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Viola (Vi) M. Gale was born in 1917 in Sweden to Erland and Maria Håkansson. In 1923 the Håkansson family immigrated to the United States and settled in the Swedish logging community of Clatskanie, Oregon, where Vi's father worked as a logger for the Simon Benson logging company. During her years in Clatskanie, Vi attended Clatskanie High School, worked as the town librarian, and sold bread. In 1940 she moved to Portland where she met and married Jim Gale. During the late 1940s Gale began taking writing courses at Portland State University and reading modern poetry anthologies. In 1955 she attended a writer's conference in Boulder, Colorado where she met poet May Sarton. Sarton encouraged Gale to continue writing poetry, and in 1959 she sent her first poetry collection to Alan Swallow, who became her mentor and published her first three books, including Several Houses, (1959), a selection for the 100 best Oregon books by the Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission in 2003. After becoming an established as a poet, Vi followed the example set by Swallow and established Prescott Street Press, a publishing venture with the goal of promoting unknown authors and producing well-designed and affordable books. This venture lasted into the twenty first century, and continued to operate to the end of Gale's life. Vi Gale was also instrumental in organizing numerous Pacific Northwest literary organizations including R's Poetica.