Mark Halperin - Ellensburg, WA
Mark Halperin is a delightful guy who greets me in his snowy front yard. He and Dasha, his sweet half-Husky, half Malamute - who understands commands in English, Russian, and "dog" - escort me to the warmest room in the long and lovely house, Mark's study.
Dasha makes herself scarce and Mark and I talk on a sunny but chilly morning.
We talk about the standard items from this project, but also get around to Mark's love of fishing. He's a serious fisherman, a fly fisherman, who can see the edge of his beloved Yakima River from any of a number of windows on the south side of the house. When fishing doesn't take up his time - and he fishes in lieu of writing all summer - he can reach over and pick up one of his treasured banjos or acoustic guitars. He has a Gibson acoustic, an L series from 1913. He picks it up at one point and finger picks a sort of Leadbelly-style country-blues.
Mark has taught and worked in Russia a number of times, and we talk a bit about how those experiences have been crucial to his own translations of contemporary Russian literature. But he spends more time telling me about life in Russia, how the elevators work, about a theater he frequents.
He's a great interview. He listens to a questions, recognizes the answer I'm probably looking for (much to my chagrin), then spins his answer a couple of ways. He says he doesn't mean to be contrary, but it lights him up to do it. He is animated and fun to listen to. We fill one side of a tape and I pop another in and keep going.
After a while, we go out into the back yard to see another of his writing areas, this one in 1/2 of a finished shed in the back yard. I meet his wife, Bobbie Halperin, a painter. Bobbie has spotted my wife sitting in our rented car in the driveway - putting stamps on envelopes and other mindless chores - and has brought her in to see her studio. So the four of us, and Dasha - she of the serious language skills - stand around a bit and chat like we're all pals. Which is what we've become.
Jana Harris - Sultan, WA
It's election day in Sultan, Washington, and one of the candidates, a tall and gaunt man with a long beard, is standing in the back of his pickup truck at a local gas station, hollering at passers by. He's running for city council. He has my vote, just for the beard and the courage of his convictions - whatever they may be. We get some gas at the station and I listen in a bit. He's talking taxes, and freedom, and about keeping government out of the "business of the little man." Some cars move right past him like he wasn't there. But others stop for a second on the shoulder and open their windows. Some folks honk. He waves at everyone. He seems to know about every third person, calling them by name.
As we have traveled out of the urban cities on the Washington coast, we've found the towns a little tougher, a little more wild. People are more independent here, especially when compared to the reserved folks we know from our time in the northeast U.S. Hippies and rednecks live happily next to ranchers, methamphetamine entrepeneurs, and the ever-present militia folks in their cammo outfits. Loggers and fruit growers.
We wind through some narrow roads east of Sultan and up into some pretty ranchland. Mountains rise in the eastern sky, and we drive between orchards and pastures until we get to Jana Harris's farm on a spacious and quiet piece of land, a barn, a long house, and a pond to the north.
Jana Harris lives on a working horse farm, and before se see the house, we see four beautiful mares in separate pens on a clear and sunny chilly late morning in November.
Jana welcomes us into the house, as does Charlie, a sweet old lab, and Hillary Clinton, a cat with a - reported at least - running line of cat chatter.
Jana is whipping up some food in the kitchen. She talks about her land and horses while she cooks, and we drink in the smells and play with Charlie - who loves the sun coming through onto the dark floor tiles.
We eat and talk about Jana's work. Jana's most recent books give voice to pioneer women and children who lived in Wyoming, Idaho, and Washington. Jana does brilliant research, unearthing photos and stories and turning this raw material into gorgeous narrative poems that let these heroic - but often lost - characters live fresh lives on the page.
After a feast, we see Jana's writing area, atop an old black leather padded bar from the previous owners of the house. She writes and sleeps in a gigantic open room on the second floor, with large windows open to the southern view of her pastures and the mountain range.
We go with Jana outside as she brings the horses in from the fields for some hay and carrots. The horses are gigantic - I am a city boy, of course - but Jana hooks them and hauls them in easily, all the time talking to them, catching them up on these new visitors who are suddenly in their barn.
We go in for dessert and talk a little about her teaching, some of the schools she's worked at, and it's time to go. We take our leave - and two apples.
Sam Hamill - Port Townsend, WA
We leave Everett, WA, at 6 am in a rented Ford Focus. We're headed for the first of two ferry rides that will take us to Port Townsend where I'm scheduled to meet with Sam Hamill, a terrific poet, translator, and editor of Copper Canyon Press. (Winnie Cooper is hooked up in a nice but crowded RV park, warding off - we hope - all time low temperatures for the area.)
The ferry rides are spectacular. On the first one, a 30 minute ride from the mainland to the southern tip of Whidbey Island, the sun rises behind us as we disappear into the frosty sub-freezing fog that obscures the island from us. Once on Whidbey we drive the small two-lane until we hit a diner. The sidewalks are dotted with kids headed to school, all of them bundled up in layers, not a serious winter coat anywhere.
I have trouble with the ketchup bottle and drown the poor hash browns, but otherwise the food is warm and wonderful.
The next ferry takes us off Whidbey Island, through a small strait, right to the attractively-arrayed town of Port Townsend. Even from a distance, I can see pretty white houses and buildings scattered over the hills. It's almost enough to make you miss the towering range of Olympic Mountains behind the town.
Once in Port Townsend, we do some banking, check a few antique stores out and then my wife drops me at the white clapboard building that is Copper Canyon.
Sam greets me and we get down to business quickly. On the wall facing him is a monumental stack of books published by his esteemed press over the past 30 years. It's a little daunting. I spot on the spines some of the names of poets I've already seen on the trip.
It's probably not necessary to mention it, because it's mostly well known in the poetry community, but Sam's world has been buzzing this past year. In January he was invited to the White House to take part in a symposium on American poety sponsored by Laura Bush. But when the war in Iraq began, Sam organized Poets Against the War instead, a 21st century version of the earlier Vietnam-era model. Many of the most important and influential poets in the country got involved in a wide range of readings and publications. The project would tax anyone, but as Sam correctly notes, it's generated some of the most important public discussion in decades.
But we're here today to discuss other things.
Sam answers everything directly without hesitation. He's sure of himself. It's a sort of confidence, I think, that comes with his comfort level. He's lived in Port Towsend for 30+ years; he's run the press for the same amount of time. He's a grown up.
After we chat, we shoot some photos in the building, some in his office and some in an airy room that contains - what I imagine is - Copper Canyon's original press. In the photos, Sam looks right at the camera. In other situations, the interviewee sometimes wants to know what to do. What should I look at? Is this okay? Should I sit? Sam just knows. He looks right at me, his eyes open, clear, and I shoot fast; Sam Hamill is a guy who's got a full day ahead. The day doesn't stand a chance.
After fish and chips at the Dry Star Cafe, we head south out of Port Townsend. We curl around a series of highways until we end up in Bainbridge Island, a little burg that sits aside one of many ferries back to Seattle.
