Tele Aadsen

writer - fisherman - listener

Hey, you guys — it’s almost time for the Fish­er Poets Gath­er­ing!

Not famil­iar with FPG? Every Feb­ru­ary, men and women con­nect­ed to the fish­ing indus­try flood into Asto­ria, Ore­gon, to share poems, songs, mem­oir, and visu­al art in cel­e­bra­tion of this unique liveli­hood. Peo­ple come from around the coun­try to take part in this event (from around the globe, in fact: one of this year’s Fish­er­Po­ets is from Japan) Now in their 15th year, more than 70 artists will be per­form­ing this Feb­ru­ary 24 – 26.

(Hav­ing a hard time imag­in­ing a fisherman/woman poet? Vet­er­an Fish­er­Po­et and pho­tog­ra­ph­er Pat Dixon put togeth­er this gor­geous site of past per­form­ers and their work.)

Fishin’ folks, writ­ers, sto­ry­tellers, nes­tled into bars and restau­rants in a sea­side town… Some of my favorite things, right there.  So it’s more than a lit­tle shame­ful that I’ve nev­er been to a FPG. Asto­ria is only about 5 hours south of Belling­ham, but some­how, the tim­ing just nev­er worked out. I’ve been a long-dis­tance, wan­na-be groupie for an embar­rass­ing num­ber of years now, swoon­ing over var­i­ous high­lin­er per­form­ers from afar. (Yes, I’m lookin’ at you two, Moe Bow­stern and Jen Pick­ett!)

But no more! When, at the end of last sea­son, Cap’n J and I dis­cussed our win­ter goals, I announced, “I want to final­ly make it to Fish­er Poets this Feb­ru­ary.” He’s always game for a road trip, espe­cial­ly to the Ore­gon Coast. (One of his favorite pho­tog­ra­phy des­ti­na­tions, as you can see here.) And just like that, the room’s rent­ed, we’re going, and I’m a quiv­ery mess of excitement.

That quiv­ery mess? Not just about excite­ment, but nerves, too. As it turns out, sweet read­ers, this won’t just be my first time in the Fish­er Poets audi­ence, but on the stage, too. The orga­niz­ers gen­er­ous­ly gave this green­horn two slots on the sched­ule (7 pm Fri­day at the Baked Alas­ka, and 9 pm Sat­ur­day at the Fort George Show­room. Just, you know, if you’re in the area and want­ed to stop by.) I’m grate­ful to be on board, and am eager to learn from the pros.

Between the thrill of hear­ing some of my Fish­er­Po­et idols in per­son, and the anx­i­ety of fill­ing my 15 minute slots with wor­thy pieces, I expect the week­end will fly by in a blur of shanties and salt-tinged sto­ries. I can’t wait.

If you’re with­in range and look­ing for a fan­tas­tic week­end, please join us in Asto­ria, Feb­ru­ary 24 – 26. All of the infor­ma­tion is here — admis­sion, sched­ul­ing, etc. Info on lodg­ing in Asto­ria is here. Can’t make it and want to enjoy vic­ar­i­ous­ly? NPR-affil­i­ate KMUN 91.9 FM will be livestream­ing the Asto­ria Events Cen­ter per­for­mances on Fri­day and Sat­ur­day nights, begin­ning at 6 pm. Wher­ev­er you are, you can lis­ten here.