Fisherpoets return with the Ghost of Clem Starck to the Cannon Beach Arts Association Gallery

Sunday, March 22 at 4 p.m.

Clem’s poetry – lean, honest, vocational – inspired the first FisherPoets Gathering years ago and Clem became a regular, cherished participant. Fisherpoets Jon Broderick, Jay Speakman, Moe Bowstern, George Wilson, Rob Seitz and Geno Leech have all spent many agreeable hours at Clem’s farmhouse kitchen table. Though Clem died during the vernal equinox in 2024, the Gallery invites fisherpoets, through Clem’s poetry and some of their own, to bring him back to us once again.

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On the Hook in Manilla

Riding at anchor in Manilla Bay

after ten days at sea, watching the moon rise

over the city sparkling below,

the four of us

- Mike the oiler, Jake, and crazy Bob and I,

a scruffy bunch –

are at the rail, midships,

waiting for a launch to take us ashore.

Although in no way

could we be said to resemble

the Four Celestial Worthies, much less

the equally venerable Four Perfected Lords of Wu,

the four of us

gaze shoreward, half-convinced

that every bar girl on the waterfront

will find us irresistible.

- Clem Starck