Portland Veteran Receives First Place Award for Poetry Entry
(Portland, Oregon). St. Paul, Minnesota native Charles Auch recently received word that his poetry entry in the National Veterans Creative Arts Festival won first place. The piece, entitled Memories of Death, was a way for Auch to visualize what death means and all the emotions it entails, he said.
“I wanted to visualize what grief is. The experience we have when someone close, dear and near dies. Our terms of expression and condolences speak of the grief, grieving and loss, and how hard it must be,” Auch said.
Auch moved to Salem, Oregon when he was 12, and later moved to Portland. He attended Catholic grade schools and high schools, including two years at a Franciscan Seminary.
After starting college at Portland State College, (later renamed Portland State University), he eventually dropped out and joined Volunteers in Service to America, eventually winding up in Harlan, Kentucky, working in a halfway house with felons paroled from the minimum security prison in La Grange, Kentucky, helping to facilitate a program to help parolees integrate back into society.
Shortly after returning to Portland, he worked as a house parent at the Parry Center, administering a program for emotionally disturbed children. He was drafted into the military, and attended basic training at Fort Lewis, Washington, before going to Advanced Individual Training (AIT) at Fort Polk, Louisiana, and was soon sent to Vietnam where he was assigned to US Army 1st Calvary Division (Air Mobile).
We reached out to Mr. Auch and asked him what inspired him to author Memories of Death.
What inspired you to write this piece of poetry?
I wanted to visualize what grief is. The experience we have when someone close, dear and near dies. Our terms of expression and condolences speak of the grief, grieving and loss, and how hard it must be. But after everyone has left or gone home one is left alone with one's thoughts and feelings and the need to continue. My wife died of a terminal brain tumor that took three surgeries, but after about a year, she passed. I left my work to spend the last three months of her life tending to her needs. Our children, ages 2.5, 5 and 10 years old became part of my team. We were together that morning when their mother died. It was terrible, it was horrible… in the moment and late at night when the kids are asleep and in bed, how can you express the experience of grief and loss?
Did you have any reservations or nervousness as you submitted it for judging?
Yes...wondering if it would connect with anybody.
Have you been a life-long poet/author, or is that something you recently began doing?
I was always fascinated by poets as I was introduced to them in college studies. I started to write a bit when I went back to school after getting medically retired out of the Army.
What sort of pleasure or healing do you think comes out of reading/reciting/writing poetry?
I once wrote about coming home and returning to college amidst the protests against the war, and the iconic media photos of the My Lai massacre; and photos of naked children running down a road with clothes burnt off from a napalm attack on their village; and protesting students of Kent State, killed by the Ohio National Guard.
Who can you talk to about what you saw, and what you did over there, your memories, dreams, your nightmares? Your pastor, priest, confessor, therapist in a dark room? Not to your friends or your family. You tamp it down and hope it disappears. Giving words to those memories, dreams and nightmares, whether reading/reciting/writing, becomes a way to possibly bring an end to the war, and at least let you know you are not alone.
What would you say to others who want to showcase their particular talents in the National Veterans Creative Arts Festival?
DO IT! Do it for yourself and your fellow Veterans.
What is your experiences/background with the VA Portland Health Care System?
Over the many years of care from surgeries to reception, I have been impressed by the services I have received from the men and women working in the VA Health Care System. The care and concern for my health issues, I could not ask for more.
We would like to share with you Charles Auch’s first-place entry into the National Veterans Creative Arts Festival, Memories of Death:
Memories of Death
By Charles Auch
death is like a fire
passing through the soul
searing a valley of memories
in carbon cinders
we pick over
toe kicking the embers
drawn to receding heat
we fondle the warmth
in hopes of keeping the fire alight
a cold wind blows
between our teeth
a rale song of the dying
a quiet numbing dirge
we walk among
blackened rifts and snags
turning over dry and ashen
rocks and stones
our memories begin to fade
like sand between our fingers
gray black ashes blow
around the thoughtful
condolences of friends
like whispering bird songs
in deserted mausoleums
rain falls like tears
dampening the ground
deepening the silence
in the valley of our souls
we pull a shroud
around our shoulders
the fabric of our lives
trying to hold in
the warmth of our memories
fast becoming echoes of the past
tracings in the dust
sharpening the edges
we stumble on
in the darkness of the night