Vern rutsala biography of mahatma

Vern Rutsala’s poetry is an expression of Oregon and the West. His people are restless, and their journeys are often eastward for recovery, rather than westward for discovery. The language of his poetry is guided by his Irish and Finnish heritage and the cadences of small-town speech—allied to Walt Whitman—and the use of local material, social history, and the West of personal recollection.

Vern rutsala biography of mahatma

Reading his poetry feels like eavesdropping on a diarist. The author of seventeen books of poetry, Rutsala was a longtime professor at Lewis & Clark College in Portland and the recipient of many awards, including the 2014 C.E.S.

Wood Distinguished Writer Award from Literary Arts’ Oregon Book Awards.

Rutsala was born in McCall, Idaho, on February 5, 1934. After being displaced by the Great Depression, the Rutsala family moved to Vanport, Oregon, in 1942, and Vern’s father worked in the Kaiser Shipyards.

By 1950, they had settled in Milwaukie, whereVern was student body president at Milwaukie