Dill Pickle Club

Two Minutes With Walt Curtis from dill pickle club on Vimeo.

More videos

Here are some more videos of me spouting off:

The Naked Poet

Walt Curtis at Pacific NW College of Art

Walt Curtis at Pacific NW College of Art, Feb 22, 2012:

Mala Noche in Mexico (slide show).

Day of the Dead

Photos of Walt

Photos of Walt Curtis

The Series of Events

By Mayoral Proclamation - It's Walt Curtis Week

Big Foot

Sasquatch, when you come over the mountain
I will be going the other way.

Big Foot, your foot is so big
they will have to send away special
to a mail-order house in Chicago
just to fit you for civilization.

When you come over the mountain
perhaps we will know our hairiest dreams of nature,
outlawed chickens come home to roost.

Won't "it" steal a white woman, rancher's wife,
and take her home to the gloomy inhuman glen?

Oh no, you only want to be alone left, unspoiled
in the wilderness, your furry ear listening to a rock
for the first sounds of love.

An introverted King Kong,
you only want to roam the mountain forests unmolested,
but man the spoiler, the naked ape,
seeks his mythic image a missing link.

Big Foot, if they should catch you
I would like to be the first to buy you
an extra large pair of bedroom slippers or galoshes.
Of course, the shoe salesman will shoot on sight.

This is a favorite poem of mine. It's been misprinted twice! Once in Prescott

St. Press. I loved Vi Gale, now deceased. However she didn't like the last
which read " the shoe salesman will shit or shoot on sight." I prefer this PG version.

Walt

*

Salmon Poet

Sabrina Guitart is a documentary filmmaker, traveller, and poet from Barcelona. In close collaboration with Walt she has been producing an evocation of the spiritual journey of the salmon, the relationship of humans to Mother Earth, and the natural landscape of Oregon.

Salmon Poet will screen at 3:00 on May 10 at the Oregon Sesquicentennial Film Festival at Marylhurst University. Admission is free.

A Partial Bibliography of Walt's Poetry and Work

Angel Pussy and Other Urban American Poems
By Walt Curtis
Published by CLAP, 1970
20 pages

The Erotic Flying Machine: Poems
By Walt Curtis, Frank Poliat,
Illustrated by Frank Poliat
Published by Out of the Ashes Press, 1971
ISBN 0912874023, 9780912874029
80 pages

Wauregon: Or, Beautiful Water
By Walt Curtis
Published by Nail Press, 1974
31 pages

Mad Bombers Notebook, Or, A Ekology Handbook: A Story
By Walt Curtis
Published by Hoodoo Times/Out of the Ashes Press, 1974
30 pages

The Roses of Portland
By Walt Curtis
Published by Hoodoo Times, 1974
44 pages

The Sunflower: And Other Earth Poems
By Walt Curtis
Published by Hoodoo Times/OutoftheAshes Press, 1975
56 pages

Meditation at High Rocks on the Clackamas River
By Walt Curtis
Published by Lightfoot Press, 1976 (Broadside)

The Mad Poems, the Unreasonable Ones
By Walt Curtis, Out of the Ashes Press
Published by OOTAP, 1976

Mala Noche, Or, If You Coger with the Bull You Get the Horn: A Story
By Walt Curtis
Published by Out of the Ashes Press, 1977
50 pages

Peckerneck Country: The Selected Poems of Walt Curtis.
By Walt Curtis
Published by Mr. Cogito Press, 1978
50 pages

Journey Across America
By Walt Curtis
Published by Out of the Ashes Press, 1979
88 pages

Za-zen for Marino
By Walt Curtis
Published by W. Curtis, 1989

The Book of the Red Devil
By Walt Curtis, Out of the Ashes Press
Published by Out of the Ashes Press, 1992

My Pillow Book of Fruit & Vegetables, Etc.: The Feast of Life
By Walt Curtis
Published by W. Curtis, 1993

Salmon Song, and Other Wet Poems
By Walt Curtis
Published by 26 Books, 1995

Walt Curtis: A Brief Autobiography in the Form of the Poem : Olympia, Birthplace of Illusion.
By Walt Curtis, NYMPH & SATYR (Firm
Published by NYMPH&SATYR, 1996

Mala Noche
By Walt Curtis, Gus Van Sant, BridgeCity Books (Firm)
Published by BridgeCity Books, 1997
ISBN 0962368342, 9780962368349
221 pages

Rhymes for Alice Bluelight
By Walt Curtis
Published by Distributed by Small Press Distribution, 1999
ISBN 0899240402, 9780899240404
66 pages

Medusa's Love
By Walt Curtis, Out of the Ashes Press
Published by Out of the Ashes, 2001
68 pages

Peckerneck Country: The Selected Poems
By Walt Curtis
Published by W. Curtis, 2002
Originally published as Mr. Cogito, Volume IV No. 2, Fall 1978, Special Issue.

