Affiliation: Facilities Services
Clemens Starck Oral History Interview
Life history interview conducted by Janice Dilg.
July 30, 2015
Clemens Starck (b. 1937) is an accomplished poet whose first published collection,
Journeyman's Wages, received the Oregon Book Award for Poetry in 1996. Starck published the book at
the age of fifty-seven, after thirty-six years of writing in near anonymity. He was
also working as a carpenter for the OSU Physical Plant at the time, a job that he
held for eighteen years and from which he retired in 2005. Over the course of his
life, Starck traveled broadly and was employed, variously, as a journalist, ranch
hand, construction laborer, and merchant seaman. In addition to Journeyman's Wages, Starck has released three additional volumes of his verse and has recorded two CDs
of his poetry set to music. His interview focuses on his broad experience in a variety
of workplaces, his development as a writer, and his memories of OSU. At multiple
points throughout the session, Starck also reads selections of his work, both published
and unpublished.