Last Friday Poetry Night featuring Eleanor Berry

Berry’s latest poetry collection, Works of Wildfire, won the 2022 Grayson Books Chapbook Award. Previous publications include two books, Green November (Traprock Books, 2007) and No Constant Hues (Turnstone Books of Oregon, 2015), and a chapbook, Only So Far (Main Street Rag, 2019).

Eleanor Berry and her husband lived on rural land in the Santiam Canyon from August 1994 until Labor Day 2020, when their house, outbuildings, and woods were destroyed in the Beachie Creek fire. They now live in the West Valley. A past president of the Oregon Poetry Association and the National Federation of State Poetry Societies, Berry co-founded and chairs the Mid-Valley Poetry Society. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto and has taught literature and writing at several Wisconsin colleges and universities, as well as Willamette University, and led poetry workshops for OPA, Sitka, and other literary and arts organizations. Her service to Oregon poets and poetry has been recognized by a Patricia Ruth Banta Award from OPA and a Bread & Roses Award from Soapstone.