Because
You Might Not
Remember

Poems by Don Colburn

Welcome to the website for my new book of poems, Because You Might Not Remember. It’s a chapbook, a little book of 25 poems. It was a finalist for this year’s Finishing Line Press Poetry Prize. Here is a picture from the cover of the book...

Photo by Randy Cox

You can order the book on Amazon.

About the book

This is my third collection of poems. It has a beautiful cover designed by Randy Cox. Many of the poems “happen” in the Northwest — in Yachats or Cascade Locks, along the Klickitat River or Catherine Creek — but they range as far as New York and Pakistan.

What are the poems about? You tell me. One takes place aboard the plane that crash-landed safely in the Hudson River. Another tells a Joan Rivers joke. There’s one my friends call my Starbucks poem, even though it never says so. Here’s a video of me reading that poem...

Among other subjects: a great high school baseball coach, who happens to be my brother; a car break-in; the wait for a biopsy result; a hundred-year-old photograph; bombing raids against the Taliban. Two Oregonian reporters, Jim Mayer and Bill Graves, get mentioned, but you’ll have to read the book to find out why. Same with the great Irish fiddler Kevin Burke. Elvis shows up, on the Oregon coast. I like to think some part of every poem here touches on the vital and difficult act of remembering.

I hope you find something you like in here.

Don

Photo by Rob Finch

Advance praise for Because You Might Not Remember:

"Colburn is at the top of his form here — subtle, self-effacing, hopeful and skeptical. Reading a Don Colburn poem is like putting the top down on a sunny day and taking off in your old Olds convertible with no particular plan in mind. And then there you are."

— Peter Sears

"Don Colburn's richly rooted, well-hewn poems are intensely pleasurable to read and absorb. The wide span of their attention has room for human foibles and flaws as well as fun."

— Naomi Shihab Nye