Rachel King
Rachel King wrote the poems in City Walks upon returning to her hometown of Portland, Oregon, after over a dozen years of living away. Their 'precise details wired to lively music and memorable images' (Mark Wagenaar) investigate a known place, witness gentrification, acknowledge death, and insist on the possibility of beauty and joy despite it all: 'I have rarely been happier than walking miles / around my city, learning its history, / while watching people play out their needs' ('City Walks'). Full of devotion and intensity, these poems 'call us to love a little more humbly, a little less selfishly' (Charity Gingerich).
