Rod Farmer

Franklin Hall
252 Main St.
University of Maine at Farmington
Farmington, Maine 04938
office phone: (207) 778-7161
email: farmer@maine.edu


    Rod Farmer has had over 800 poems published in over 150 journals, including Webster Review, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, Rattle, The Main Street Rag, and Pleiades.  His first collection of poetry was Universal Essence, published in 1986 and his most recent collection is titled Red Ships , published in 2002 by Finishing Line Press (see below).  Red Ships was nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

    Farmer has also had over 90 articles, essays, and book reviews published.  Writings on writing and related subjects have appeared in such journals as Poet, Writer's Connection, Art Times .  Social commentary pieces have appeared in Mind Matters Review , The Humanist, and related journals.  Articles on American history have appeared in The New England Journal of History and The Maine Historical Society Quarterly as well as other history journals.  Articles and essays on education have appeared in such journals as Contemporary Education, The Educational Forum, and The Social Studies .

    He has been a farm laborer, dump truck driver, grocery store clerk, soldier ( 14 months in Vietnam via the draft and US Army ), and a high school history and social science teacher.  Since 1978, he has been professor of both education and history at the University of Maine at Farmington.  He used to travel the world a lot, via the US Army, three Fulbright-Hays Fellowships in India, Israel, and Pakistan.  Plus he has won two grants to study and travel in Japan.

    As a poet, Rod is an independent poet ( i.e. he doesn't belong to cliquish literary circles, because he finds more room outside than inside of any social circle).


 


    Yes, I would like to order Rod Farmer's Red Ships:
                                                                                                   
    Name___________________________________

                                                                                                   
    Address_________________________________


    City, State, Zip____________________________

    ___Number of copies @ $12 each................=$___


    Shipping costs $2 for one book
    (and 50 cents for each additional copy)..........=$___


    Total..............................................................=$___

    Mail order form and check to:

    Finishing Line Press
    Po Box 1626
    Gerogetown, Ky 40324
    Red Ships

                                                                            Summer's first wild raspberries
                                                                            red flag my attention, my walk
                                                                            comes to a halt, a berry patch
                                                                            six feet deep thirty feet wide
                                                                            along one side of a country road
                                                                            The berries are red ships
                                                                            in a green bramble sea,
                                                                            red ships with cargoes of juice
                                                                            have booked me aboard,
                                                                            I go from one small red ship
                                                                            to another as I transform
                                                                            from a passenger into
                                                                            a great storm sweeping
                                                                            the green sea clear
                                                                            of red juice ships,
                                                                            the red stain of many shipwrecks
                                                                            covers my lips, evidence
                                                                            of the storm's fury
                                                                            evidence I've been with
                                                                            the world in a good way,
                                                                            eating my way there.