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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Find a home for written expressions on Poetry Pole

Sherry Ramsey Correspondent

There are words in your heart, words in your head; they strain to get out, yearn to be read – Hey! I made a poem! OK, I’ve expressed myself, now what do I do with my creation? I can either tuck it in the pages of a book never to be found again, or I can take it to the Poetry Pole and pin it up for the world to see.

The Poetry Pole was an idea conceived in 1996 by the publisher of Blue Begonia Press, Jim Bodeen of Yakima, who planted a 6-foot wooden pole in the garden in front of his business.

“The Poetry Pole is really an end in itself. It’s an intersection between the physical and spiritual world so the poems put there have no intention of going on to be put in a book,” says Bodeen. “I planted this pole with ‘poetry’ carved on the sides, then wrote a letter telling what and where the pole is, and sent it out to poets. People bring poems all the time, and some have even left me cookies.”

What started off as a small thing to Bodeen has turned into a 10-year labor of love. He reads every poem and has published many of them in a large anthology entitled, “Weathered Pages: The Poetry Pole.” The pole receives long poems, short poems, rhyming poems and free verse; haiku and some even written in different languages. The pole is filling a need in the writing community, and Bodeen’s idea is catching on all over the Northwest. Several poetry poles have gone up in the Seattle and Portland areas. No one knows how many others have sprouted, but one more can be added to the list.

The Harding Family Center in Coeur d’Alene has put up a pole of its own. Doug Fagerness, director of Head Start, says the organization has supported other forms of self-expression, such as mosaics, song and dance, and storytelling. “But one thing we hadn’t touched on was written expression,” he says.

Local poet Wes Hanson constructed the poetry pole out of cedar and placed it at Art on the Green. He chiseled the word “poetry” in the side, took slips of paper, wrote poems on them and tacked them to the pole.

“There were a number of poems, I would guess a hundred, stuck to the pole when I picked it up after that weekend,” says Hanson. “Mainly, they were whimsical writings.” When asked why he puts poems on the pole? “So the soul and imagination get a regular airing.”

The poems will be taken down periodically and published either online or in a chapbook.

“We’re not sure how we’ll publish them, because we’ve never done this before,” says Fagerness. “We’ll see how it evolves. The idea is to encourage people to use language in written form and compress it into poems. It’ll be interesting to see what happens. What impressed me is that we had three young children build a base for it out of bricks and other things, so it has already served a creative purpose in how the children worked together to install it.”

The Coeur d’Alene Poetry Pole was dedicated on Oct. 13 with Bodeen, who drove over from Yakima, christening it with the first poem of the day. He spoke to a small crowd who gathered together at 9 a.m. to read their own poetry, and pin it to the pole. Among the contributors was Joan Bramblee from Spirit Lake who read her poem, “Timeless” which took first place in the Bonner County Fair creative writing contest and tied for Best of Show overall.

Hanson read a poem he wrote the night before the dedication. Sandpoint poet Linda Rubin made the 45-minute trek to tack her own poems to the pole. “It’s a wonderful idea,” says Rubin, who gave a little speech before reading a poem.

“We encourage people to come and read and hang a poem on the pole. We’re hoping it will encourage people to put their own pole up someplace. The perfect scenario would be to have a poetry pole on every corner,” Fagerness says.