Upper Left Edge

a small paper for a small planet

  • Sign In
  • About Us
    • Welcome
    • History
  • The Edge in Print
  • Writers
  • Links
  • Contact
  • Support
    • Underwrite
  • Tides
  • Categories
    • Art
    • Photography
    • Books
    • Culture
    • Healing
    • Spirit
    • Entertainment
    • Food
    • Happenings
    • Movies
    • Song and Dance
    • Television
    • Fiction
    • Nature
    • Plant Medicine
    • Poetry
    • Politics

About Watt Childress

Watt owns Jupiter's Books in Cannon Beach, Oregon and he publishes the Upper Left Edge. He has written for HIPFiSH, The Daily Astorian, The North Coast Citizen, The Seaside Signal, The Oregonian, and The Vancouver Observer. Also Appalachian Magazine, The Kingsport Times-News, The Tennessean, The Third Eye, Farmazine, The Griot, and Presbyterian Survey. His lettered compulsion took a turn, thirty-some years ago, when he began sending odd columns to the Reverend Billy Lloyd Hults, former publisher of The Upper Left Edge. Watt lives on a tiny hill-farm perched beside the Nehalem Valley. There he and his kin care for dairy goats, chickens, ducks, dogs, newts and other critters.

Smart travel money helps care for places we love

January 6, 2026 by Watt Childress 1 Comment

OREGON’S NORTH COAST faces problems common to many destinations. Increasing demands on resources boosts momentum for heavy urban growth. Without careful management, this accelerates overcrowding and makes matters worse. [Read More]

Filed Under: Culture, Featured Writing, Politics

Uncle Zech’s Amphibious Gestalt

April 20, 2025 by Watt Childress 9 Comments

Cultures native to Turtle Island consider frogs to be among the “first people.” Could this be a way of acknowledging our elder kin in creation, animal relatives who might show us how to jump back from desolation?
[Read More]

Filed Under: Culture, Featured Writing, Song and Dance, Spirit Tagged With: Abomination of desolation, Drunk with the blood of the saints, In hoc signo vinces, Spring Peepers

Everybody’s kin to Jesus (Part 1)

February 14, 2025 by Watt Childress 5 Comments

I reckon much of what’s happening now is a cultural reflux of what went down a while back, when rulers began using Jesus as a prop for colonization. Empire has co-opted spiritual leadership in this way for millennia.
[Read More]

Filed Under: Featured Writing, Spirit

Here Try Some of This Ointment

April 17, 2024 by Watt Childress 4 Comments

Imagine life where everyone pitches in with a mix of chores and creative leisure. One barely sees this balance from today’s towers of ranking prey.
[Read More]

Filed Under: Culture, Featured Writing, Poetry, Spirit, ULE Tagged With: Al-Eizariya, Appalachia, Bethany, Falafel, Isabel Wilkerson, Israel, Jesus, Knoxville, Mary, Nard, Origin, Palestine, Solomon, Spikenard

Tax-and-Spend Tourism Devours our Coast

January 8, 2024 by Watt Childress Leave a Comment

Appetites have hugely altered this place first recorded by explorers as “No-cost,” an ironic name for the spendy spot where residents and visitors haggled over blubber. [Read More]

Filed Under: Featured Writing, Politics Tagged With: Cannon Beach, Ecola, lodging tax, NeCus', No-Cost, Oregon, Whale

Exchanging gifts with Ursula

December 5, 2023 by Watt Childress 3 Comments

Le Guin’s writing has inspired me to question authority ever since my classmates and I read her work in school. [Read More]

Filed Under: Art, Books, Culture, Featured Writing Tagged With: Barb Knop, Brandon Ogilvie, Bruce St. Denis, Cannon Beach, Gary Hayes, Lisa Kerr, Nancy McCarthy, Ursula K. Le Guin

Watershed Folk

November 27, 2023 by Watt Childress Leave a Comment

Awareness of our common bond grows in these little events. Each gathering brings us a baby step closer to knowing how sacred this place is. [Read More]

Filed Under: Culture, Featured Writing, Spirit Tagged With: Cannon Beach, Ecola Creek, Salmon

Local citizens could rejuvenate democracy

November 6, 2023 by Watt Childress Leave a Comment

Apparently some leaders need a refresher lesson on consent. A comparison between civic governance and interpersonal relations is appropriate. When someone expresses a desire for friendship, starts giving hugs, this does not mean it’s OK to pursue sex with them. Even if romance does unfold, pay attention if the person says no at any point.
[Read More]

Filed Under: Featured Writing, Politics Tagged With: Cannon Beach, Oregon

Charging up our Song

November 3, 2023 by Watt Childress 3 Comments

Spirit cracked open
my mumblypeg mind with
heart-to-heart conversation.
[Read More]

Filed Under: Featured Writing, Poetry, Spirit

Holding Hands in Cannon Beach

August 28, 2023 by Watt Childress 4 Comments

Can coastal ghosts take
control of boards that
meet on ancestral strands?
Possession risks captivity.
[Read More]

Filed Under: Featured Writing, Poetry

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • …
  • 10
  • Next Page »

More Gleanings

Memoir

February 13, 2026 By Steven Mayer Leave a Comment

End of the Street

August 4, 2025 By Steven Mayer 2 Comments

Here Try Some of This Ointment

April 17, 2024 By Watt Childress 4 Comments

We are the Luminaries

August 8, 2023 By Watt Childress 2 Comments

Open Letter for Creation’s Caregivers

June 19, 2023 By Watt Childress 5 Comments

Additional Wisdom...

Readers’ Comments

  • R²
    January 7, 2026 at 7:19 am
    on Smart travel money helps care for places we love
    Couldn't agree with you more. We're dealing with that all right now trying to get the air museum in tillamook
  • Pam Wade
    December 6, 2025 at 8:29 am
    on Adventures with author Charles de Lint
    The first work I read by Charles de Lint was Greenmantle followed by Moonheart. Since then there has not been
  • Trudy
    October 8, 2025 at 2:42 pm
    on Hankering for Paradise: My Discovery of The Wave Crest Inn
    I stayed at the Wave Crest for a night in the late 70s. If I remember right, the cost was
  • K H
    September 24, 2025 at 8:09 am
    on The Genocide of the American Indian, and Their Refusal to Die
    This response is far from timely, I know. But in honor of the ancestors I thank you for helping us
  • Ronald Logan Buchansn
    September 22, 2025 at 12:35 am
    on Three Poems and a Mountain
    Logan, on my annual summer browsing at Jupitor's I read "Freewriting In A Parked Car" and instantly purchased your book.
More Comments...

Confessional (archive)

Come into The Confessional -- view the former Upper Left Edge forum entries.

Pages

Home | Contact | Advertise | Underwrite | The Confessional | Welcome | History | User Agreement | Privacy Policy

Post Categories

Archives on the Edge

Upper Left Edge

P.O. Box 1096
Cannon Beach, OR 97110

Send an e-mail

© 2012–2026  Upper Left Edge