'Poetry in the Neighborhood'

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Jonah Bornstein, one of the authors reading at Illahe Studios on Jan. 14, strikes a pose during a retreat at Mount Wilson near Sedona, Ariz.Photo by Steve Dieffenbacher

January 08, 2010

By Laurie Heuston

Mail Tribune

A complete love of poetry may be the biggest inspiration and asset to those writers of rhythmic verse and prose.

"On its simplest level, I think poetry is an exploration of ideas and feelings using sound and imagery," says writer Jonah Bornstein of Ashland. "The process, the joy of writing, often comes in reworking a poem, often many times over. By exploring each image, metaphor, word choice and idea, I try to create a unified structure, like an engine, a painting or a piece of music."

Bornstein is one of three poets who will present original works during "Poetry in the Neighborhood," a monthly forum held at Illahe Studios and Gallery in Ashland. Bornstein, along with Liz Robinson of Phoenix and Joseph Frederico of Roseburg, will read at 7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 14.

Bornstein, Robinson and other poets have discovered more than a love of poetry at Illahe Studios.

"It's a place to share our truest voices," Robinson says. She rediscovered herself as a poet after teaching for 30 years at elementary schools in Medford.

"I taught kids to write and to open up," Robinson says. "It had been 40 years since I had written for myself. I was afraid that I would be awful, but I wanted to do it so badly that I didn't mind being bad. The first time I read I was shaking."

Bornstein's writing has led him to a discovery of the healing powers of poetry.

"When I read aloud or hear someone read aloud, if the rhythms, the ideas and the metaphors are in sync, the poem will reverberate in the mind and in the body," Bornstein says. "In that way I believe that poetry is healing. I believe great poetry reverberates in our cells, at least temporarily."

Inspiration for Bornstein's work depends on his emotional state and location.

"I have done many writing retreats in the Southwest," Bornstein says. "At those times, I've been able to be quiet in the desert, to observe intently. It's a kind of meditation on the environment, and that is reflected in the poems that I write."

Bornstein's prominent themes are death, transformation and the nature of the environment.

"I range through most human concerns," he says. "I think most poets do. I don't have a particular goal in mind. The goal is to write the best poem that I can."

His work that revolves around rhythm and nature tends to be the most personally satisfying to Bornstein, but he also has work that is intellectually heady and filled with anguish and anger.

"I suppose many of my poems are, in essence, elegiac," Bornstein says. "Such as 'Breath.' It's a calm, meditative poem on breath. It's also a contemplation on death. Every breath taken is the intake of life and, as it is expelled, death."

Bornstein grew up in a home full of talented artists. His mother, father and sister were painters, his sister, a prodigy. At 15, Bornstein decided to become a writer. He read William Blake's poetry and illuminated books and fell in love.

"I may have become a writer and poet as a kind of rebellion against being a visual artist," Bornstein says. "Soon after I began writing stories and poems, writing became my reason for being. When I'm connected to it, I feel alive, and the world around me is more alive."

Robinson says that she finds solace when she writes her poetry.

"I don't wait for inspiration," Robinson says. "I just write, there are little kernels that grab me and off I go. From there I find my way into things that interest me. Poetry is all about thinking. If you can think, you can write."

Robinson was born and raised in Portland. Her father taught English literature at Reed College.

"While I was growing up there, Wystan Hugh Auden came to my parents' house," Robinson says. "I got to hear him read. He brought a copy of his book, 'Nones,' which he made notes in. He lived on editing himself."

Robinson studied drama at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York City, and later was an English major at Southern Oregon State College (now Southern Oregon University). Her mother, Carol Alderson, worked at the Ashland library.

"I found the most wonderful teachers there," Robinson says. "Lawson Inada already was affecting everyone. He wrote all of the time and loved jazz."

Inada still resides in Ashland and is now Oregon's poet laureate.

Over the years, Bornstein's work has gone through transformations.

"At one point, I believed that pure imagery and rhythm were enough," Bornstein says. "That the metaphor and the descriptions held all of the meaning, a subtle communication of sound, music and beauty. More recently, I enjoy mixing in direct statements of feelings or ideas."

Such as these short poems:

"Untitled"

1)

There is nothing grander

than walking naked before dawn

under crisp stars, leaves

crackling underfoot

2)

I want a simple life

but don't know how to tell myself

to go out to the river

and forget that I own a house

Bornstein earned a master's of fine arts in creative writing from New York University in Manhattan and moved to Oregon in 1989. He co-founded the Ashland Writers Conference that existed from 1997-2002.

Bornstein's recent chapbook is titled "Treatise on Emptiness" (2009). His poetry also is included in other collections, such as "We Are Built of Light," "Voices from the Siskiyous" and "A Path Through Stone." "Voices" and "A Path Through Stone" also feature works by Southern Oregon poets Bruce Barton, Steve Dieffenbacher, Jeannette Doob, Marcy Greene, Joan Peterson and John Reid.

Bornstein's poem "Night Blooming Men" was nominated for a literary prize from Pushcart Press. Two of Bornstein's poems are included in the nationally acclaimed anthology September 11, 2001, "American Writers Respond" (2008).

Other accolades include the Oregon State Poetry Association Prize and the inaugural Southern Oregon Prize for service to the writing community of the region. He teaches and edits poetry privately, works as a graphic designer and lives in Ashland with his wife, Rebecca Gabriel, a painter.

Robinson has three books of poetry to her credit: "A Path of Words" and "A Gathering: Six Womansketches" (2008) and her newest, "Wordbent Woman," in 2009. She has won five Oregon State Poetry Association awards.

"Poetry in the Neighborhood" began three years ago as an impromptu gathering inspired by the love of poetry. The event takes place from 7 to 8:30 p.m. on the third Thursday of every month, November through May, with an exception for this month's reading, which will be held Jan. 14.

Admission is free. Call 488-5072.

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