Poets weigh importance of place

      W.T. Pfefferle resigned his position as director of the writing program at Johns Hopkins University to travel around America and interview poets — 62 of them. The result is "Poets on Place," a fascinating collection of poets' conclusions about the importance of place in their work.
      Utahns will especially note the presence of Mark Strand, former University of Utah English professor; Ken Brewer, current poet laureate of the state of Utah; and Paisley Rekdal, who lives on a hillside overlooking Salt Lake City. This collection clarifies just how diverse America's poets are in their interests, style and background.
      Most often, Pfefferle includes samples of his interviews with the poets, plus an example of their work. Strand, for instance, who now teaches at the University of Chicago, lives in an apartment overlooking Lake Shore Drive. The author calls Strand's work "astonishing in its breadth" and asserts that he "virtually reinvented" the contemporary poem.
      Strand suggests that his work has been dominated by the use of rooms, "an enclosed space in which I can arrange things as I want. As long as I'm arranging the space, I'm in control. . . . The space of my poems is the space of the rooms in the poems."
      Speaking of place, Strand recalls as an influence the summers he spent in Nova Scotia, as well as the years he spent in Utah, where the mountains and valleys "became an inescapable reality that I incorporated in my poems — but largely as background."
      He also notes "the spaciousness one experiences in the West that one has no access to in the cities of the East or the hilliness of New England. The airy texture of everything. The air seems lighter and less thick, especially when you're elevated like you are in Salt Lake City."
      The author describes Logan, the home to Ken Brewer, as "gorgeous," with "neat houses up and down long, sloping valleys." Brewer he finds to be "a genial host . . . who delights in debunking for me some of the more romantic myths."
      He learns that Brewer grew up in Indianapolis, then moved to New Mexico, and finally to Cache Valley in 1968. Brewer does not write about place, but he believes the mountain setting is important and symbolic for the people he writes about. Living in the West, says Brewer, gives him vision: "Vision in the sense that you can see so far. I didn't start writing poetry until I was in New Mexico. I'm a more oral poet, and I think that's a Western thing. And I think there's a sense of tone that goes along with that."
      Paisley Rekdal, who grew up in Washington State, recently moved from Wyoming to Utah. She tells the author that she is having a difficult adjustment to Utah, because Wyoming is more "isolated." "It's depressing in that sense because I moved to Utah, and it's not really the West. Or at least my idea of what the West is. Like any other place, there are strip malls here and the Banana Republic, foreign food, foreign films. The problem with America is that all the towns are looking the same. Still, it's stunning and gorgeous, and there's such an outdoor ethic."

H-Net, July 2005

What's Place Got To Do With It? American Poets Talk About Where They Live

I started reading Poets on Place at my home in a town just south of San Francisco, but the bulk of it got read during a week in Mexico, at a beachside "eco-resort." As vacation reading and companion of relaxed hours in a beautiful place, I found it quite entertaining, even amusing, a sort of Frommer's Guide to American Poets and the Places They Live In and Love. 

At the same time, it is a book with a serious purpose. As Pfefferle writes in his introduction, "I wanted to know what other writers thought of [place]. How did their work spring from the places of their lives?" (p. xvii). Over a nine-month period, Pfefferle interviewed sixty-one poets, ranging from well-known, long-established writers such as Marvin Bell, Rita Dove, David Lehman, Naomi Shihab Nye, and Mark Strand, to lesser-known rising stars or people who have a solid body of work but haven't seen much public attention. He asked them serious questions, such as how their relationship to the places where they have lived has impacted their poetry, and whether they believe they have an obligation to write about those places. The answers are wildly varied, not surprising given the composition of the group: from very old to very young, living in every kind of landscape (urban, rural, and suburban), representing several ethnicities (although the majority are white) and every region of the country. 

Although some questions appear often, there are also variations from interview to interview, as Pfefferle seems to have been diligent about his research and asks questions of particular relevance to each individual. The excerpts below, a sample of the replies to his question about the impact of place on the poet's work, give a sense of how interesting and varied the responses are: 

"In terms of how it's affected my work, it's always seemed to me that how we live is one of the great subjects of poetry ... And for me, that means the material life in landscape ... at least as much as it means interrelationships among human beings," Elizabeth Dodd (p. 264). 

