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[Sperm Whale] by Archibald Thorburn, 1860–1935 | Public domain in United States, via Wikimedia Commons I know Rumi wrote, “The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” but sometimes it’s just a fishhook.  I’m chasing spring salmon this week in Oregon from coast to mountains. I visited a library to see Amsterdam Quarterly…

Many thanks to the powerful Alaskan writer Marybeth Holleman for reposting my fishing essay from August 2013 along with a new poem from yesterday, June 1, 2014, called “Water Cave Near Mogollon Rim” about a place I visited in Arizona. Art and Nature: Metabolism of Stars: A Guest Post by Scott T. Starbuck artandnatureand.blogspot.com

I caught this mermaid while trolling off Orcas Island.  Suz’ people go into the water to catch salmon with their teeth which seems more honest and direct than sportfishers who “play” fish on feathered hooks and light lines.

November The Dream of Seven Tails (featured at The Trumpeter Journal of Ecosophy at Athabasca University in Alberta, Canada, and donated to Columbia Basin Fish & Wildlife Library, a program of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission)  October Chinook (sold at the The Spirit of the Salmon Fund’s Wy-Kan-Ush-Pum “Salmon People”Gala in Portland, Oregon) Steelhead Harp (donated to Washington…

One of the best spring salmon fishermen on a river I visit gave me “the speech” to get out of trouble with a girlfriend.  “I am sorry. It was my mistake. Please forgive me.”  He had been a missionary on many continents so I figured it was worth a try. The next time she and…

“Thinking About AWP 2014 in Seattle” (click if interested in a poet’s perspective)

Some of the poems were written at The Sitka Center for Art and Ecology in Oregon. I recall a scene in the film Fast Times at Ridgemont High when Sean Penn’s character Jeff Spicoli says in a dream, “Well Stu I’ll tell you, surfing’s not a sport, it’s a way of life, it’s no hobby.…

Photo by John Campbell. Click photo to see text. Four summers ago I taught a writing class at Columbia Gorge Community College in The Dalles so I could fish The Deschutes River.  The class had a big window overlooking The Gorge.  It was magical.  I loved the summer steelhead, redsides, smallmouth bass, and teaching among…

                                                          Here is my first spring chinook of April 2014.                                                        I caught these in 2013 in a few good days.                                          Ted Hughes wrote in his book River my favorite fishing poem                                                        “After Moonless Midnight.”  Here are two lines:                                                       “Their eyes waited, furious with gold brightness,”                                                       “Their savagery waited, and…