Howard W. Robertson
Encyclopedia
Howard W. Robertson is an American poet.
. He married Margaret Collins on August 10, 1991, and has two daughters and two sons. He received a B.A. in Russian (1970) and an M.A. in Comparative Literature (1978) from the University of Oregon
as well as an M.S.L.S. in Library Science (1975) from the University of Southern California
. He was the Slavic Catalog Librarian and Bibliographer at the University of Oregon Library
during 1975-1993. He is a past President of the Lane Literary Guild. He has been a full-time poet since 1993.
Robertson was a long-haul truck driver
in the American West
during 1994-1995. He is a 2007 Jack Straw Writer with Jack Straw Productions in Seattle, Washington
. Biographical information about Howard W. Robertson is included in an interview by American Book Award winner Matt Briggs
, available in a podcast on the Jack Straw Productions website. Robertson read his poems at the 2007 Burning Word Festival. Robertson was the Poet-in-Residence at the Henry Art Gallery on the University of Washington campus in Seattle during April 2010. Robertson is part-Cherokee and gave a reading together with other Native American authors at Tsunami Books in Eugene, Oregon, during November, 2010.
through Nonbeing
. He intends a continuous poetic flow that pauses at times but seldom stops, so that his line-breaks become purely visual and do not halt the forward progress of the poetic line when spoken. He means for his poetry to affirm with Aristotle
that truth
is most universally told through a blend of the fictional and the factual. He conceives each poem as an essay of existential discovery, an enterprising foray into the discursive wilderness. He maintains that his poetry portrays visually the drift and swirl of the things themselves and the interconnected chiaroscuro of shadowy essence and shimmering everydayness. He bases his work on the belief that reality
never fails and that the phenomenal revelatory streaming of its representation in his poetry is authentic. He credits Heidegger
, Whitman
, Pushkin, Bashō
, Cervantes
, Montaigne
, and Ovid
as the major influences on his writing.
His first book of poems was titled to the fierce guard in the Assyrian Saloon and was published by Ahsahta Press at Boise State University
in 1987. His second book of poems was titled Ode to certain interstates and Other Poems and was published by Clear Cut Press
in 2003. His third book of poems was titled The Bricolage of Kotegaeshi and was published by The Backwaters Press in 2007. His fourth book of poems, The Gaian Odes, won the Sinclair Poetry Prize and was published by Evening Street Press in 2009. His fifth book of poems, Two Odes of Quiddity and Nil, was published in 2010 by Publication Studio.
Robinson Jeffers
Prize in 2003, the Elizabeth R. Curry Poetry Prize at Slippery Rock University
in 2006, and the Sinclair Poetry Prize from Evening Street Press in 2009. He has also won the Bumbershoot Writers-in-Performance Award in 1993, the Pacifica Award in 1995, and the Literal Latte Award in 1997.
Life
Robertson was born in Eugene, OregonEugene, Oregon
Eugene is the second largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon and the seat of Lane County. It is located at the south end of the Willamette Valley, at the confluence of the McKenzie and Willamette rivers, about east of the Oregon Coast.As of the 2010 U.S...
. He married Margaret Collins on August 10, 1991, and has two daughters and two sons. He received a B.A. in Russian (1970) and an M.A. in Comparative Literature (1978) from the University of Oregon
University of Oregon
-Colleges and schools:The University of Oregon is organized into eight schools and colleges—six professional schools and colleges, an Arts and Sciences College and an Honors College.- School of Architecture and Allied Arts :...
as well as an M.S.L.S. in Library Science (1975) from the University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
. He was the Slavic Catalog Librarian and Bibliographer at the University of Oregon Library
Knight Library
Knight Library is the main facility of the University of Oregon's library system. It is located on the university's campus in Eugene, Oregon, United States. The library design is emblematic of the architecture of the university's older buildings, and it serves as a hub of student activity. As of...
during 1975-1993. He is a past President of the Lane Literary Guild. He has been a full-time poet since 1993.
Robertson was a long-haul truck driver
Truck driver
A truck driver , is a person who earns a living as the driver of a truck, usually a semi truck, box truck, or dump truck.Truck drivers provide an essential service to...
in the American West
Western United States
.The Western United States, commonly referred to as the American West or simply "the West," traditionally refers to the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. Because the U.S. expanded westward after its founding, the meaning of the West has evolved over time...
during 1994-1995. He is a 2007 Jack Straw Writer with Jack Straw Productions in Seattle, Washington
Seattle, Washington
Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...
. Biographical information about Howard W. Robertson is included in an interview by American Book Award winner Matt Briggs
Matt Briggs
Matt Briggs is an American novelist, and short story writer.-Biography:Matt Briggs was born in Seattle, Washington, which he still calls home. He grew up in the Snoqualmie Valley raised by working-class, counter-culture parents who cultivated and sold cannabis . Briggs has written two books set in...
