Virginia City poet shares visions, words

Friday, May 21, 1999 | 5:04 a.m.

Six weeks into launching his second book of poetry, this is how Virginia City poet Shaun T. Griffin described a 45-minute reading at Western Nevada Community College.

"I think it went well tonight," he said. "Well, I enjoyed it."

Friends, former colleagues and strangers listened to Griffin recount in terse and often moving prose life's everyday experiences.

He described a hike with his two sons. With a source of pride he watched his eldest son teach his brother how to fly fish.

He cautioned about neglecting the world's children.

He lamented the loss of Las Vegas' last independent bookstore - the Culture Dog.

He mused about life beyond the city's neon Strip and wondered if little-known Nevada will be propelled into the spotlight when nuclear waste stored at Yucca Mountain is spilled.

"Nevada is never on the map, not now, not ever, save the day the green lung percolates from two miles below volcanic tuff - then you will recognize us as the place that kills," he wrote in his latest book "Bathing in the River of Ashes."

Griffin's work extends beyond Nevada to include his thoughts on Africa, South America and Europe.

The title poem was inspired after a trip to Nepal.

Sitting on a tributary that feeds into the Ganges, Griffin said he witnessed people dealing with landmark experiences like death and birth, while at the same time others nearby were swimming, bathing and washing.

"Here in the West we are very linear. We're scared of death," he said.

Watching the varied activities, he said he witnessed life moving full circle.

"It was a life-changing experience," Griffin said.

He also draws on life's amusing experiences. He recalled overhearing two retired Storey County officials arguing about harvesting the perfect sized pine nut.

"Out there on the grade, brittle as a couple of rain gutters they stoop to misbehave: cussing, cantankerous, stuck in the craw of cones ..."

Griffin's mellow voice seemed to capture the audience as much as his words.

Leaning over the lectern, his skinny, black mustache drooping over his upper lip, Griffin said: "You must slow down for poetry. You cannot ingest it like tea or coffee, but you must savor it, like a good wine or bread."

Griffin has worked with children across the world, rebuilding schools in South America and translating in Europe.

Another turning point in his life that has permeated his work is the plight of homeless children.

"Working with the homeless has changed me to the point where I can't ignore it. That would be a crime," he said.

"The bird may not know the breath of a child, may be unfamiliar with his sighing. But soon the two will merge to prey upon the living in a photograph," he wrote in a poem dedicated to a child in the Sudan.

Closer to home he opened Virginia City's Community Chest, a nonprofit that helps needy families. He coordinates the homeless youth education office, a statewide program, and he runs a poetry workshop at the Northern Nevada Correctional Center.

Between 1978 and 1983, Griffin was an instructor at WNCC.

He received the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame Silver Pen Award honoring writers of exceptional talent and promise in 1998.