Fishermen Bards Trawl for Meaning
Fishermen have been waxing poetic about the romance and hardships of a fishing life for hundreds of years, but at an annual gathering on the coast of Oregon, these seafarers come together to formally celebrate their culture with poetry. And once you've participated in the Fisher Poets Gathering, it's not hard to get hooked.
The 15th annual festival, which runs from February 24-26th, is a weekend of music, storytelling and poetry where commercial fishers cast their string of words towards eager audiences. Their chances are good: More than a thousand people are expected to attend the two-night event to hear some of the nearly 70 participating performers at a six different venues across Astoria. The admission price? Just $15 for an all-access button.
“You’re going to miss something,” says organizer Jon Broderick. “It’s just like fishing, you can’t catch them all.”
Broderick is quick to point out this isn’t a poetry slam, and it doesn’t attract big moneyed sponsorship. It’s the real deal—authentic—and is just the way they like it.
“There are some terrific poets there, but you don’t have to be good. All you have to be to get the stage is authentic,” he says.
Not all participants are active commercial fishers, but all of them have strong ties to the industry, whether they come from fishing families, built boats, or worked for a seafood processor. And the crowd is savvy. They know the difference between a purse seine and a trawler, and no one needs to be school on the definition of bycatch.
But don’t expect it to be a quiet, reverent event.
“All of us have back-deck voices. Our whisper is like most people talking,” says poet Jon Campbell of Rhode Island, who started attending the gathering around 2005.
Lisa Clement, owner of Clemente’s, one of the venues for the weekend’s poetry open mics, uses the opportunity to raise funds and awareness about the Pebble Mine project. The project is strongly opposed by environmentalists who are concerned about its potential impact on Bristol Bay, home to the largest sockeye salmon fishery in the world.
“There’s no better festival about living on the water or about sustainability of the water,” says Clement. “That’s what this gathering is all about.”
For Campbell, it’s also about the camaraderie.
“We’re all used to standing around telling stories,” says Campbell. “This is a group of people who live a direct life and are used to saying what they think. When you’re in a place where you feel comfortable, you just know it.”
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