"I get my spiritual self regenerated in the woods, in nature. Wild country is my church. You combine those things--the idea of spiritual regeneration or communion and this boundless source of images that I get from the wild world--and it's everything about what I do as a poet," Robert Wrigley (p. 67). 

"I think that it's true for so many people who come out of Mississippi. If you're born into a place like that ... it fuels you, trying to grapple with that beautiful and troubled history," Natasha Tretheway (pp. 163-164). 

"I've moved around a great deal in my life, and particularly while growing up.... Not thinking anything was permanent ... meant that a sense of commitment to a 'real' was hard for me to develop," Lisa Samuels (p. 34). 

"For me, maybe it's less a matter of place than of placelessness. I grew up on air force bases, moving around nearly every single year until I was in high school. Sometimes I think that's the reason I became a writer: I could create a sort of world to carry around with me," Carl Phillips (p. 253). 

"I've lived so many places ... that I paradoxically became more interested in the idea of place," Nicole Cooley (p. 210). 

"In some respects the places I've lived have been irrelevant," Dave Smith (p. 206). 

A number of themes come up repeatedly in the interviews, and the poets' ruminations on these themes are as multifaceted as their answers to the question about the impact of place. Although I haven't counted, I was left with the impression that something like 95 percent of the group have moved several times in their lives, so the disruption of leaving one place and learning to know another is a frequent subject. (And it seems to me that some graduate student might find a rich thesis or dissertation topic in studying the impact of such a nomadic existence on the work of various writers.) Other recurring topics include time, memory, and the persistence or transformation of the poet's earliest or "default" landscape; the importance of "attending" (by seeing, walking through, staring at, listening) to place; regional differences in poetry; and the possible effects of geography and weather on poetic content but also on form. One sees this particularly in the interviews with poets who have moved to the West as adults; Bin Ramke comments, for example: 

"The past is extremely present in the South, but it's also decomposing and turning into something else. But here, that past of the mountains is visible and much more resistant to change. There's a way that my own work has wanted to show much longer historical and geographical reverberations" (p. 271). 

Another theme is the way particular landscapes or elements within a landscape trigger poems. Lucie Brock-Broido wins my prize for the most eccentric answer to this last: 

"I have always known that when I was writing I have actually been in one particular place in my mind's eye. And that is the city of Haworth. It's Bronte country.... I've known since I was fifteen and read Wuthering Heights that that landscape was home to me" (p. 221). 

The book is long, nearly three hundred pages. Since I was reviewing it, I read straight through from beginning to end, but if I hadn't been I might have bounced around, reading the interviews with my favorite poets first, skipping others entirely. If I had, I would have missed the "story," told in interleaved short pieces rather like diary entries, of the journey taken by Pfefferle and his wife Beth. This is the "tales from the road" of the title, relating the excitement of starting out in their newly purchased RV, and the highs and lows of the journey. They give the book a certain momentum as one follows the narrator's adventures. 

In these interspersed pieces, Pfefferle describes the landscapes, the weather, the towns and their buildings; in his introductions to the interviews, he usually describes the poet's neighborhood and the actual place where the poet writes, the desk or studio or room, if he has been invited to see it. Appropriately, given the book's intent, this detail enriches the interviews by providing a sense of the poet's place; one imagines Barbara Drake's "vineyard amidst the rolling foothills of a far western Oregon, surrounded by fields covered with hazelnut and walnut trees" (p. 90), or David Lehman in his "tiny book- and manuscript-filled apartment" (p. 214) in Manhattan. 

Although on the whole I enjoyed this book a great deal, I do have some dissatisfactions. A poem is appended to a little more than half the interviews; this is fine, but it makes one wonder, why not to all? The choice of poems sometimes seems almost whimsical; in some cases the piece reflects ideas that were discussed in the interview, whereas in others it seems to have no relationship, or even to contradict, what the poet has said about his or her work. This is perhaps the book's greatest weakness; if I were going to use it in a class, I would want to find better examples of the poets' work to supplement the interviews. 

