Curtains At The Fitzgerald, night of Galway Kinnell, Fitzgerald Theater, St. Paul, Minnesota, April 2007, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
I pulled a Galway Kinnell book off the shelf last night while Liz was completing her take home final. We sat on the couch in dim midnight light, pecking at slippery keys. (One IBM. One Dell.) Breaking rhythm, I stopped to strum the pages of Strong Is Your Hold. The papery smell cut the air, and fused to April’s last memory: Galway Kinnell, the color red, the Fitzgerald.
I had paged through Bones while doing research a few nights before. Galway jumped right off Natalie’s page. In the chapter, We Are Not the Poem, she writes about keeping your work fresh, and talks about seeing Galway in Ann Arbor, Michigan, when she barely knew who he was. He read his poetry; his poetry sang.
Fast forward 6 years later, to Santa Fe, New Mexico. He raced through every line. They were dead for him.
Natalie goes on to write about losing the danger in your words. About risk taking. It doesn’t matter if you’re not a poet. She is talking about writing:
It is important to remember we are not the poem. … The power is always in the act of writing. Come back to that again and again and again. Don’t get caught in the admiration for your poems. … Write good poems and let go of them. Publish them, read them, go on writing.
I remember Galway Kinnell when his wonderful Book Of Nightmares first came out. It was a Thursday afternoon in Ann Arbor. I’d never heard of him, much less could I pronounce his name. He sang those poems; they were new and exciting for him and a great accomplishment. Six years later I heard him read again at St. John’s in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He’d read that book so much in those six years that he was sick of it. He ran through the poems, put down the book, and said, “Where’s the party?” There was nothing dangerous for him in them anymore. The air was no longer electric.
It is very painful to become frozen with your poems….We constantly need new insights, visions. We don’t exist in any solid form. There is no permanent truth you can corner in a poem that will satisfy you forever. Don’t identify too strongly with your work. Stay fluid behind those black and white words. They are not you. They were a great moment going through you. A moment you were awake enough to write down and capture.
-Natalie Goldberg, We Are Not The Poem, from Writing Down The Bones
Even the best writers sour, and spin their wheels. Don’t get attached to the work. Keep your writing fresh. Blogging is good for non-attachment. A fast-paced medium, it is here, it is gone. You don’t have time to get attached. You keep current. You keep practicing.
Back at the Fitz with my writing friend, velvet curtains to the front, circular stairs behind, I remember when Galway read. Strong Is Your Hold seemed new and fresh for him. Insomniac and Sex vibrated across the room. And in his poem for Jane Kenyon, How Could She Not, you could hear the pain in his voice. Passion and grief.
Hands of Galway Kinnell, Chap. 5, Vol. 2, on stage with Josephine Dickinson (l), and MPR’s Keri Miller (r), at the Fitzgerald Theater, St. Paul, Minnesota, April 2007, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
The first time I heard Ode and Elegy was at a silent writing retreat in Taos, Fall 2006. Natalie read it out loud to us, each word blazing through the silence, “Wake up!” The second time was in the Log Cabin at Mabel Dodge in the December retreat. The careful attention to detail caught me clutching my throat. The poet sees in a certain way, hide-and seek between heart and mind.
Hide-and-Seek 1933
Once when we were playing
hide-and-seek and it was time
to go home, the rest gave up
on the game before it was done
and forgot I was still hiding.
I remained hidden as a matter
of honor until the moon rose.–from Strong Is Your Hold, Poems, by Galway Kinnell, Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006
I have come to love poetry for its beauty and starkness. Few words. Everything pared down to the bones. Chewy. Bare. Raw. I try not to hold on too tightly. We are not the poem. Don’t judge. Let pit-stained words soak through the pores. Let go.
Or clutch if you want to. But if you have to hold that tight, bolt from every cell like the hawk. Leave no jay feather unturned. No tamarack untapped.
Writer’s Hands, Chap. 5, Vol. 1,
Galway Kinnell, at the Fitzgerald,
St. Paul, Minnesota, April, 2007,
photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey.
All rights reserved.
Ode and Elegy
A thud. Shrieks. Frantic
wingbeats like a round
of soft applause.
The hawk jumps on top
of the jay knocked to the grass,
presses his wings to the ground,
digs his claws into the jay’s
back, strikes the neck
over and over, scattering
blue feathers. Then,
as easily as a green wave
in heavy seas lifts a small boat
and throws it upside down,
still afloat but keel up, so
the hawk flips the jay,
then tears at his throat.A blue wing wrests itself free, flaps
like a flag saying i will fight you!
