Patrick Dixon
Patrick Dixon is a writer/photographer retired from careers as an educator and commercial fisherman. A member of the board of directors of the Olympia Poetry Network, he has been published in several literary journals, including Cirque, Claudius Speaks, Linden Avenue, Mom Egg Review, Oberon, Panoplyzine, The Raven Chronicles, Soul-Lit, The Tishman Review, and World Enough Writers among others. His work appeared in the anthologies Examined Life, The Madrona Project #7, FISH 2015, and WA 129. He was included in the Washington State Book Award–winning anthologies Take a Stand: Art Against Hate (Raven Chronicles, 2020) and I Sing the Salmon Home (Empty Bowl, 2024).
Mr. Dixon is a past poetry editor of National Fisherman magazine’s quarterly, North Pacific Focus. A member of the FisherPoets Gathering organizing committee, he received an Artist Trust grant to edit Anchored in Deep Water: The FisherPoets Anthology (2014). His chapbook Arc of Visibility won the 2015 Alabama State Poetry Society Morris Memorial Award. His poem “Western Washington November” was selected as a winner of the 2023 “Poems of Place” competition by Cirque literary journal. His poem “Twilight on the Boat” and photograph “Dancing Sky” were selected by the Alaska Department of Parks and Outdoor Recreation for an interpretive sign at Bird Point Park, a beluga whale viewing spot south of Anchorage along the Seward Highway.
Mr. Dixon spent his childhood in Logansport, Indiana, but grew up when he moved to Kenai, Alaska in 1975, where he lived for 23 years. Mending Holes is his first full-length collection of poetry.
Learn more at http://www.patrickdixon.net/
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Read a review of Mending Holes in National Fisherman (registration required).
Excerpt from Mending Holes
Flash in the Distance
I am from gillnetters: from the Skookum Too and the Veronika K. I am boats floating a night sea, raindrops on the back of a wave. I am from salmon slime, flake ice, scales and gurry. I am hissing stick rips, glassy seas, wild-horse, white-maned wave stampedes. I am waterhaul and roundhaul, radio fish and sunken nets; clatters, splashers, nudgers, jerkers, nothing much and better get over here right away. I am from beer on the back deck, baseball caps, flotation vests and rubber boots. I am Grundens, XtraTufs, Vickies, and Stormy Seas. I am where sunrise ignites the sea, volcanoes vent over the island, Belugas rise to greet stars. I am needles of rain on my cheeks, salt spray on the windshield, the shuddering slam of the hull. I am a fire in the cabin, a blown fan belt, oil in the bilge, catching a line from a tender for a tow. I am a flash in the distance, whitecaps in the rip, bow slicing an ocean swell, foam in my wake.
