New Poetry Collection Released

Soon Enough by Donald Wolff

Donald Wolff's new booklength collection of poetry, Soon Enough, was released December 6, 2007 at a reading at the La Grande Public Library.  The book is published by Wordcraft of Oregon, LLC, of La Grande, OR.

Wolff teaches in the English/Writing program at Eastern Oregon University, where he co-directs, with Prof. Nancy Knowles, the Oregon Writing Project.  He also currently serves as chair of the Division of Arts and Letters.

About Soon Enough Wolff states, “My themes continue to be the transfiguration of everyday life, the history of loss, the betrayal of the body and spirit by the world we live in, our landscape as correlative, what love we find as counterbalance.  All of the poems attempt to uncover both the dark undercurrents and the hard-won grace that attends everyday life.” 

Wolff was born and raised in California, which informs many of his poems about the past, while life with his family in La Grande has so far guided many of his poems about the present. 

Wolff went on to say, “I like to work in a variety of forms.  This book has short and medium length prose poems, long poems in both short lines and longer lines, an elegy for my uncle in couplets, experimental forms like the thirteen stanza ‘Memento Mori,’ a long poem on Monet’s paintings, a ‘filmstrip of memory’ about Fellini’s Juliet of the Spirits, etc.  I think of a theme or come up with a few lines and go from there.  Sometimes I know the form before I begin; sometimes the first lines determine the poem’s form (how the rest of the poem will take shape); sometimes the poem is finished in one form and converted to another.”

Soon Enough has been praised by a number of America’s best poets.  Dorianne Laux, winner of the 2006 Oregon Book Award for poetry, has said, “Soon Enough’s landscape is western, cut through by canyons and rivers, populated by bear, even the bison.  Reality arises from the details of a life fully lived there:  fatherhood, work, memory and hope.  The best poems in this collection are the darkest, the squirrel in the belly of the coyote, a man in the grip of his life.” 

Christopher Buckley, one of the nation’s most widely published poets, said, “Soon Enough is a remarkable book of poetry if only for its range, the control of many contemporary modes—prose poems, short lyric poems, long-line ekphrastic poems, multi-sectioned symphonic poems—each one with authority and a mastery of craft.  And throughout, there is a sure, accessible, and memorable voice.  These qualities alone equal success for any book of poetry.  More importantly, Soon Enough is a book of grit and gravity, of grace pushing for all it can against mortality.  Donald Wolff risks a great deal personally and intellectually, and cuts down to the bone, to the essential meaning.  He wrestles the angels of defeat and metaphysical doubt and usually wins.  In doing so, he pays keen attention to his world, to our common world, and cherishes the small illuminations that patience can earn.  Wolff offers us all that we hope for in art, in a first-rate book of poetry—the specific music of our lives that provides a little understanding, a temporary stay against our ends.”

Wolff declares he is grateful to work in a program and at a university where creative endeavors are so valued and faculty encouraged to pursue their interests wherever they may lead.  Soon Enough was written with the support of a sabbatical leave from Eastern’s administration.  The English/Writing Program was equally influential.  The program faculty not only tell their students how important it is to write in many genres but also model that pursuit themselves.  The full-color artwork gracing the cover of Soon Enough was provided by former-Eastern Oregon University professor, Terry Gloeckler, was the color printing made possible in part due to an Oregon Literary Fellowship in Publishing from Literary Arts, Inc., of Portland, which funded color covers on four first books of poetry published by Wordcraft of Oregon, LLC, in 2007/2008. Soon Enough is the third and a fourth will be released in early Spring.

Eastern's English/Writing Program, where Wolff spends his scholarly life, is a rich and stimulating creative environment. Wolff remarked that his interactions with faculty from across the curriculum, particularly in the Art program, have energized his poetics. The Oregon Writing Project, which Wolff co-directs, brings together teachers from kindergarten through college to exchange best practices in teaching and to share their writing. Writing in that atmosphere each summer and fall, with fellow teachers from throughout eastern Oregon, encouraged Wolff to pursue his interests in imaginative writing. His poetry, including prose poems, has appeared in The Montserrat Review, Calapooya, High Desert Journal, Oregon East, The Watershed Anthology, The White Pelican Review, ASKEW, The Toledo Review, the RondeDance Annual, and the Bear Flag Republic: Prose Poetry and Poetics from California. Some Days, a chapbook of ten poems, was published in 2004 by Brandenburg Press.

Wolff has been teaching at Eastern since he moved to La Grande in 1991, publishing scholarly pieces on asynchronous computer conferencing, outcomes assessment, and the uses of literature. He teaches both composition to first-year students and applied linguistics to future teachers.

Wolff remarked that his interactions with faculty from across the curriculum, particularly in the Art program, have energized his poetics.  Visiting authors of national and international reputation, like Paul Merchant, director of the William Stafford Archives in Portland, and Katrina Roberts, associate professor of English/creative writing and Garrett Fellow in the Humanities at Whitman College, are struck by the collaborative spirit of Eastern’s arts and letters faculty.  The dedication to artistic endeavor by Eastern’s faculty infects their students, who often produce professional quality exhibitions, productions, and performances, not to mention the award-winning publications of Eastern’s undergraduate writing students.

Wolff has been teaching at Eastern since he moved to La Grande in 1991, publishing scholarly pieces on asynchronous computer conferencing, outcomes assessment, and the uses of literature.  He teaches both composition to first-year students and applied linguistics to future teachers. 

Professor Wolff earned his master’s and doctorate in English at the University of Washington, after completing his baccalaureate at the University of San Francisco. Previous to coming to Eastern to set up the Oregon Writing Project, Wolff taught at Penn State Harrisburg and the University of California, Santa Barbara.  He took a year’s leave of absence from Eastern in 1995 to teach in the Multicultural Transfer Program at Santa Barbara City College.

He was happy to return to what he now considers his home—La Grande, Oregon.

The First Thursday reading series is sponsored by RondeHouse Media Arts Konsortium and the La Grande Public Library. Refreshments will be served and donations accepted.

For more information on the book, visit www.wordcraftoforegon.com