Inscribed by author: "For Dean and for the work for the remembering Jim 21 March 2016"


From http://bluebegoniapress.com/catalogbodeen-jim_270.html:

Returning once more to North Dakota, the birth land, and the land of exile and the mother, these poems get as close to the mother’s voice as possible, this time beginning her body itself. In Chile, surrounded by Mapuche Indians and the birth land of Neruda, guided by the shaman Don Eduardo, the machi, poems encounter Pinochet and his machine guns in a small bookstore containing Neruda and poetry after 20 years of censorship. Viet Nam opens up in the wild ways of the garden. The poems suggest that the war fought in the living room is the same war fought in Viet Nam. These poems map these wild ways, impulses to love.

Born in a small town in North Dakota, he graduated from high school in Seattle and was in the army in charge of medical evacuation in Panama and Vietnam.

He returned to Central Washington, earning a master’s degree in English at Central Washington University in Ellensburg in 1971. He also attended Seattle University’s summer programs on Vatican II for three years with his wife, Karen—the only Lutherans studying Lutheran theologians with Catholic priests and nuns—earning a second master’s degree in religious education.

“In 1988, I became aware of the cycle of migration into the Yakima Valley that meant Latino students came and went from classes, and that many in my English classes spoke Spanish,” Jim said.

On spring break, he found them in asparagus fields. He followed them for three years to learn their stories, which he published in “The Asparagus Journal.”

The students read their stories live on stage throughout the state, at the Seattle Repertory Theatre Bumbershoot Arts Festival and at a National Migrant Conference.

While giving them voice, he watched them grow up and settle in the Yakima Valley or go on.

Alberto Cardenes, who picked strawberries, is now a teacher and wrestling coach at Eisenhower High. José Garcia is cross-country coach at Davis. Another student, Eloisa Gonzales, graduated from Gonzaga University and works for a newspaper in Delaware.