Jumping into the American River

Author: Mary Norbert Korte

Publisher: Argos Books (2023)

Mary Norbert Korte (1934–2022) grew up on Mystic Street in Oakland, California. She was drawn to poetry at a young age. At 17, she took nun’s vows with the Dominican Catholic Sisterhood, and earned her bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Latin while in the convent. Korte attended the 1965 Berkeley Poetry Conference, encountering Robert Duncan, Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, Jack Spicer and Lew Welch, among other poets. This foray into San Francisco Renaissance poetry altered the course of Korte’s life. She befriended Michael McClure, David Meltzer, Spicer, and Welch, and developed her own mystically-charged poetics. Korte’s first collection of poems, Hymn to the Gentle Sun, was published by Robert Hawley’s Oyez Press in 1967. The following year, Korte formally left the Dominican order and embarked on the lay life of the poet.

From 1973 onward, Korte lived in Mendocino County, on the bank of the Noyo River. She published five more books, including Mammals of Delight (Oyez, 1978), and became heavily involved in environmental activism, working with Judi Bari and Earthfirst! to save old growth redwoods. Between 1979 and 2009, Korte fought tirelessly to protect a large area of redwood forest at the Noyo headwaters, which is now permanently preserved by the Mendocino Land Trust. Korte was a prolific, compassionate, often hilarious poet. Jumping into the American River is the first collection of her poetry spanning over fifty years.