, available in a podcast on the Jack Straw Productions website. Robertson read his poems at the 2007 Burning Word Festival. Robertson was the Poet-in-Residence at the Henry Art Gallery on the University of Washington campus in Seattle during April 2010. Robertson is part-Cherokee and gave a reading together with other Native American authors at Tsunami Books in Eugene, Oregon, during November, 2010.
Howard W. Robertson is a poet, novelist, librarian, and father. Three of his great-great-grandfathers arrived in Eugene City, Oregon, in 1853, two by covered wagon and the other by undetermined means. Mr. Robertson was born in Eugene in 1947 and by some pleasant oversight of destiny has ended up living most of his adult life there. He began writing poetry at the age of seventeen while teaching himself to type, though that was the first and last time he has ever successfully composed on a typewriter. Over the years, he has made many apparently foolish decisions motivated by the need to find his own poetic voice. Receiving two degrees from the University of Oregon and one from USC has failed to open his eyes to the palpably misguided nature of his existence; he persists in believing he is following a straight course of steady development as a writer. Visits to Mexico, Western Europe, and the Soviet Union, and time spent in Colorado and Southern California, have been important experiences for him, but the Oregon experience remains central to his work. His poems are not actually his but rather those of Lee Douglas, who resides in New Geneva, Oregon, together with a number of personages about whom Mr. Robertson and he write. The essential theme of their work is that living is a beautiful and terrible mystery that is best faced with humor, endurance, and love.
Works
Robertson defines poetry broadly as a very inclusive genre, referring to the archaic meaning of "poem": a made thing, ποίημα. He consequently considers each of his poems to be an ode, a fiction, an essay, an abstract painting, and a jazz improvisation. He describes his poetry as a mimesis of the streaming of BeingBeing
Being , is an English word used for conceptualizing subjective and objective aspects of reality, including those fundamental to the self —related to and somewhat interchangeable with terms like "existence" and "living".In its objective usage —as in "a being," or "[a] human being" —it...
through Nonbeing
Nothing
Nothing is no thing, denoting the absence of something. Nothing is a pronoun associated with nothingness, is also an adjective, and an object as a concept in the Frege-Church ontology....
. He intends a continuous poetic flow that pauses at times but seldom stops, so that his line-breaks become purely visual and do not halt the forward progress of the poetic line when spoken. He means for his poetry to affirm with Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
that truth
Truth
Truth has a variety of meanings, such as the state of being in accord with fact or reality. It can also mean having fidelity to an original or to a standard or ideal. In a common usage, it also means constancy or sincerity in action or character...
is most universally told through a blend of the fictional and the factual. He conceives each poem as an essay of existential discovery, an enterprising foray into the discursive wilderness. He maintains that his poetry portrays visually the drift and swirl of the things themselves and the interconnected chiaroscuro of shadowy essence and shimmering everydayness. He bases his work on the belief that reality
Reality
In philosophy, reality is the state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or might be imagined. In a wider definition, reality includes everything that is and has been, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible...
never fails and that the phenomenal revelatory streaming of its representation in his poetry is authentic. He credits Heidegger
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher known for his existential and phenomenological explorations of the "question of Being."...
, Whitman
Walt Whitman
Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
, Pushkin, Bashō
Matsuo Basho
, born , then , was the most famous poet of the Edo period in Japan. During his lifetime, Bashō was recognized for his works in the collaborative haikai no renga form; today, after centuries of commentary, he is recognized as a master of brief and clear haiku...
, Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His magnum opus, Don Quixote, considered the first modern novel, is a classic of Western literature, and is regarded amongst the best works of fiction ever written...
, Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne , February 28, 1533 – September 13, 1592, was one of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance, known for popularising the essay as a literary genre and is popularly thought of as the father of Modern Skepticism...
, and Ovid
Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...
as the major influences on his writing.
His first book of poems was titled to the fierce guard in the Assyrian Saloon and was published by Ahsahta Press at Boise State University
Boise State University
Boise State University is a public university located in Boise, Idaho. Originally founded in 1932 as a junior college by the Episcopal Church, the university became an independent institution in 1934, and has been awarding baccalaureate and master degrees since 1965...
in 1987. His second book of poems was titled Ode to certain interstates and Other Poems and was published by Clear Cut Press
Clear Cut Press
- About :Clear Cut Press was founded by novelist Matthew Stadler and Up Records co-founder Rich Jensen in 2002. Jensen began talking to Stadler while taking a poetry class in 1997. Their mutual interest in cultural movements and the role of books lead to a discussion resulting in the press...
in 2003. His third book of poems was titled The Bricolage of Kotegaeshi and was published by The Backwaters Press in 2007. His fourth book of poems, The Gaian Odes, won the Sinclair Poetry Prize and was published by Evening Street Press in 2009. His fifth book of poems, Two Odes of Quiddity and Nil, was published in 2010 by Publication Studio.