The hawk stuffs the wing
back down into place and
clamps it there with one foot.
Now jay and hawk stare
at each other beak to beak,
as close as Jesus and Judas at their kiss.
The hawk strikes, the jay struggles
to strike back, but his neck breaks, his eyes
shrink into beads of taxidermists’ glass.
The cere above the hawk’s beak
flushes hard yellow from exertion.As a grape harvester trampling out
the last juices of grape, so the hawk
treads the jay’s body up and down
and down and up. He places
a foot on the throat and a foot
on the belly, flaps his wings
repositions his feet, flaps again.He pushes off, clutching transversely
the body of the jay, which is like a coffin
made in the shape and color of the dead.Much as in la decollage a l’americaine
of the Lafayette Escadrille, when
the pilots would gain speed only yards
above the tarmac, then haul back
on the joystick, putting their planes
into nearly vertical ascent, just so
the sharp-shinned hawk, carrying
his blue load glinting in the sunlight
low to the ground, now suddenly
climbs steeply and soars over the tops
of the Norway spruce and the tamarack.–from Strong Is Your Hold, Poems, by Galway Kinnell, Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006
-posted on red Ravine, Wednesday, December 12th, 2007
Listen to the whole Talking Volumes presentation at: MPR – Talking Volumes with Keri Miller: Two Poets Share the Stage – Galway Kinnell & Josephine Dickinson at the Fitzgerald Theater, St. Paul, Minnesota, April 12th, 2007
When you look back on 2007, you must feel so much gratitude for the writers you have seen this year. And the awareness of writing and writers. Has it intensified since last year? I can tell it has awakened your own writing.
Thanks for this post, QM. I love what you say about the medium of blogging being good for letting go of the piece. I also love Ode and Elegy. I remember hearing it in the zendo. Wow. It’s good to have it here so I can go back and read it out loud when I want.
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yb, each writer will make my end of year gratitude list. One of the greatest things that has happened is that I see the writers I admire as people. Flawed and human, just like me. They are brilliant at their craft (and sometimes it feels like so much further along than I am).
I write these pieces mostly for myself – to get my ass moving and keep myself awake. I have been resting this December. A kind of quiet reflection. Looking back over the time spent this year with writers, books, literature, research, blogging, teaching, I feel like the luckiest person in the world.
I also think, you’d better get moving QM. The clock is ticking. Don’t get attached. Keep going on your own books and essays. The act of writing is sure where the energy is.
What about you? How are you feeling about the last year and your writing? Are you heading where you want to be heading?
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Writer’s hands! Woo!
These have come to be some of my favorites, your posts about writers. But in all honesty, my favorite part this time were your words about holding on and letting go.
Don’t judge. Let pit-stained words soak through the pores. Let go.
“Or clutch if you want to. But if you have to hold that tight, bolt from every cell like the hawk. Leave no jay feather unturned. No tamarack untapped.”
Bolt from every cell like the hawk…
I didn’t read the poem that followed very closely cus I got tired of the brutal mangling of the jay. I think it’s just the mood I’m in. Still, I didn’t see those words. Those are yours?
Gorgeous.
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amuirin, thank you. It just thrills me that you like these posts about writers. They often take me more time than I intend to spend, but I learn a ton from doing them. And they remind me to tap the wisdom of the writers that came before me. I find it comforting that I don’t have to reinvent the wheel. 8)
The lines you point to are mine, but sprang from the combined inspiration of the writers in the post, Goldberg and Kinnell. The reference to the jay and tamarack inspired by the last poem; the judging and letting go around writing from the We Are Not the Poem quotes.
I understand why you had a hard time with the poem about the hawk and the jay. I did, too, when I first heard it. I think it’s the level of detail he is able to capture that makes you really feel like you are there, watching this great thing in nature taking place right before your eyes. Nature can be violent but not revengeful (as humans are). He’s really captured that.
More in the Writers Hands series to come. I am fascinated by the differences in each of their hands. And I wonder if it says as much about them as the colors we chose in the Burnt Sienna write. I remember when I asked Steve Almond if I could photograph him during our meeting at the library, he said he didn’t particularly like his hands. But I found them elegant and strong.
Just making a mental note. Thanks again!
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Oh, for everyone – I wanted to mention two links in this post I hadn’t run into before. The link connected to Bones is a Sun Magazine interview with Natalie from a few years ago called, Keep the Hand Moving. I think I had read it before but got even more out of it this time. It talks more about Writing Practice.
