Craft: Primus St. John

Primus St. John (b. 1939) is another poet who deserves a wider readership. He is the unusual poet who mastered both lyric and narrative modes, and could make short love poems, nimble and precise images, psychologically astute historical long-form narratives, and a focused anger paired with heart.

St. John: “you’ll see me coming into the meadow / I’ll bring the meat, / you bring the seasoning.”

St. John was born in New York into a West Indian family and taught at Portland State University in Oregon for 40 years. He said: “[my poems’ rhythms]  are the elderly voice of my grandparents, the angry voice of my youth, the studied and carefully weighed reflective voice of a scholar, and the alert and searching voice of a lover and warrior.” 

Primus St. John was a friend of William Stafford’s— it was Stafford who encouraged him to go to Portland—and not unlike the work of Stafford, there is a general affection for the world in St. John’s poetry. As St. John noted, : “Writing is something that makes me happy and I like to be happy.”