LEARNING Something to get you started, A drowning man, The soft rustling of bamboo By the river. Six ducks. You've forgotten how to swim & so stay on the edge Of the continent Thinking in hindsight Of your mistakes. If only You could do it all again, You'd do it all differently, Different mistakes, the same Six ducks. -from Craig Van Riper, Making the Path While You Walk, Copyright © 1993, by permission of Sagittarius Press Craig Van Riper CraigVanRiper@earthlink.net 1630 East Lynn Street, Seattle, WA 98112 http://library.stmarytx.edu/pgpress http://www.speakeasy.org/clear-cut/contents/ CraigVanRiper.html Bio: Craig Van Riper was born in Paterson, New Jersey in 1962 and earned a B.S. degree from Cornell University. He has presented his poetry throughout the United States as well as on both television and radio, including a guest feature on the NBC Today Show and syndications on London, Hong Kong and Japan radio networks. He has published two collections of poems, Convenient Danger (Pecan Grove Press, St. Mary's University, San Antonio, TX, 2000) and Making the Path While You Walk (Sagittarius Press, Port Townsend, WA, 1993), and his work has appeared in over fifty literary journals and anthologies of contemporary American poetry, including Seattle Poets and Photographers: A Millennium Reflection (University of Washington Press, Seattle, WA, 1999). Van Riper was winner of the Pecan Grove Press National Chapbook Prize in 1999, a featured reader at the Bumbershoot Seattle Arts Festival in 1995, recipient of the Seattle Arts Commission Seattle Artists Award in 1994, a finalist for The Nation Discovery Prize in 1993, and awarded a King County Arts Commission Honorarium in 1991. He serves as Contributing Editor of San Francisco's Five Fingers Review and has resided in Seattle since 1989. Recent Publications: Convenient Danger Pecan Grove Press St. Mary's University San Antonio, TX, © 2000 ISBN: 1-877603-62-7 http://library.stmarytx.edu/pgpress http://www.amazon.com Making the Path While You Walk Sagittarius Press Port Townsend, WA, © 1993 ISBN: 0-9631985-1-3 http://www.spdbooks.org http://www.amazon.com Seattle Poets and Photographers: A Millennium Reflection University of Washington Press Seattle, WA, © 1999 ISBN: 0-295-97905-4 http://www.washington.edu/uwpress/ The Practice of Peace Sherman Asher Publishing Santa Fe, NM, © 1998 ISBN: 0-9644196-7-X http://www.shermanasher.com My Glass Is Cracked! Andrew Mountain Press Hartford, CT, © 1998 ISBN: 0-916897-34-6 clear-cut: anthology - A Collection of Seattle Writers Sub Rosa Press Seattle, WA, ©1996 ISBN: 0-945085-10-9 http://www.speakeasy.org/clear-cut/index.html The Poem & The World: An International Anthology The Literary Center Seattle, WA, © 1995 ISBN: 0-9636124-2-5 http://www.galaxy-7.net/mercury/poets.htm Homeless, Not Helpless Canterbury Press Berkeley, CA, ©1991 ISBN: 0933753-05-5         Praise for Van Riper's Making the Path While You Walk: "Van Riper's poetry is sly and eloquent. A strong Zen ethos -- an eloquence for economy -- permeates all the poems yet without adhering to any traditional koan or Oriental poetic convention. What makes Van Riper's work distinctly American is its thinly disguised sense of danger and deadpan humor. Making the Path While You Walk is both very accessible and totally uncompromising. I look forward to seeing more in the future."-- Clayton Hughes, Talking Raven "Strong poems, all sure voiced and crafted, each word barbed, each line pointed, going hard for the end of the poem/the beginning of its meaning." -- Crag Hill "Craig Van Riper moves his way among the cracks and stillness to small struggling births and the soon following thirsts. Vacillating between despair and reconciliation, these poems make their way through dimly lit rooms and dark harbors, learning and leaning into the confused waters of love and endings. Taking the guise of lover, both enraptured and lost, onward to the dream of vengeance, these poems traverse issues and beds many of us have lain in, with an exposing knife sharp and able." --Fionn Meade, Elliott Bay Booknotes "Very interesting-- symbols of darkness, of water, of night, subconscious, symbols that have a lot to do with traversing your own darkness." -- NBC Today Show