The Land of Ch'i
By Walt Curtis, Out of the Ashes Press
Published by Out of the Ashes Press, 2005

_____________________________
Translations


Mala noche ou Qui déconne avec le taureau se prend la corne
By Walt Curtis, Daniel Bismuth, Gus Van Sant
Published by Hachette littératures, 2003
ISBN 2012356915, 9782012356917

Notte maledetta
By Walt Curtis, Gus Van Sant
Published by Newton Compton, 2007
ISBN 885410762X, 9788854107625
288 pages

_____________________________
Included in or involved with the following.

Evergreen Review
Published by Grove Press, 1967
Item notes: v.11:45-50 1967

Local Earth 1971
Curtis, Walt et al
(Need to check details)

Spit in the Ocean volume 1: Old in the Streets
By Ken Kesey
Published by Intrepid Trips Information Service, 1974

Spit in the Ocean 2:
Published by Intrepid Trips Information Service., 1976

The Son of the Male Muse: New Gay Poetry
By Ronald L. Dobrin, Ian Young
Contributor Ian Young
Published by Crossing Press, 1983
ISBN 0895941198, 9780895941190
192 pages

Columbus Names the Flowers: Mr. Cogito's 12 Year Anthology
By Robert A. Davies, John M. Gogol, Gregg Lambert
Contributor John M. Gogol
Published by Mr. Cogito Press, 1985
ISBN 0932191045, 9780932191045

A New Geography of Poets
By Edward Field, Gerald Locklin, Charles Stetler
Compiled by Edward Field
Published by University of Arkansas Press, 1992
ISBN 1557282412, 9781557282415
324 pages

From Here We Speak: An Anthology of Oregon Poetry
Edited by Primus St. John and Ingrid Wendt
Oregon State University Press 1993
Part V. Contemporary Voices: Arriving and Leaving Here--1960-1991
ISBN 0-87071-375-2

Copia
By Casey Kwang,
Introduction by Walt Curtis
Published by Pinball Pub, 2002
ISBN 0972192603, 9780972192606
81 pages

The country boy: the story of his own early life
By Homer Davenport
Introduction by Walt Curtis
Published by Powells Press, 2002

Spit in the Ocean 7: All about Kesey
By Ed McClanahan, Larry McMurtry
Contributor Ed McClanahan, Gus Van Sant, Larry McMurtry
Published by Penguin Books, 2003
ISBN 0142003638, 9780142003633
244 pages

The Columbia: America's Great Highway
By Samuel C. Lancaster
Foreword by Walt Curtis
Schiffer Publishing, 2004
ISBN: 0764320033

Reading Portland: The City in Prose
Edited by John Trumbold and Peter Donahue
Oregon Historical Society Press in Association with the University of Washington Press, 2006
(includes a section of Mala Noche)

Citadel of the Spirit: Oregon's Sesquicentennial Anthology
Edited by Matt Love
Nestucca Spit Press, 2009
(essay - Cosmic Spawning)

_____________________________
Periodicals

Mississippi Mud
by Weinstein, Joel (Editor)
Walt's poetry, and his original publication of Mala Noche, was in various issues.

Mr. Cogito
by Davies, And John M. Gogol, Editors
(Walt's poetry and translations of Neruda are in various issues)

Portland Review
Edited by Trelawny, Victor
Vol. 22, 1976: Poetry, Prose, Drawings
(need to check details)

Clinton Street Quarterly
Edited by David Milholland
Numerous Articles
John Reed, Hazel Hall, Crater Lake, Apple Picking, Pendleton Roundup
(need to check details)

So & So
Artist's Periodical
John Marron, Berkeley, CA. Fall 1978.

Barca Lounge
BarcaLounge Press
Edited by Stephanie Vovas, Donovan Whittemore
(May 4, 1995 - August 1996)
(need to check details)

eye~rhyme
Roses are Red: An All-Portland Issue
Pinball Publishing, 2004
Issue 7
Interview


_____________________________
Film

American Ferris Wheel 1972
Directed by Bill Bowling
Walt reading his Poetry at the Rose Festival, Portland, OR, 1972

Property 1977
Directed by Penny Allen
with Walt as Poet

Paydirt 1979
Directed by Penny Allen
Playing a farmer

Mala Noche 1985
Directed by Gus Van Sant
Based on the book by Walt Curtis

Peckerneck Poet 1997
Directed by Bill Plympton (although Walt says "I choreographed everything, Bill just went along with it.")
Documentary and satire

Salmon Poet 2009
Directed by Sabrina Guitart

Any corrections or editions are gladly appreciated.

