JIM THURBER: grew up in the mixed farming/light industry area of the Spokane Valley east of Spokane. Formative years spent in a children's home located on a large farm. After high school and a few semesters at local college took off for San Francisco. Enrolled in S.F. State early '60s in English and Creative Writing. The San Francisco Renaissance was underway and was a poetry hotspot magnet on the West Coast. Opted out of S.F. State in favor of writing "street poetry", participating in many local readings and mimeo'd poetry rags. Mentored occasionally by Snyder and interacted/discussed poesy with Whalen, Welch, Spicer, Blaser, the Gins and Rexroth. Rexroth was very helpful on two short occasions where I talked to him. Gary's dedicated support and mentoring of many young poets led to being included in Berkeley Poetry Conference in '65. Bill Bathurst has been the single most influential person on my poetry and my understanding of the artist since I met him around 1967. Grim denouement of '60s led to a long-term entanglement with drugs and the struggle to understand a basic law of Physics: "Whatever goes up must come down". Got a "real" job with the Postal Service for 23 years and retired as small town Oregon postmaster. Over the last 3 decades I have been deeply involved in caring for the planet, most importantly with the great Salmon and Steelhead runs of the Pacific Northwest. Meat-gang poetry-slave lifetime membership still in effect.

PUBLICATIONS

Synapse, Cow, Hollow Orange, Peace & Gladness, "Manifesto of Red & Blue" broadside; Thyme & The River, Calapooya Collage, Suisun Valley Review, Oregon English Journal, "Stafford's Road" anthology.