My second complaint is personal: no poets from the San Francisco Bay area are included. Pfefferle explains why, in a piece called "Choosing" (p. 194) that describes his process for selecting interview subjects: "When a number of poets from one area couldn't meet with me, it left a few blank spots on our map--the Bay Area of California for one, upper New England for another" (pp. 194-195). Understandable, but disappointing for this reader. 

Finally, I wish Pfefferle had included some sort of "contributors' notes." Although I'm familiar with many of the poets, quite a few were new to me and I would have liked to have a little more information at hand. That said, there's no question that creating such a section would have added to the already monumental task of writing this book, and perhaps was dispensed with in the interest of timely publication. 

Selected interviews might make interesting supplemental reading for a literature class studying poetry or taking an eco-critical focus. It was surprising, for this reader, how few poets mentioned ecological issues or environmental degradation, but one of the strengths of Pfefferle's choice of interview subjects is that he did not try to recruit only people known as "nature poets." Thus, educators in any setting, urban, suburban, or rural, might use the book as a springboard to a discussion of how individuals form their sense of place, of home. Is one's relationship to the more-than-human world a critical factor? For some poets, the answer seems to be no, for others unequivocally yes; for all of them, the answer is complex. Students would likely enjoy interviewing each other on the same topic, or writing about the role of place in their own lives. 

As Michael S. Harper says, "[P]oetry is all about one's neighborhood. And particularly one's psychic neighborhood, where one lives in one's head" (p. 224). As an intriguing glimpse into the psychic and actual neighborhoods of a cross-section of living American poets, Poets on Place has much to offer readers interested in the subject of place. 
 

Citation: Christine Holland. "Review of W. T. Pfefferle, Poets on Place: Interviews and Tales from the Road," H-Nilas, H-Net Reviews, July, 2005. URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=267661126549051. 

A rich discourse about poetry and place: The West Under Cover 

Donald Revell, a poet who lives in Las Vegas and teaches at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City says "both cities, both cultures are improvised in a vacuum. Both cities are tributes to the improvisational nature of American spirituality. Is that a real religion, or did you make that up? Is that a real city, or did you make that up?"

Revell and his wife, Claudia Keelan, who teaches at the University of Nevada, were among 62 poets interviewed by W.T. Pfefferle as he drove around the United States from September 2003 until May 2004. He asked all of them about the role played by place in their writings and lives. A quarter live, or once did, in Utah or a bordering state.

Kenneth Brewer, Utah's poet laureate, told Pfefferle that the West he discovered when he left Indianapolis to attend college in New Mexico was a surprise. "I've slowly come to understand the West," he said, "and it's not the West that I knew as a kid. I suspect it's not at all what people east of the Mississippi think of."

"I don't care much for . . . people from the East who think they're bringing culture to the West. I've got news for them. We've got plenty, thank you."

Rita Dove grew up in Akron, Ohio. A former poet laureate of the United States, she used to teach at Arizona State and now lives in Virginia. Akron, she said, "is not a pretty place." But later, she added, she was "living somewhere in Europe when I reread Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet . . . [and Rainer Marie Rilke wrote] if you can't pull forth the riches of a place, don't blame the place, blame yourself . . . and I thought, I have Akron. I've got to do Akron."

Paisley Rekdal, who grew up in Washington state and now lives in Salt Lake City, said, "I think that what attracted me to the West is that you are forced to think of your connection to the natural environment, not simply see it as an amusement of some kind."

Robert Wrigley also spoke of the environment. "This landscape, this place, the animals who live here, and the things I find myself doing here have become the theater of my poetic operations. This is where I get most of my images," Wrigley, who lives near Moscow, Idaho, told Pfefferle.

Former University of Utah educator Mark Strand was asked whether "poets have any obligation to write about the places of their lives."

"No," said the University of Chicago teacher "Because place is not an audience. Place is not what you're writing for. Poets have an obligation to the language they use. . . . But poets don't owe anything to place because place is just geography. It's accidental."

