Clemens Starck, author of “Journeyman’s Wages,” which won the Oregon Book Award and the William Stafford Memorial Poetry Award, will present a reading with musical accompaniment Thursday, April 7, at 7:30 p.m. in the Austin Reading Room in the Jereld R. Nicholson Library at Linfield College.
Starck will be joined by poets Jon Broderick and Jay Speakman on various musical instruments. The musical accompaniment will provide an example of the integration between the spoken word and music. In addition to “Journeyman’s Wages,” Starck is the author of three other books of poems including “Studying Russian on Company Time” and “China Basin,” which were finalists for the Oregon Book Award, and “Traveling Incognito.” In 2010, he released a CD of his readings called “Looking for Parts.”
While at Linfield, Starck will hold a workshop for communication arts and creative writing students. His visit will introduce students to the work of a poet and performer and demonstrate how those talents can be integrated.
Starck, who lives outside Dallas, has made his living as a carpenter and construction foreman in California and the Northwest. He traveled to continue his education, riding freight trains and stopping when he found work. In addition to construction, he has been a ranch hand in Eastern Oregon, a newspaper reporter on Wall Street, a door-to-door salesman and a merchant seaman.
The event is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by Nicholson Library, the Linfield English Department and the Linfield Theatre and Communication Arts Department. For more information, contact Susan Barnes Whyte, 503-883-2517, swhyte@linfield.edu.
