Mimi German Poetry

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Mimi German is an American poet and subversive artist dividing her time between living in the wilderness of Oregon’s Steens Mt. and the urban strife of Portland, OR. Her first book of poetry, Beneath the Gravel Weight of Stars, was released in 2022 weaving her experiences as an advocate for unhoused Portlanders through poetry. She was recently named Oregon’s New Generation Beat Poet Laureate(2023-2025) by the New Beat Poetry Foundation.

Born in Philadelphia, Mimi moved to New York City in 1982 for college.  During her time in NYC, amid the Reagan administration, she was arrested  multiple times for non-violent civil disobedience. As a student, she  was active at the Seneca Women's Encampment for a Future of Peace and  Justice, protesting the deployment of Cruise and Pershing II missiles.  She also traveled to the UK in 1983 to support protests against nuclear  weapons at RAF Greenham Common.

In 1987, Mimi moved to Israel and joined the peace movement Shalom  Achshav (Peace Now), arriving just before the first Palestinian  uprising. Upon returning to the US, she lived in both Cambridge, MA, and  Halifax, Nova Scotia, supporting herself through nude modeling and  street performances as a musician.

In 1995, Mimi relocated to Oregon. In 1997, she was arrested on Shoshone  land in Nevada with Chief Corbin Harney, protesting a proposed uranium  dumpsite on Indigenous land.

Following the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, Mimi founded RadCast,  an international group documenting citizen radiation readings. She  frequently appeared on national and international talk shows to discuss  radioactive toxicity, with regular spots on Michael J. Ruppert’s *The  Lifeboat Hour* and Thom Hartmann’s programs.

Realizing that nuclear power would persist, Mimi redirected her efforts  to local activism, providing direct support for Portland's unhoused  population. This advocacy inspired her first poetry book, *Beneath the  Gravel Weight of Stars*.

In 2020, Mimi's partner bought land in Southeastern Oregon, where she  wrote her second poetry collection, *Where Grasses Bend*, reflecting on  themes of longing, loss, humanity, and love's regeneration in the Oregon  wilderness. The cover features their adopted blue heeler, Claude.  During this period, she discovered Ursula K. Le Guin's *Out Here: Poems  and Images from Steens Mountain Country*, a cherished book displayed in  her home. Mimi had met Le Guin several times in Portland, and Le Guin’s  spirit echoes in the canyons Mimi now calls home.

On June 17, 2023, Mimi was a guest poet for the concert series *In A  Landscape* in the Alvord Desert, performing alongside piano virtuoso  Hunter Noack. Her poetry has been featured in the *New Generation Beats  Anthology 2022*, the National Beat Poetry Foundation’s *Remembering Jack  Kerouac On His 100th Birthday*, and various other publications in the  US and UK.

In addition to her previous works, Mimi published her third poetry book,  *WAR POEMS: Israel-Gaza/The First 100 Days of Carnage*. In this collection, Mimi explores what it means to be Jewish while navigating how Israel responded to October 7th. The poems in this collection chronicle the first 100 days of the war.