List of publications
- Yellow Medicine Review (Spring 2011, pp. 69-82)
- Yellow Medicine Review (Spring 2010, pp. 178-184)
- Literal Latte: The Anthology (iUniverse, 2008, pp. 203-208)
- Where We Live Now (www.suddenly.org, 2008, pp. 393-400)
- Snow Monkey (November 2008, webpage)
- Jack Straw Writers Anthology (Jack Straw Productions, 2007, pp. 28-32)
- SLAB (issue 1, 2006, pp. 11-12)
- Square Lake (no. 5, spring 2004, pp. 52-53)
- The Clear Cut Future (Clear Cut Press, 2003, pp.90-103)
- Tor House Newsletter (summer 2003, p. 3)
- Hipfish (April 2003, p. 31)
- Emily Dickinson Awards Anthology (Universities West Press, 2002, pp. 20-21)
- Nest (summer 2001, pp. 129-132)
- Literal LatteLiteral LatteLiteral Latte is a bi-monthly literary journal based in New York City and edited by Jenine Gordon Bockman. It was founded in June 1994. The journal published its last print edition in July 2003, but has continuously maintained an online version since November 1996...
(v. 4, no. 2, November/December 1997, p. 16) - Nimrod (v. 41, no. 1, fall/winter 1997, pp. 113-120)
- Fireweed (v. 8, no. 4, summer 1997, pp. 20-21; v. 7, no. 4, summer 1996, pp. 13-16; v. 7, no. 3, spring 1996, p. 45; v. 4, no. 2, January 1993, p. 33; and v. 1, no. 2, January 1990, pp. 17-20)
- The Ahsahta Anthology (Ahsahta Press, 1996, pp. 204-209)
- Pacifica (1996, p. 2; and 1995, pp. 3-4)
- Ergo! (1993, pp. 74-76)
- Croton Review (no. 6, 1983, p. 4)
- Yet Another Small Magazine (v. 2, no. 1, 1983, p. 5)
- Yellow SilkYellow SilkYellow Silk: Journal of Erotic Arts was a magazine founded by writer and editor Lily Pond and published quarterly from 1981 to 1996.-Anthologies:Works published in this magazine were anthologized in:...
(no. 6, winter 1983, p. 5) - Negative Capability (v. 2, no. 4, fall 1982, p. 84)
- Pinchpenny (v. 3, no. 2, April/May 1982, pp. 14-15)
- Assembling (no. 11, 1981; no. 8, 1978; and no. 7, 1977)
- Laughing Unicorn (v. 2, no. 1, 1980, p. 16)
- Glassworks (no. 3, 1978, pp. 47-49)
- Laughing Bear (no. 6, 1978, pp. 21-27; and no. 2/3, 1977, pp. 57-59)
- Interstate (no. 9, 1977, p. 89).
Awards
Robertson's poetry has won the Tor HouseTor House and Hawk Tower
Tor House and Hawk Tower are buildings in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, built by poet Robinson Jeffers.- Tor House :Jeffers began construction on Tor House in 1918 and with the aid of a stonemason completed it in 1919. Jeffers named it "Tor" house after the type of ground on which the house was...
Robinson Jeffers
Robinson Jeffers
John Robinson Jeffers was an American poet, known for his work about the central California coast. Most of Jeffers' poetry was written in classic narrative and epic form, but today he is also known for his short verse, and considered an icon of the environmental movement.-Life:Jeffers was born in...
Prize in 2003, the Elizabeth R. Curry Poetry Prize at Slippery Rock University
Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania
Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania is a public, master's-level university that offers some doctoral programs in cooperation with Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Both institutions are members of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education...
in 2006, and the Sinclair Poetry Prize from Evening Street Press in 2009. He has also won the Bumbershoot Writers-in-Performance Award in 1993, the Pacifica Award in 1995, and the Literal Latte Award in 1997.
Reviews
- Grant Cogswell's February 3, 2005 review of Ode to certain interstates and Other Poems in The StrangerThe Stranger (newspaper)The Stranger is an alternative weekly newspaper in Seattle, Washington, USA. It runs a blog known as Slog.-History:The Stranger was founded by Tim Keck, who had previously co-founded the satirical newspaper The Onion, and cartoonist James Sturm. Its first issue came out on September 23, 1991...
- Novella Carpenter's August 11, 2004 review of Ode to certain interstates and Other Poems in metroactive
External links
- Howard W. Roberton's website at the Authors Guild
- Howard W. Roberton listing in Poets & WritersPoets & WritersPoets & Writers, Inc. is one of the largest nonprofit literary organization in the United States serving poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers...
directory - Robertson's essay "What Is To Be Done Visually?" in Laughing Bear Newsletter