CONSTELLATIONS<\/p>\n
We knew he was different, <\/p>\n “Constellations” is forthcoming in Clover\u00a0<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Samuel Green<\/a> was born in Sedro-Woolley, Washington, and raised in the nearby CONSTELLATIONS We knew he was different, the one who called a pause in our pasture baseball once, the quiet, oldest son, still living at home. He\u2019d been to the store & was taking a shortcut back. Stop, he said, & … Continue reading
\nthe one who called a pause
\nin our pasture baseball once,
\nthe quiet, oldest son, still living
\nat home. He\u2019d been to the store
\n& was taking a shortcut back. Stop,<\/em>
\nhe said, & we did, letting bats
\n& gloves dangle. From this angle
\nyou could be . . . <\/em>& he named
\na constellation none of us knew
\nfrom school or Scouts. We were playing
\nwork-up. I\u2019d just hit an easy out
\ntoward the cow flop we used for third,
\na pop fly that rose like a soiled moon
\nbefore tumbling into the pocket
\nof Frankie\u2019s Ted Williams mitt
\nwith a wet plop. That\u2019s when the man said
\nStop,<\/em> said we looked like stars in a field
\nof sky, said we should imagine each of us
\na billion miles apart. For a moment
\nit scared us, so much sudden distance
\nfrom each flaring heart, & then
\nhe shuffled away toward the sagging wire
\nfence, taking with him the Greek
\nname that for a moment helped him see
\nsome sort of earthly sense.<\/p>\n
\nfishing and mill town of Anacortes. After four years in the military, including service in
\nAntarctica and South Vietnam, he attended college under the Veterans Vocational
\nRehabilitation Program, earning degrees from Highline Community College and
\nWestern Washington University (B.A. & M.A.). A 36-year veteran as a Poet-in-the-
\nSchools, he has taught in literally hundreds of classrooms around Washington State. He
\nhas also been a Visiting Professor at Southern Utah University, Western Wyoming
\nCommunity College, Colorado College, and served nine winter terms as Distinguished
\nVisiting Northwest Writer at Seattle University, as well as nine summers in Ireland.
\nPoems have appeared in hundreds of journals, including Poetry, Poetry Northwest, Poet &
\nCritic, Poetry East, Southern Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner,<\/em> and Puerto del Sol.<\/em> Among his ten\u00a0collections of poems are Vertebrae: Poems 1972-1994 <\/em><\/a>(Eastern Washington University Press)\u00a0and The Grace of Necessity<\/a> <\/em>(Carnegie-Mellon University Press), which won the 2008\u00a0Washington State Book Award for Poetry. <\/a>He has lived for 29 years off the grid on remote\u00a0Waldron Island off the Washington coast in a log house he built himself after living in a\u00a0tent for three years. He is, with his wife, Sally, Co-Editor of the award-winning Brooding\u00a0Heron Press, <\/a>which produces fine, letterpressed volumes. In December, 2007, he was\u00a0named by Governor Christine Gregoire to a two-year term as the Inaugural Poet\u00a0Laureate for the State of Washington.<\/a> In January of 2009, he was awarded a National
\nEndowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry, and was a member of the NEA\u2019s poetry
\npanel for the 2011 fellowships.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"