Vendor Profile | A poet and ambassador

Vendor Douglas “Wookie” Marcks knows Street Roots inside and out. He doesn’t just sell the paper — he also contributes his poetry to it.

By his estimate, Marcks has had his poetry published in the paper upwards of 50 times. He writes poetry during Street Roots’ vendor creative writing classes, but he’s been writing in general since he was in junior high school.

“I wrote way before I wrote here,” Marcks said.

He recently published two poetry books comprised of poetry originally published in Street Roots to sell at the recent Street Roots vendor craft fair in July. Marcks had originally planned for the two books to be one — and still plans to combine them at some point — but a friend convinced him to split the poetry into two books for the fair, one covering his published work from 2024 and one full of work from the current year.

“I base my stuff on whatever we’re doing in class,” Marcks said. One recent poem, in the Street Roots paper published July 30, was about light and the spectrum of a rainbow or prism.

“It’s mainly stream-of-consciousness writing,” he said.

Marcks was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His family lived in a few different places, mainly on the East Coast, and he moved to Portland in 1976.

“Right after we won the NBA championship!” he said.

Originally, Marcks would only attend Blazers games once a year, when they played the Milwaukee Bucks — and he would cheer for the Bucks. But he came around to being a Blazers fan, and at one point even held a season pass. (Marcks is excited, as are many Portlanders, that the Blazers are bringing back fan favorite player Damian Lillard from the Bucks, even with his torn Achilles tendon.)

Marcks has been vending with Street Roots for more than 10 years, since 2013. He began vending “right after getting out of prison for something I didn’t do,” he said.

“I’m an ambassador (to Street Roots), as well as an ambassador to my church,” he said. “I’m very proud of it.”

Marcks attends the First Presbyterian Church on Southwest Alder Street. He also sells papers outside the church after service.

Something Marcks is excited about doing in the future is walking his daughter down the aisle at her upcoming wedding in California.

“I’m getting out of this chair,” Marcks said, who uses a wheelchair. “I’m going to walk her down the aisle.”

Marcks sells Street Roots at and near the First Presbyterian Church of Portland. You can support Marcks through
@StreetRoots Venmo by entering his name and badge number (#221) in the memo.