If you’ve ever sat in a creative writing workshop and felt like the professor was speaking a language only they understood, you haven't met Chris Forhan. Honestly, it’s rare to find a writer who can juggle the high-brow prestige of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship with the raw, gut-punch honesty of a family tragedy.
Some people know him as the guy who teaches at Butler University now. But there's a specific curiosity around Chris Forhan and Portland State University (PSU) that keeps popping up. Maybe it’s the Pacific Northwest roots. Or maybe it’s just the way his poetry feels like a rainy afternoon in a Portland coffee shop—contemplative, slightly moody, and entirely authentic.
Why Chris Forhan Still Matters at Portland State University
Look, the academic world is small. While Forhan has spent a huge chunk of his career in Indianapolis, his connection to the West Coast—and specifically the literary ecosystem that feeds into places like Portland State University—is deep.
He was born and raised in Seattle. That’s important. You can hear the damp pavement and the grey skies in his early work. For students at PSU, Forhan is often held up as a model of the "Northwest Poet" who made it. He didn't just write pretty verses; he excavated the silence of a suburban childhood.
His memoir, My Father Before Me, is a staple in many contemporary literature syllabi. If you're a student in the PSU English department, you've likely heard his name whispered in the same breath as other regional heavyweights. He represents that specific transition from "local kid with a notebook" to "award-winning memoirist published by Scribner."
The Silence in the Carport
You can't talk about Chris Forhan without talking about his father. This isn't just "flavor text." It's the engine of his most profound work.
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When Forhan was 14, his father, Ed, killed himself in the family’s carport. No note. No warning. Just a massive, echoing silence that left eight children and a wife to pick up the pieces. For forty years, that silence was a family rule. You didn't talk about it. You just... moved on.
But poets don't just move on. They circle back.
In My Father Before Me, Forhan does something pretty incredible. He doesn't just write a "woe is me" story. He becomes a detective. He looks into his Irish Catholic roots, his parents' courtship, and the weird, repressed energy of the 1960s and 70s. It’s a book about how we don't really know the people we live with.
"A suicide leaves behind it a wake of silence. I have wanted to fill that silence."
That quote basically sums up his entire creative philosophy. Whether he’s writing poetry or prose, he’s trying to find the words for things that were never supposed to be said.
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The Poetry: Award After Award
If you think poetry is just about rhyming "moon" and "june," Forhan will set you straight pretty fast. He’s won the Morse Poetry Prize, the Bakeless Prize, and the Barrow Street Press Poetry Prize. Basically, if there’s a prestigious award for poetry, he’s probably got it on his shelf.
His collections like Black Leapt In and The Actual Moon, The Actual Stars are masterclasses in imagery. He has this way of taking a mundane moment—like looking at a gerbil or a "rock polisher"—and turning it into a meditation on existence.
His Major Collections
- Forgive Us Our Happiness (1999): The one that started the major win streak.
- The Actual Moon, The Actual Stars (2003): Very focused on the "astonishments of merely being."
- Black Leapt In (2009): This is where the father’s suicide starts to really bleed through the poetic veil.
- Ransack and Dance (2013): A bit more playful, but still carries that signature weight.
He’s also branched out into essays. His 2022 book, A Mind Full of Music: Essays on Imagination and Popular Song, is a must-read if you’ve ever felt like a specific song understood your life better than your friends did. It’s conversational, smart, and totally relatable.
What Most People Get Wrong
A lot of people assume that because he writes about suicide and silence, his work is depressing. Kinda the opposite, actually.
There’s a lot of humor in Forhan’s writing. He talks about the "shenanigans" of growing up in a big family. He writes about the Beatles, radio contests, and the awkwardness of being a teenager. He’s not wallowing; he’s exploring.
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He once mentioned in an interview with the Bellingham Review that he feels most alive when he’s "attuned to the astonishments and wonders of merely being." That’s the key. His work is a celebration of the fact that we're here at all, even if "here" is sometimes a bit messy and confusing.
Taking a Page from the Forhan Playbook
If you’re a writer at Portland State University—or anywhere, really—there are some actual, practical things you can learn from how Chris Forhan approaches his craft.
First off, ignore the facts (sometimes). Forhan has admitted that while his memoir is researched, his poetry often invents details to get to a deeper truth. He feels "little obligation to honor literal facts in a journalistic way" when he's writing poems. That's a huge permission slip for any artist.
Second, use your ears. Forhan started out as a songwriter and a broadcast journalist. He obsesses over the "bass line" of a sentence—the rhythm, the vowels, the way the words physically feel in the mouth.
Next Steps for the Aspiring Writer:
- Read "My Father Before Me": Even if you aren't into memoirs, read it for the pacing. Notice how he weaves multiple generations together without losing the reader.
- Experiment with "Stray Phrases": Forhan keeps a notebook of random lines that "hang around." Try carrying a small notebook for a week and jotting down 5 phrases that sound interesting but don't mean anything yet.
- Audit the Silence: Think about a "family secret" or a topic that was off-limits in your house. Don't write about the event; write about the silence surrounding it.
Whether you're looking for Chris Forhan at Portland State University or finding his books in a library in Indiana, the takeaway is the same: the things we don't say are usually the things most worth writing about.
Actionable Insight
If you want to understand the modern Northwest poetic voice, start by reading Forhan's poem "Rock Polisher." It’s a perfect bridge between his Seattle childhood and the technical mastery he teaches his students today. It’ll give you a better sense of his style than any biography ever could.