Grief Stick

In late 2019, poet Alex Behr reunited with Chris Hartman, lost to her for thirty years. Their brief, intense romance in San Francisco left behind no photos, and her ’64 Plymouth Valiant that he fixed was certainly flattened somewhere in a junk yard. Yet they’d never forgotten each other. Chris, now in Seattle, moved to Portland in June 2020, planning to start a new life with her. However, he succumbed to a rare, aggressive prion illness, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, in October 2020.

In exploring her loss, Alex created Grief Stick, a poetry chapbook (Picture Frame Press), now in its second printing. She also produced a short film of the same name with director/editor Brian Padian, which received a RACC Arts 3C grant. Out of the chaos of loss, Brian created an arc from Alex’s recorded poems, photographs, and videos, weaving in music as a sonic pulse and balm.

“Her poetry is ecstatic, tender, vulnerable, fierce, and wholly unique. When I think of Alex there’s not another writer she reminds me of. If I were to compare her work as a poet it would have to be a comparison to some sort of mix between the late, great, visual artist Carl Andre and the band Public Image Limited or a mash-up of Patti Smith and the band Minor Threat.” Matthew Dickman

Alex Behr is the author of Planet Grim: Stories (7.13 Books) and is writing a second collection for 7.13, to be published the spring of 2026. She is the co-author of the short fiction chapbook Cold Plum Wine (Picture Frame Press) and the author of the poetry chapbook Grief Stick (Picture Frame Press), now in its second printing.

She received an MFA in creative writing from Portland State. She has taught intermediate fiction at the college level, creative writing residencies at Portland high schools for 10 years through Literary Arts’ Writers in the Schools and at the Portland Book Festival, online at Corporeal Writing, and, forthcoming in 2025, in person at Up Up Books, The Attic, and Literary Arts. Her interviews, essays, poems, and short fiction have appeared widely, including in Salon, Tin House, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Cleaver, X-R-A-Y, Propeller, The Rumpus, Oregon ArtsWatch, Oregon Humanities, Lumina, Portland Review, and Gravity of the Thing. She has participated in and/or organized numerous readings in Portland, San Francisco, and New York City, and has contributed her writing to a podcast, cable TV show, and other media projects.