Born Daniel Raymond Dlugonski (dwoo goyn' skee), 5/7/51, in Pittsburgh 's Shadyside Hospital and lived on Polish Hill. By '68 had: written a few poems, begun hanging out at a downtown coffee house where folks (including me) read Ferlinghetti, Ginsberg, Yevtushenko, Kerouac et al; and had poems displayed in the Carnegie Art Museum as part of an exhibit of community art. I'd begun stuttering badly around '63, but found I didn't stutter when reading or reciting from memory.
Got a B.A. in English from Cornell, where I studied with a. r. ammons and Robert Morgan, ran a monthly reading series at the campus coffee house, and self-published my first chapbook, Truck. At Bowling Green State Ray DiPalma introduced me to Gertrude Stein, the New York Poets, the just emerging LANGUAGE poets and others while Howard McCord provided some deeper teaching.
After my MFA I returned to Pittsburgh, where I started NRG magazine (which had a strong editorial bias against anything I could understand) which lasted for 34 issues and 15 years.
Soon moved to Ashland, Oregon, where I had a weekly radio show, Raphael's Silver Cloud Lounge, that mixed poems in with the music. It was in Ashland that dan raphael became my public identity. At Cornell I'd "changed" my middle name to Raphael-mostly due to mystical connections (dan raphael's birthday is 6/7/52.). My driver's license says Dan Raphael Dlugonski.)
September of '77 moved to Portland, where I've lived since (except for a year in early 80's when I went to Western Washington in pursuit of an MA and some current teaching experience.) Through NRG I met folks in the Portland small press scene and began going to the open mike. Eventually started a reading series with the NW Artists Workshop, did a few one-time events in various parks, and served on the boards of two local literary events. In '93 I began 26 Books-26 books of 26 pages by 26 writers, all regional. I've been doing my current monthly series at Borders Books since May of '95. In April of '06 organized Poetland, with 80 poets performing in 8 venues in an 8 hour span.
I'm not much for poetics or analysis. One thing I say is "language knows more than I do," which means I can't direct it, I need to learn from it. My ear is one of my main editing tools.
I enjoy performing my work-at times I can watch myself read, and decisions on changing inflection and such. In '83 I made a tour from Vancouver to Austin with Loris Essary and Karl Kempton, doing 19 readings in 28 days. Have read at the major Northwest literary events and venues, including Bumbershoot, Walla Walla Poetry Party, Portland Poetry Festival, Red Sky, Seattle Poetry Festival, Artquake, Wordstock, Eastern Oregon College and Reed College. Have performed with local jazz artists-in duos with Glen Moore, Dave Captein and Rob Blakeslee; and with many folks in my two year stint as a poet in Robb Schepp's Salon des Refuse (which besides 5-8 musicians included a tap dancer who played clarinet and a painter who did a portrait of each show.)
I have been with my wife Melba since 1980, with our son Orion since 1982, and with Oregon's DMV since 1983.
dan raphael's work has been published in nearly 200 magazines and webpages, including: Abacus, Asylum, Atticus Review, Caliban, Central Park, Cyanosis, Exquisite Corpse, 5 trope, Heaven Bone, Ice River, Lost and Found Times, Mississippi Mud, Pemmican, Poetry Motel, Raven Chronicles, Shattered Wig, Spout, Tinfish, and Urvox.