SAUVIE ISLAND IN LATE NOVEMBER

SAUVIE ISLAND IN LATE NOVEMBER,
The Teeth of The Dead Eat Soil

The slightly asymmetrical mound
of whiteness and purity
is the feminine mystique
of Mt. St. Helens,

a snowy mountain, veiled
in ephemeral blue shadows
and layers of blue hills below.

Along the frost crest
of the Cascades, a male
chiseled and gouged Mt. Hood
like a white rooster's comb
and beak sharpens and crows.

All the colors of winter,
sere and dun, eerie
yellows and rusty golds,
the wet brown earth
and tan grasses fallen down
in the fields,

are a painter's landscape
of mirrored canals, houseboats
gray cloudy skies
and sun like a watery eye,
whipped by the wind, now still.

This time hesitates between storms,
baby blue and foggy grey.
I swear there are moments in your life
which are transcendent,
you know more than anyone else
about the beauty of the earthscape.

I do. Golden pumpkins disced
into the brown wet farm soil;
plagues of smallpox and influenza
slaughtered the Indians
of this flat island
a hundred and fifty years ago.


Their skulls molder in the calm ground,
as a field crowds with hundreds
of black and gray Canadian honkers,
feeding in their flight south.

I saw a white heron
and a blue heron
looking at each other,
in short green cropped field,
as my car rolled on the elevated road
next to the canal, a coffin on wheels.

Rusty barges, houseboats,
mirrored water, Fazio Farm,
electrical transmission station
the car and I, rock-and-roll
and this tranquil day

are on a aesthetic mission,
called man escaping the limitations
of flesh and bones aging. I cry,
Out! Step out of the car to pee.

The smell of earth, dampness
and wet leaves, assails my nose.
Brown puddles, and gravel,
cottonwood trees and piss. For Chrissake,
the guitars wail from the squawkbox.

I want to commit
a benign annihilation of seeking
I think I'll smoke a joint. No,
I won't. I think I''ll drive on
down the rutted road
and get a better look at mystical Mt.

I turn the corner
and for Chrissake, duck hunters!
Campers, old men shooting the breeze
waiting to shoot our fine
feathered friends.
Damn, a world made violent,
by campers and shotguns.

Put the double barrel to your neck,
pull the trigger and wake up!
You dumbies should be
down on your knees in the mud
praying for moments of transcendence -----

a line of geese angling
past the whit mound of Venus,
like angels on their way
to the paradise of an empty pond.
A gray bra cup of shadow
has been placed on she St. Helens.

I am a Jersey cow,
a flock of honkers,
the red horse with white blaze
on its face,
chiseled Mt. Hood in icy light,
and an armada of feathered beings
alighting on the lake
outside the range of human guns.

A man is a gun, a bird is a saint,
the white moon in the afternoon is the eye
of cosmic consciousness,
overseeing all.

When you die, you expire
in the other's arms,
as when you come to love.

Nov. 27, 1979
Walt Curtis.

The Harvest

Orange tomatoes from green vines,
ripened by the sun. The dirt
grows everything. Mangy
bug-eaten leaves of cabbage
nearly blue around a strong root.
The sunflowers, yellow pollen,
the dust of the sun, liquid
running crystal drops. Peaches
which were hard green fuzz balls
become possibly the most gorgeous
objects of the harvest -- crimson
and spotted gold, merging
in the most vital colors of life.
Oh fever and savor of fruit.
After days of constipation,
the old man, in the bed
with cancer, has shat his pants
but he feels better. As I offer
him one of his sun-ripened peaches,
the harvest begins in earnest.
Oh fever and savor of flesh.
Flesh and fruit each have a season.

Aug. 21, 77

Phoenix

When I die like an aborted rabbit
burn what remains in white-hot flame.
My soul, like a love-smitten phoenix,
will fly upward in the melancholy blue
and find a home calm and devoid of dew.


After Kabir

The Guest is the one you meet
and fall in love with
along the Way. The Guest
is you yourself who
you invite into your own house.
The law of Life is that
we're all guests passing through,
so be hospitable to your own Soul.