Mimi German
Current City, State, Country
Birth City, State, Country
Biography
Mimi German is a poet and subversive artist dividing her time between life in the wilderness of Oregon’s Steens Mountain and the urban strife of Portland, Oregon. In 2023, German was named Oregon’s first Beat Poet Laureate (2023-2025) by the National Beat Poetry Foundation. She has had two books of poetry published and a third book will be published in 2024. Her first book of poetry, Beneath the Gravel Weight of Stars, published by The Poetry Box, was released in 2022 weaving her experiences as an advocate for unhoused Portlanders through poetry. Where Grasses Bend, published in 2023 by EyePublishEwe, is a volume of poetry written during the COVID years.
Born a wanderer, Mimi left Philadelphia for New York in 1982 for college. It was in NYC during the Reagan Administration that her first of a few arrests for non-violent civil disobedience occurred. After college she joined the peace movement, Shalom Achshav (Peace Now), in Israel arriving just before the first Palestinian uprising. After returning to the US, Mimi split time between Cambridge, Maryland and Halifax, Nova Scotia eking together money through nude modeling and as a musician busking on the streets of Halifax and Cambridge. In ’95, she hit the road to head west to Oregon where she still resides. In 1997, Mimi was arrested again on Shoshone land in Nevada with the late Chief Corbin Harney against a proposed uranium dumpsite. In 2011 after the Fukushima nuclear fiasco, Mimi started an international group called RadCast which documented citizen radiation readings post Fukushima, from around the globe. She was often asked to speak about the reality of radioactive toxicity around the globe on national and international talk shows. She was a frequent guest on Michael J. Ruppert’s show, The Lifeboat Hour and had a special weekly spot for radiation readings on Thom Hartman’s show. After many years and, after it was clear that we as a society, will never rid itself of nuclear power, Mimi chose to act locally instead by doing direct support for unhoused people in Portland, OR. She is still doing that work today.
Mimi’s poetry has been published in The Long Island Quarterly, Walt’s Corner in the Long Islander News, The New Generation Beats Anthology 2022 and in the National Beat Poetry Foundation’s, Remembering Jack Kerouac On His 100th Birthday. Her poems have also been published in the UK in International Times (IT), Steel JackDaw Magazine and in the US, The Hopper Magazine, The Mantle, Three Line Poetry (Vols. 51/52), New Verse News and was a finalist in The Poetry Box and The Hopper for best chapbook manuscript. Her poems can also be found in the testimony files of Portland City Council sessions between 2017-2020.
What is the relationship between Judaism and/or Jewish culture and your poetry?
As a Jewish poet, I try to do for others as my daily mitzvot. My first book, Beneath the Gravel Weight of Stars, is a documentation through poetry of my work and relationships with unhoused communities on the streets of Portland. My next book to be published by EyePublishEwe, is called Flowers of the Litter, a compilation of poems written by housed and unhoused people to bring joy and compassion to those still trying to survive on the streets. I am currently working on a manuscript documenting the current war in Israel and Gaza, daily poems since October 7th, from the my perspective as a Jew, a peacenik, a woman who has lived in Israel and speaks Hebrew.
Published Works
Where Grasses Bend (EyePublishEwe, 2023)
Beneath the Gravel Weight of Stars (Poetry Box Publishing, 2022)
Author Site
Links to Sample Works
Video Reading
Current Title
Education
New College, Hofstra University, 1986