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 rec
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 Beat Poet Laureate(2023-2025) by the New Beat Poetry Foundation.
Born a wanderer, Mimi left Philadelphia for NY in ‘82 for college. It was in NYC during the Reagan Administration that her first of a few non-violent disobedient arrests occurred. During her college years, Mimi was an activist at the Seneca Women's Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice, a women-only peace camp formed to protest the scheduled deployment of Cruise and Pershing II missiles before their suspected shipment from the Seneca Army Depot to Europe in the fall of 1983. She continued to stay at the encampment
immediately after college. While at New College on Hofstra University’s campus, Mimi traveled to the UK in 1983 to support the protests against nuclear weapons being placed at RAF Greenham Common in Berkshire, England.
In 1987, Mimi moved to Israel where she joined the peace movement, Shalom Achshav (Peace Now), arriving just before the first Palestinian uprising. After returning to the US,
Mimi split time between Cambridge, MA and Halifax, Nova Scotia eeking together money through nude modeling and as a musician busking on the streets of Halifax and Cambridge.
In 1995, Mimi hit the road to head west to Oregon where she still resides. In 1997, Mimi was arrested again, this time on Shoshone land in Nevada with the late Chief Corbin
Harney protesting against a proposed uranium dumpsite.
In 2011 after the Fukushima nuclear fiasco, Mimi started an international group called RadCast which documented citizen radiation readings post-Fukushima, from around the
globe. She was often asked to speak about the reality of radioactive toxicity around the
globe on national and international talk shows. She was a frequent guest on Michael J.
Ruppert’s show, The Lifeboat Hour, and had a special weekly spot for radiation readings on the Thom Hartman Program as well as daily radiation readings on KBOO radio news. She was also asked to discuss the truth about the radioactive fallout from Fukushima on Dennis Bernstein’s, Flashpoints Radio on KPFA and was a frequent
guest on Nature Bats Last with Dr. Guy McPherson. After many years, after it had become evident that we as a society would never be rid of nuclear power, Mimi chose to act locally instead by doing direct support for unhoused people in Portland, OR. She is still doing that work today.
From that work, Mimi wrote her first poetry book titled,
Beneath the Gravel Weight of Stars.As an advocate for unhoused people in Portland, Mimi has spent years regularly
testifying or shutting down Portland City Council meetings in order to bring attention to the needs of the most disenfranchised group of people who were dying in droves on the
streets from neglect, inclement weather, mental illness, and addiction.
In 2020, Mimi, along with her partner, purchased land in Southeastern Oregon in the foothills of Steens Mountain Wilderness and the Pueblo Mt Range. It was here that she
completed her manuscript for Where Grasses Bend, Mimi’s second book of poetry that began at the start of the pandemic through 2023. These poems are about longing, loss, humanity, and the regeneration of love as it presents itself in the wilderness of Oregon. In the summer of 2021, Mimi and her partner adopted Claude, a blue heeler who is
featured on the cover of Mimi’s new book. It was also in her high desert home that she discovered Ursula Le Guin’s book, Out Here: Poems and Images from Steens Mountain Country, a book she keeps on display for visitors. Mimi had met Le Guin numerous times at the food co-op in which they were both members in Portland. Le Guin’s spirit lives on in these canyons as one of the many ghost voices whom you can hear in the songs of the star dance.
On June 17 th , 2023, Mimi was a guest poet for the nationally renowned concert series, In A Landscape, in the Alvord Desert with the incredible piano virtuoso, Hunter Noack. Mimi’s poetry has been published in the New Generation Beats Anthology 2022 and in the National Beat Poetry Foundation’s, Remembering Jack Kerouac On His 100th Birthday. Her poems have also been published in the UK in International Times (IT), Steel JackDaw Magazine, and in the US, Sublunary Review, The Hopper Magazine,
The Mantle, Three Line Poetry (Vols. 51/52), New Verse News and was a finalist in The Poetry Box and The Hopper for best chapbook manuscript. Her poems can also be
found in the testimony files of Portland City Council sessions between 2017-2020.
Beneath the Gravel Weight of Stars is available from the publisher The Poetry Box and independent bookstores nationally and internationally. ISBN-10: 1956285008
EYEPUBLISHEWE nominates Mimi's poem "Blue Widerness" from Where The Grasses Bend for consideration for the 2024 Pushcart Prizes.
I was invited by Hunter Noack of In A Landscape, to read my poem, Spring On Steens Mountain from my new book, Where Grasses Bend.
Reading at Kelly Lou O'Hanley's porch. Portland June 2023
Where Grasses Bend is set to be published in September 2023.
From Where Grasses Bend. Martyrs is dedicated to all of the anti-fascist protesters killed by fascist domestic terrorists and to those brutally maimed by the cops.
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Barkhamstead, CT
National Beat Poetry Foundation, Inc.’s Annual 3 day Festival & Awards Ceremony, celebrating Beat Poets from around the globe.
For more info...
Barkhamstead, CT
Portland Town Hall
Mimi German will give testimony on the state of homelessness in Portland, Oregon.
Portland Town Hall
March 2020. America began to shut down due to the Sars-COVID pandemic. Travel was halted. Workers were required to stay home. Medical facilities became flooded with sick and dying patients. Senior living homes locked their doors to family members. But what of the lovers? Part l of this book is dedicated to all the lovers who were separated by the pandemic, who could no longer access love, human contact, and intimacy, for what is a world without love?The poems in Part II were written about our country's declining state, the growing rate of poverty due to the pandemic, and the deconstruction of humanity that has taken place during the past 3 years of Covid.As the years of the pandemic suffered on and hatred festered in the United States, my partner and I decided to move away from the insanity of the city for the open wilderness of Oregon where we could once again breathe deeply, living our lives regenerating love while becoming stewards of this beautiful land upon which we live. The poems in Part lll are an homage to desert life in the wilderness.
What is the language of the streets, of the unhoused millions who inhabit them?
As a poet and an activist/advocate for the houseless, Mimi German has written poems that tell the stories of the unseen. Beneath the Gravel Weight of Stars is a lyrical force as it translates the language of suffering, trauma, addiction, sorrow, love, and the fires of life & death. These poems are filled with a language you might not readily recognize-In the staccato breaks of thought and phrases that carry multiple meanings-to reveal the hidden, the underworld, and the shadows of the heart.
"These brief poems reverberate beyond what is on the page, giving readers much to think on and feel long after the final page. Stunning music is scattered throughout all of these poems." -Lisa Kwong, guest editor for The Hopper Poetry Prize
"These [poems] are beautiful and fierce and real." -Steve Silberman, author of Neurotribes, TA for Allen Ginsberg
If you are interested in purchasing this book, head to: https://thepoetrybox.com/bookstore/beneath-stars
Copyright © 2024 Mimi German Poetry - All Rights Reserved.
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