Last Trip to Oregon, The

In these elegiac poems, George Payerle registers the experience of life continuing after the death of his closest friend, the BC poet and historian Charles "Red" Lillard. The poems describe their last trip together to the dry landscape of Central Oregon, circle to Alberta and then turn home to the Shadow Weather Coast. Throughout are woven meditations on music, particularly the Beethoven quartet Opus 131, in which the triumph of the ordinary (mundane) becomes a portal to the extraordinary (the divine). Memory becomes prayer, with the spirit of person becoming present as the spirit of place.

George Payerle, of Hungarian extraction, is a novelist, poet, translator and editor. His two published novels are the afterpeople (Anansi, 1970) and Unknown Soldier (Macmillan, 1987). Short fictions, parts of novels and poetry have appeared widely in periodicals over the past three decades and on radio. In recent years, Payerle has returned to writing poetry, some of which has appeared in magazine and chapbook form. The Last Trip to Oregon is his first book of poems. A longtime resident of Vancouver, Payerle now makes his home in Roberts Creek, BC.