Walking Bridges Using Poetry as a Compass

New! Walking Bridges Using Poetry as a Compass: Poems about Bridges Real and Imagined by 70 Poets, with Directions for Five Self-Guided Explorations is now available online and at Powell's Books on Burnside, Wallace Books, Looking Glass Bookstore, St. Johns Booksellers, Broadway Books, and Rejuvenation Hardware and House Parts.

Walking Bridges Using Poetry as a Compass, co-edited by Sharon Wood Wortman and Kirsten Rian, features 70 poets discussing life-changing events in relation to bridges, real and imagined.

In the first half of this 264-page book you'll find Sharon's directions for five self-guided explorations. The reader, on her own, discovers secrets (hidden in plain sight) about Portland's biggest, oldest and rarest bridges.

Funded in part by a grant from the Regional Arts & Culture Council, Walking Bridges includes 37 illustrations by Engineer Ed Wortman. Artist Billie Wood Smoak contributed the frontispiece drawing and Scott Bronson created seven maps. The cover of the book, by architect Joseph Boquiren, depicts Portland's bridgiest features and is also available as a postcard.

Read the reviews in The Oregonian (Arts & Entertainment section, December 7, 2007), and in The Daily Journal of Commerce (p. 4, Dec. 11, 2007).