Writing the West: Tim Barnes on CES Wood’s A Book Of Tales (1901)/Jan. 18, 2018, 7:00 PM

On Thursday, January 18, 2018, at 7:00 PM, Tim Barnes comes to Black Hat Books to continue the discussion of fiction vs non fiction, imagination vs memory, oral histories vs written ones, when it comes to understanding the West.

Poet Tim Barnes is author of Mother and the Mangos (a one-poem book illustrated by Angelina Marino-Heidel, M Kimberly Press and Charles Seluzicki Fine Books, 1991), Star Hill Farm and the Grain of What is Gone (Skookum’s Tongue Press, 1994), Falling through Leaves (Marino Press, 1995), Of Almonds and Angels (Skookum’s Tongue Press, 2007), Definitions for a Lost Language (Skookum’s Tongue Press, 2010, 2014).

Very fitting that the life of poet C. E. S. Wood would be documented by a poet! Tim is co-author, with Edwin Bingham, of Wood Works: The Life and Writings of Charles Erskine Scott Wood. 

On January 18, Tim will discuss Wood’s A Book Of Tales: Being Some Myths of the North American Indians a 1901 collection of Pacific Northwest Indian oral literature, with Anne Richardson, director of Oregon Cartoon Institute/Oregon Movies, A  Z. Together, they hope to shed some light on Wood’s love of fine press printing as well as on his decision to collect and transcribe Pacific Northwest Indian oral literature.

Who was Wood?

Lt. Charles Erskine Scott Wood arrived in Oregon in 1874 to fight Indians. A recent West Point graduate, he had been forbidden by his father to follow a literary career. Two Indian Wars and one law degree later, Wood was a well respected member of Portland’s business community, pursuing (and achieving) financial success with a large side order of social and political activism. In Wood Works ,Tim Barnes and Edwin Bingham write “Soldier, poet, attorney, satirist, anarchist, reformer, bon vivant, painter, and pacifist — —-C. E. S. Wood was all of these.”

Wood was one of the founding fathers of Portland Art Museum, an institution which educated generations of Oregon artists, some of whom chose to become filmmakers. If PAM’s early start date is important to Oregon film history, then Wood, who pushed for that early start date,  is important to Oregon film history as well.

Re-issued in 1929 by Vanguard Press in New York City, the first edition of C. E. S. Wood’s A Book Of Tales was hand set and hand printed here in Portland in 1901.

Who writes the West? Tim Barnes, Anne Richardson and Fred Nemo, the owner of Black Hat Books, will pool their thoughts on January 18, 2018, at 7:00 PM.

Thank you, Fred Nemo, for providing a home for this conversation.

Please join us!

What: Tim Barnes, Anne Richardson & Fred Nemo discuss fiction vs non fiction, imagination vs memory, oral histories vs written ones, when it comes to understanding the West.

Where: Black Hat Books, 2831 NE MLK Bvld

When: Jan 18, 2018, 7:00 PM

Admission: Free

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Tim Barnes’ discussion of C. E. S. Wood’s A Book Of Tales: Being Some Myths of the North American Indians is the second in the Writing The West series at Black Hat Books. The first conversation, in October 2017, featured Rich Wandschneider and Richard Etulain discussing Daniel Sharfstein’s book Thunder In The Mountains: Chief Joseph, O. O. Howard, and the Nez Perce War.