And poetry celebrates
By Barry Vitcov
January 2026 Local Poetry Events
William Stafford Biographer to Present at Stafford Birthday Celebration
The Friends of the Hannon Library will host the 31st William Stafford Poetry Celebration from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 8, in the Meese Room of Southern Oregon University’s Hannon Library, organizers have announced.
Stafford, a nationally renowned Oregon poet who served as the Oregon Poet Laureate from 1975 to 1990, died in 1993. His collection “Traveling Through the Dark” won the 1963 National Book Award for Poetry. In 1970, he was named Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, an honor now known as the U.S. Poet Laureate. In 1992, he won the Western States Book Award for lifetime achievement in poetry.
The event will feature several local poets and includes special guests Steve Paul and Vince Wixon. Steve Paul, a veteran Kansas City writer and journalist, is the author the books are Hemingway at Eighteen: The Pivotal Year that Launched an American Legend (2017) and Architecture A to Z: An Elemental, Alphabetical Guide to Kansas City’s Built Environment (2011). His book The Shadow Poet: A Life of William Stafford will be published by Oregon State University Press in 2026. Vince Wixon is a Stafford scholar and the dean of Ashland poets, who is the coeditor of Sound of the Ax: Aphorisms and Poems by William Stafford.
Featured poets will be Bill Gholson, Lois Schlegel, Perii Owen, and Gary Lark, and the host will be Amy Miller, the poetry editor of the Jefferson Journal. In-person attendees will also be invited to read their favorite William Stafford poem.
Light refreshments will be served, and complimentary parking is available in parking lots 21 and 22. Metered parking is also available in lots 1, 12, 29, 36, 37, and 41.
Anyone needing disability accommodations can contact SOU’s Disability Resources Office at 541-552-6213.
This Friends of Hannon Library event is free and open to the public. It will take place in the Meese Room (room 305) of the library, and a Zoom link will also be available on the Friends website (https://hanlib.sou.edu/friends/lectureseries.html).To view previous lecture series events, see the HannonLibrary YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/@SOUHannonLibraryEvents. For more information, contact Hannon Library staff at libraryevents@sou.edu.
Poetry Reading with Authors Mark Novak and Barry Vitcov
January 22, 2026 @ 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Bloomsbury Books Ashland
290 East Main Street, Ashland
Mark Novak is a writer who works primarily from the San Francisco/Bay Area. He holds an M.A. in Creative Writing and Poetry from San Francisco State University. His work has been featured in the “Monterey Poetry Review,” “Miserere Review,” “Lothlorien Journal of Poetry,” and “Bards West.” His work, ‘The Vagabond Quothe Shakespeare’ was the 6th place finalist in the Writer’s Digest National Poetry Awards (2017). He is both a voice talent for readings and a contributing writer for the poetry database, Voetica.com. His chapbook, ‘Sonnets For Agnodice’ was recently picked up by Finishing Line Press in their annual 2025 Open Chapbook Contest and is due to be published by their publishing house in May of 2026.
Barry Vitcov lives in Ashland, Oregon with his wife and exceptionally brilliant standard poodle. His poetry and short stories have appeared in a variety of publications, including: “EAP: The Magazine,” “Literary Yard,” “The Scarlet Review,” “Fiction on the Web,” “Labyrinth,” “Mobius Blvd.,” “Black Sheep,” “Dark Horses,” “Jefferson Journal,” and “The Rapids: An Art & Literature Journal of Southern Oregon.” He has previously had four books published by Finishing Line Press, a collection of poetry, “Where I Live Some of the Time” (2021); a collection of short stories, “The Wilbur Stories & More” (2022); a chapbook collection of poems “Structures” (2024); and a novella “The Boy with Six Fingers” (2025). His fifth book, “Boychik Poems,” was just released this month. FLP will also be publishing a collection of short stories “Unknown & Other Stories” in March 2026.
This Week’s Poem
Winter arrived this week. It’s colder and deciduous trees are bare, not requiring much attention. Having stored energy in the fall, they wait silently for spring and new growth. This poem celebrates care, renewal, and a special relationship to the natural world. How many of us have nurtured something presumed gone only to bring it back to life? A tree, plant, or a friend’s spirit?
The Old Pear Tree
By Jennifer Rood
On the way back up the hill from checking
the cauliflowers, I gather branches
that have blown out of the sweet gum tree and
snap some of the smaller branches from the
dead limbs I cut out of the old pear tree
earlier this fall. It’s a good bundle.
Later, I will feed it to a fire.
The man I had out to the place last year
to see about my trees said that old pear
was already dead, even though it was
still putting on leaves and fruit. This made no
sense to me and I thought that he must have
meant something else by dead than what I know
the word to mean. And I decided I
would tend the old pear, though it was not mine
to tend, and it had stood neglected for
decades. On the other side of the line
that defined what belonged to a neighbor
and what belonged to me, that pear held on,
persisting through drought and heat, surviving
(which was evident, from the leaves and fruit).
I soaked the ground a few times a week, pulled
grass and weeds away from the trunk, mulched to
protect and maintain moisture, trimmed away
suckers, and sawed off dead branches. When fruit came,
it was golden and beautiful. I ate
some, and it was good, but left the windfall
for the raccoons, possums, deer, and others.
It’s mid-December now, and the leaves are
gone. From a distance, the tree might trick you
into believing it is dead. But no,
it is just being its deciduous
self, sleeping off the summer in the near-
solstice dark of long nights and short days,
and dreaming of another waking spring.
You might wonder what possessed me—why I
would tend an absent neighbor’s dying tree.
No one asked me; no obligation tugged
at my sense of duty, and truly, I
do not know, except that perhaps, I, too,
dream of another spring to which I might
wake, and the old pear tree offers me hope.
On the way back to the house, I place the
bundle of sticks into the fire pit.
On the longest night, I will have a fire,
and it will be a beacon to call the
sun back to the sky it has been leaving,
the burning song of the pear’s old branches
lifting into the night to call back life.
Jennifer Rood is a retired teacher, Master Gardener, and Poetry Editor of The Rapids: A Literary & Art Journal of Southern Oregon. In the fall of 2023, she served as the Artist-in-Residence at the Oregon Caves National Monument, and at the height of the pandemic, she served as president of the Oregon Poetry Association (2020-21). Her most recent poems appear in Willawaw Journal, Willows Wept Review, and The Stafford Challenge Anthology. Present and Speaking Everywhere: A Collection of Found Poetry and Art (Not a Pipe Publishing, 2024) is her first full-length collection. It was preceded by the chapbook What the Heart Says (2023). You can get a taste of some of her found poetry and art on Instagram @jennrood100.
Poetry Submissions Welcomed!
You are invited to submit original work to the Poetry Corner. There is only one restriction: Poems ought to show a connection to Ashland and/or Southern Oregon. Your interpretation of that connection is fairly loose and mine is probably even looser! Be sure to include the title of your poem, your name as you would like it to appear, the city or town in which you reside, and, if you wish, your preferred pronouns. Finally, please submit a bio statement of less than 150 words written in the third-person.
To submit poems, send to Barry Vitcov at haikubjv@gmail.com.
