The 2025 Portland Poetry Confluence is an independent festival organized by a committe of Portland writers and readers.
Organizing Committee
John Beer is the author of The Waste Land and Other Poems and Lucinda. He teaches at Portland State University.
David Abel is a poet, editor, and interdisciplinary artist, and the proprietor of Passages Bookshop in Portland, Oregon. Strange Attractors was released in July 2025 by Airfoil; other books are forthcoming from Chax Press, Himal, and Escandalar.
Rachel Berrington is a librarian for a scientific publisher and an avid reader of poetry.
Karolinn Fiscaletti is a poet, editor, and educator. She co-founded Old Pal Magazine, Literary Portland, and the Belmont Art Collective. Her poems and reviews can be found in Lana Turner, submission, The Gravity of the Thing, Fourteen Hills, and elsewhere.
Dao Strom is an artist who works with three “voices” — written, sung, visual — to explore hybridity and the intersection of personal and collective histories. Her most recent hybrid project is Tender Revolutions/Yellow Songs, a song-cycle and set of 4 chapbooks of poetry, essay, and visual ephemera.
Consuelo Wise is a Guatemalan-American poet and visiting scholar at Portland State University. Her book-length poem b o y was published by Omnidawn in 2024.
Acknowledgments
The organizing committee extends heartfelt gratitude to everyone whose contributions of time, effort, and funds made this first year’s festival possible.
Thanks to
Flavia Rocha and Charity Yoro, whose involvement in the early planning stages was indispensable
Our primary sponsors:
Regional Arts & Culture Council
Portland Arts & Culture
Atrium Movement & Events
Individual and organizational donors:
Fredrik Averin (designer), Sam Miller (webmaster), Linda Hutchins, Dustin Simpson, Carly Budhram, Patrick Hartigan, PNCA Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing, PSU Creative Writing Program, Cascade Booksellers Association, Hotel Zags, anonymous donors
And the many volunteers upon whom the successful production of the festival depends:
Dustin Simpson, Heather Brown, Sam Lohmann, Drew Swenhaugen, Aubrey Hõlpus-Lenahan, Linda Austin, CJ Maruyama, Tom DeBeauchamp, Jesse Morse, Clementine Gripman Whistler, Julia Peattie