Dan Raphael

Dan Raphael gives innumerable readings all over the Pacific Northwest. Most of his e-mail correspondence is a litany of the dates and places where he will be performing, or places where he is hosting readings of the people he publishes. He’s recently performed at Portland’s Artquake and Poetry Festival, Seattle’s Bumbershoot and Red Sky Poetry Theater, at Eastern Oregon State College, Blue Mountain Community College, Linfield College and Southern Oregon State. One enigmatic e-mail message said he’d just given a reading that night at Merry’ Barefoot Boutique. Last month he held a reading called 26 WOMEN, which featured several women represented by his press, 26 BOOKS. Tomorrow he will be reading at Oregon Books at noon in Depoe Bay, where, by the way, Walt Curtis, Glegg Kleiner, Clemens Starck, and Carla Perry will also be reading.

Besides his job with Oregon’s Department of Motor Vehicles, his family -- which includes a wife and very tall son-- and other interests like home brewing, basketball and computers occupy his time.

Dan Raphael is the publisher of 26 BOOKS, which so far has published 17 of its planned 26 books of 26 pages by 26 Northwest poets. The newest of the series is TEXTS, by Tom Taylor from Oysterville which has just been released. Dan also hosts a monthly reading series at Borders Books in Downtown Portland.

Trees Through the Road is Dan Raphael’s 13th book of poetry. Other recent books include Molecular Jam (published by Jazz Police Books, La Grande), The Bones Begin to Sing (published by 26 BOOKS) and Rain Away (from Leaping Mountain Press, Fort Collins.) Some, or most of these books are available here tonight.

Dan claims, and I have no reason to doubt him, that over 300 of his poems have been published in over 100 magazines, most recently in Hubbub, Tight, Paper Radio, Talus & Scree, and The Temple.