Alum Jim Watson-Gove Inspires the Poetry in Us

PORT TOWNSEND LEADER -- Watson-Gove started the group about 12 years ago, after he and his wife, Eleanor, moved to town. Since 1965, he’s published Minotaur, a small-press poetry magazine, published quarterly. “Theoretically, not actually,” he said. “I set my goals and miss them.” He doesn’t promote the magazine, which has about 100 subscribers. “I have a network,” he said. “It’s almost a fellowship for me.” His interest in poetry started at his Los Angeles-area high school, where he was introduced to, and liked, poets Carl Sandburg and Edgar Allan Poe. He spent three years at San Francisco State University, “but it almost doesn’t count, because I took classes I wanted, not what they wanted me to take.” He liked classes focused on single poets; a memorable one was on Christopher Isherwood — “his ‘I am a camera.’”