Sand published in the Long Island Quarterly in 2022
Poverty was published in the New Generation Beats 2022 Anthology by the National Beat Poetry Foundation and in International Times in 2022
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Table of Contents
PART