Stork Rein spent his formative years in a rural town in northern Ohio, nurtured by the great FM radio stations broadcasting out of Cleveland, and the intricacies of nature that he discovered in the woods nearby his home. Fascinated by words while still young, he began to read a dictionary on a daily basis and was an early and insatiable book reader. 1967 was a watershed year, when he discovered Leonard Cohen and Ursula K. LeGuin, whose works still instruct him today. It was also the year that saw the release of the first Jimi Hendrix album, the first Doors album, Jefferson Airplane’s Surrealistic Pillow, Cream’s Disraeli Gears, and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Musical revelations that continued to inspire him in the years that followed.

 

He graduated from the University of Cincinnati with a degree in psychology and added studies in engineering and radio & TV, afterwards moving to California in the late 1980s. He has been a professional FM radio DJ, an executive chef, a treasury analyst in corporate finance and an operations manager for a heavy haul transportation company.

 

But he has always been a poet.

 

Stork had the fortune of being taught by an innovative high school English teacher who brought The Waste Land to class for reading and analysis. His poetry neurons began firing then and have yet to be stilled. Along with T.S. Eliot, he counts among his influences Tony Hoaglund, Naomi Shihab Nye, Ada Limon, and Nick Flynn. His poems have been published in Remington Review, Mono Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, and The Citadel. His first book of poetry, Beautiful Artifacts, was published by Kelsay Books (UT) in October 2024, and can be purchased at KelsayBooks.com, and Amazon (find it by searching for Stork Rein.)

 

Stork lives in the alpine community of Mount Shasta, CA, where he practices the art of the long marriage with his wife Erika and is assembling a cookbook of recipes for couples.

 

He can be reached at stork@storkreinpoetry.com.