RAPHAEL, Dan (Ambrose) 1952-

PERSONAL: Born June 7, 1952, in Fargo, ND; son of Raymond John (a journalist) and Cecelia Agnes (a tailor; maiden name, Banaszek) Raphael; married Melba Joyce Jones (a botanist), October 31, 1984; children: Orion S. Education: Cornell University, B.A., 1973; Bowling Green State University, M.F.A., 1975; Western Washington University, M.A. Politics: Green. Religion: Buddhist.

ADDRESSES: Home—6735 Southeast 78th St., Portland, OR 97206. Office—Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles, 3 Monroe Parkway, Lake Oswego, OR 97035. E-mail—raphael@aracnet.com.

CAREER: Poet. Oregon Department of Transportation, Medford, weigh-master, 1977-78; U.S. Postal Service, Portland, OR, mail carrier, 1978-81; Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles, Sandy office manager, 1981-95, Lake Oswego customer service manager, 1995—. Northwest Artists Workshop, organizer of readings, beginning 1980; Portland Poetry Festival, project coordinator, beginning 1985. Metropolitan Crisis Service, volunteer, beginning 1979. Also worked as a substitute teacher, 1975-76, radio record announcer, 1976-77, and meat carver, 1977-78.

MEMBER: Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines, Committee of Small Magazine Editors and Publishers.

AWARDS, HONORS: Rhysling Award, SFPA, 1995, for the poem "Sking of Glass."

WRITINGS:

poetry

Truck, Pisspoor Press, 1973.

Energumen, Cherry Valley, 1976.

Polymerge, Skydog Press, 1979.

Dawn Patrol, Contraband Press, 1979.

Zone du Jour, Potes and Poets Press, 1981.

To Taste, 1983.

Attention Spotcheck, 1983.

The Matter What Is, 1984.

Bop Grit Storm Cafe, 1985.

Rain Away, 1987.

Here the Meat Turns to the Audience, Shattered Wig, 1991.

The Bones Begin to Sing, 26 Books, 1993.

Molecular Jam, Jazz Police, 1996.

Trees through the Road, Nine Muses, 1997.

Playing with a Ful Deck, 26 Books, 1998.

Showing Light a Good Time, Jazz Police, 2001.

Also author of Isn't How We Got Here. Work represented in chapbook series "Greatest Hits," Pudding House Writers Innovation Center (Johnstown, OH),2001. Contributor to periodicals, including Antenym, Asylum, Caliban, First Intensity, Haven Bone, Plazm, Temple, and Tinfish. Editor of NRG, c. 1975-90.

SIDELIGHTS: Dan Raphael once told CA: "All my comments are postfactum. I do not make money with my writing nor do I expect to, but language hence thought, knowledge, and perception must be explored and not de-liberated. My poems work best in performance, and it is my hope to tour nationally, as well as to work more with cassette-books and eventually videotapes."

He later added several additional comments: "Don't read much contemporary poetry, fail to reach to understand to have the patience and/or desire to probe the nuances. feel too outside this world of 'professional writers,' even the level of state grants and medium press prizes, what does this have to do with writing? Seems like writers always say they write 'coz they have to. I guess many are lucky that what they have to do is vendable, accessible, in fashion.

"Seems all the art forms made acceptable transition into nonrepresentational a while back but poetry continues the most anachronistic, precious, hung up in expectations and traditions like a private club clinging dearly to its tiny outmoded magic.

"Where does language come from? It is not a pure medium like music or painting, words are both heard and seen and more importantly processed, or how much of language is learned and what is there in a deeper, universal, cosmic, etc. sense? Language is this energy that taps into me—is the base of my work, a flow I do not understand & highly respect.

"It's damned frustrating to build a body of polished work, work that can speak to many people in different voices, and have no way of getting it out, have no channels that will accept it for distribution or even for itself. Yet this is the way I am committed to, and must accept others for what they're doing and believe they have as much integrity as I do, and vision, and skill—we are just walking different paths.

"To talk more makes no difference. The more ideas I formulate the more they may block the free unassuming flow of language, which though dependent on my circumstances, exposures etc., my instrumentality, must be given open rein (craft, in relation to my work, is a fine tuning, just whacking the words and going for the right tone; newness is important; not repeating nor taking an easy path, though I begin to realize the potential of recognizable structures & linkages within the work, how repetition w/variation can be highly dimensional.)

"The channel that works best for me in presenting my work is reading, as I've some dramatic training and experience, and the aural (I seem to have a natural though eccentric ear for rhythm and interrelation of sound) underpinnings of my poetry, coupled with the works lack of syntax, of recognizable clues to how to read—people don't know what to do with it when seen on the page, but reactions in public are always strong, in all parts of the country I've read, and the couple times I've read to older and nonpoetry audience. Since books are becoming a thing of the past, it may be time for poetry to become multi-media, and I hope to eventually tour more as a reader, to make tapes to accompany written texts (for I feel the poems work well as written, and with angles that can't be perceived through hearing, that poetry can fill both aural and visual spaces and unite these in the mind and deeper) as well as eventual appearances in radio and video."

More recently Raphael added: "I write because it's the thing I do with the most energy, creativity, and uniqueness. My poems happen when enough language energy builds in me through what I've seen, heard, read, and thought. So I can't just sit down and write, the built-up energy needs a spark (usually a few words, whether from inside or outside of me). My writing is not like most other poets—I am not representational, narrative, confessional, or intentional. My poetry is visionary, energized, and needs readers more receptive than analytical. One source of inspirational material is science-fiction novels. I often write after seeing movies, though I am not writing about the movie."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

Heaven Bone, spring, 1994, review of The Bones Begin to Sing, p. 80.