The range of reactions the poets in the book have to the relationship between place and their poetry is so wide that no patterns are clearly visible. That's what gives Pfefferle's book its richness, its sense that poetry and place are far too large to lend themselves to easy definitions. Understanding that helps us understand both poetry and place.

Martin Naparsteck reviews books from and about the West for The Salt Lake Tribune.

Date: September 11, 2005 
Section: Arts 
Edition: Final 
Page: D5 

Georgetown News-Graphic, April 2005

The Wanderer

W.T. Pfefferle doesn’t know if Georgetown is home yet. Check back with him in 10 years. After all, before moving here in July to begin a one-year teaching position at Georgetown College, his permanent residence for eight months was a motor home. 

Pfefferle and his wife of 20 years had lived in a string of cities, most recently Baltimore, when their mid-40s made them “achingly aware” they were midway through everything, from careers to lives. “We were wondering if this was as far as we were going to go, if this was as good as it was going to get,” he said. 

They decided to quit their jobs, sell their house and hit the road in search of a place to call home, a place they actually wanted to live instead of a place they had to live because of a job. While his wife was looking forward to spending more time in the outdoors than in an office, Pfefferle settled on his own project — talking to writers about the idea of places influencing writing. 

Eight months, 62 poets, 43 states and 20,000-plus miles later, he concluded his journey with enough material for his new book, Poets on Place, and an important lesson from a man he met in Montana. The man, after listening to Pfefferle speak of traveling the country and trying to see everything there is to see, simply pointed to his own head to explain his idea of home. “He basically told me I wouldn’t find a home for myself until I got my head right,” Pfefferle said. “A sense of home is up to me. I’ve got to find it in my head and heart before I can find it anywhere else.” 

Originally from Winnipeg, Pfefferle grew up in British Columbia, left Canada at the age of 17 to attend Arizona State University and fully intended to return there after college until he met his wife, Beth. His parents had been in the hotel industry, so as a child, Pfefferle had grown accustomed to moving around from town to town and embraced the “wanderlust gene” he seemed to inherit. “It didn’t bother me to think about going somewhere new,” he said. “I had just always done it.” 

Although he had grown up in small towns, he and his wife had spent their adult lives in cities — Miami, Dallas, Phoenix and then Baltimore, where he was a writing program administrator at Johns Hopkins University, and she was a sales executive for an NBC-owned television station. Deciding to actually live out the cross-country fantasy so many people seem have, the two put their careers and personal relationships on hold, packed up their new RV and headed toward their first stop: Morgantown, W.Va. 

“There was so much involved in backing out of our old life, there was really nothing to do but jump,” Pfefferle said. On the road, Pfefferle interviewed writers to find out about the places in their lives, photographed them in their home and work environments, asked them about their writing and learned about his own in the process. Poets on Place, which became more about people than poets or places, is subtitled Interviews and Tales from the Road and includes Pfefferle’s work along with the others, some written specifically for the book as “gifts.” “I got the chance to peer into the lives of these poets, people I admire,” he said. “It enriched me in so many different ways.” 

While the journey didn’t reveal the perfect place to call home, several stops along the way still stand out in Pfefferle’s mind, including the rocky, wild, untamed coast of Oregon, where he spent a week. “I can still feel the mist of the ocean on my face whenever I think of that,” he said. Equally peaceful was Death Valley, the empty area between California and Nevada where, in the absence of artificial light, the moon provided plenty of illumination on its own. “After a life of cities and noise, the thing I really wanted to find was a place of peace, a place of quiet,” Pfefferle said. “During those times, I just felt like it was me and the planet. Those places really got to me.” 

With his book complete, Pfefferle still hadn’t figured out what his next step would be, but after talking to a friend at Georgetown College, he decided to try a year of teaching writing and literature there, which has since been extended to a tenured position as an associate professor of English. “

We kind of like the area, kind of like horses, kind of like bourbon, and Kentucky is a good place for all of those things,” Pfefferle said. “We’ve really fallen in love with the town and with the area.” 

Since his return, Pfefferle has often recommended the experience to friends, always emphasizing the importance of breaking away from everyday life for a while, whether it’s a week or eight months. While the thought of permanence isn’t quite as scary to him now as it was before, Pfefferle hopes to never lose the inquisitive nature the trip taught him. 

“I’m always wanting to learn something new about the places in life,” he said. “I’ll stay in Georgetown as long as it keeps revealing new places to me.”

used by permission of the Georgetown News Graphic

The Georgetonian, March 9, 2005 

W.T. Pfefferle writes about his tales and interviews from the road

Dr. W.T. Pfefferle is ready. Only 19 days away from the release date of his new book, Poets on Place: Tales and Interviews from the Road, Pfefferle’s relaxed and open demeanor exudes an almost “jolly” quality, making one wonder if, in some past life, his winter coat wasn’t a brilliant ruby color and lined with white fur. But then, he certainly does have a reason to be chipper.

After the hustle and bustle of traditional jobs started to take a toll on the time that Pfefferle and his wife were able to spend together, they made a decision: quit. After all, the only thing really holding them down was a piece of property with a house on it, and that was certainly no reason to stay together in a place that was pulling their time as a couple apart. The two sold their home and their car, and then went on to purchase a combination of the two. The Pfefferles’ traveled and lived in their new thirty-foot motor home for a year, driving 20,000 miles and visiting 43 states.

“Everyone would want to know: ‘What the heck are you doing?’” Pfefferle smiles, chuckling. “How can you just, you know, leave?” Part of Poets on Place includes a traveling narrative of the trip the couple took to find the people interviewed, and another part “…is really about my own desire to kind of find a home someplace. We never felt entirely like we were where we ‘belonged.’” It’s easier to leave home if you don’t really feel that it’s your own.

After leaving, Pfefferle soon realized that a year-long vacation certainly sounded nice, but, “Because I am a project person, I wanted to have something to do. I’m a poet - with about 70 poems published nationally in literary journals - and in my own poetry I’ve seen the debt I have to the various places I’ve lived and worked. I wondered if poets everywhere were like that. So the idea was to visit poets as we traveled, actually visit them in their homes, in their writing spaces. I was interested in how the places of a poet’s life influenced what they wrote. Did city poets like David Lehman feel an obligation to capture something of their worlds, in the same way a poet who lives on a mountain in Idaho, like Bob Wrigley. What I found is that for most poets, without their knowing it, their places (their homes, their offices, their natural world surroundings) all impacted every line they wrote.”

Geography played a large part in the poets that Pfefferle chose to interview. “We knew we’d be going through certain towns and cities, and I just researched who lived there. Obviously — if you look at the list of people in the book — I chose many of the most influential and significant poets of our time: Rita Dove, Nikki Giovanni, Mark Strand, Charles Wright. But I also visited a lot of younger poets, people just getting started.”

While 62 interviews does sound like quite a few poets, Pfefferle did meet with some uniquely stand-out interesting people. “For me, Mark Strand was the real coup. He doesn’t do many interviews and is an absolute giant. I had to call in a lot of favors for him to agree to see me. As it turned out he was one of the last folks I met because I couldn’t reach him for months. Finally, with the help of some other poets I’d met, I got a couple of them to call him up and tell him what a great guy I was and how painless the interview was. He called me at the home my wife and I have in Arkansas one day and said, ‘Come on; I’ll see you tomorrow.’ This was after the trip was over, so we just packed our cameras and recorders into a car and drove all night to get there. It was a terrific interview and he had a great time.

“Home, for me, is a moving target. I went looking for something, and at the end of the year I didn’t think I’d found it.” After his country-wide adventure, Pfefferle accepted a visiting job at Georgetown College in the English department. After teaching and living here for half a year, Georgetown offered an associate professorship with tenure, and he accepted. Welcome home, Dr. Pfefferle.

Along with the interviews and traveling narrative, (Poets on Place) also contains 45 poems from these writers; some never before published, and composed specifically for the book. The book will be available on March 28 at Amazon.com through Utah State University Press.