The other link in the piece is on Mabel Dodge history in the Collector’s Guide Of New Mexico. Fun to read. As usual, there are many things we think we already know. And then when we read them again with fresh eyes (or maybe from a fresh writer or another perspective), they pop in a different way. Those two links struck me that way.
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I remember more about Josephine (from that night) than Galway. How she was deaf, but became a music teacher. How she married that man that was so much older…wasn’t he about 90? How she wore the gloves and hat. How when we went up to have our books signed, she looked at us with deep gratitude. How her pace was so solid and grounded. That she was a sheep farmer. How her poetry made us all hold our breath.
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Teri, thanks for commenting on Josephine Dickinson. She was amazing. Grounded and, you are right, we were holding our collective breath when she read her work.
I thought about her a lot when I was writing this post. But I thought it might be too long if I got into her poetry as well. So I focused on Galway in this post.
I’ve got some pretty cool photographs of Josephine’s hands from that night, too. She wore burnt orange gloves. And I remember how friendly she was when she was signing books. I wanted to do a separate post on her. But I don’t have any of her current poetry.
I wonder if sometime you could email me a couple of your favorite poems of hers from that night. Didn’t you buy her book? If you send them, I’ll do a post over the next few weeks on her, adding the poems and a couple of photographs. If you don’t, that’s okay, too.
The cool thing I remember was the tender relationship between the two poets. It was as if the torch was being passed between mentor and protégée. I loved being a witness to that.
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Yes, I will send some poems to you this weekend. The redRavine community must be privy to the orange glove shot.
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Teri, I got them. You chose a couple of great ones. They take me right back to her reading that night. The longing in them. I’ll do a future post in her honor. Can’t promise the timing yet. (Blogworld seems to run on its own time.) Thank you for sending the poems. You rock.
And you know what I notice when I write down poetry from other poets, when I type it, or write it in my notebook for inspiration – it’s like deep listening to their poetry. Different than reciting the words.
I was never good at remembering poetry. When we had to memorize it in junior high and recite it in front of the class, I used to be terrified. Maybe it’s something I should start to practice, learning the poems I love. It seems like an old tradition and I wonder if kids still do it in schools today.
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Hi QM yb and everybody,
I’ve been away – one advantage is that I enjoyed coming back – to petroglyphs and ‘we are not the poem.’
This one really resonates with me QM – I knew this stuff already, but there’s no doubt one can never be reminded too often – I mean, about the going stale thing. I have the same problem with my cards – apart from the issue of dosh, I really have no major interest in promoting them, insofar as I finished them 12 years or so ago, and I would love to be able to live on the income from them and get into something NEW. Probably a large reason why I disperse all over the place posting pictures of wall-hangings and writing poems and such – because I have a low boredom threshold. It would be wonderfull to be able to just MOVE ON…
Good insight too about blogging – it’s tue that there is something very momentary about it – I wonder how much any of us ever dig round in old posts to see what was written back then (last week?month?year?) – are we all hooked on what has just been written?
And it’s also very true about writers – is it a crime to have written in the 1920s and remained obscure? I guess we are all victims of accessibility – what is accessibile and why – is it because it ticked the boxes of the moment? Apparently, almost all the winners of the UK’s Booker prize – the most prestigous literary prize on this side of the pond – fall into obscurity within a few years.
It’s 1.25a.m., I must stop myself!
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When I was a teacher, I had my students memorize poetry. It was amazing how they didn’t flinch, didn’t complain. Instead, they felt such pride about having poetry under their belts. When someone would come to my classroom (like a parent or principal), my students would ask me if they could recite poems for them.
These same kids couldn’t ever manage to master their multiplication tables, but they could recite Frost and Longfellow.
“Listen my children and you shall hear, of the midnight ride of Paul Revere….”
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stranger, thanks for your insights. Falling into obscurity…I’m not surprised. If we really think about how many writers are remembered or become famous for their work, the coffers are thin. We write for ourselves first. And only for this moment.
Teri, it gives me great hope that kids are still memorizing poetry in school. And that they are taking pride in it. Interesting that the poetry kids weren’t good at math. I still contend that teachers are one of the sets of healers in the world.
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I’m wandering in way late as usual. You probably won’t even read this. But I was fascinated by what you said about the writing getting old once it’s done and the energy is in the act of writing. That is so beautiful and true and never seems to get talked about. I guess that’s why “practices” are so powerful, and blogging for me in general.
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tiv, there’s no late commenting on our site. We love when people resurrect the older posts or those further down the page. I often do that on other blogs, too. I’m apt to read and comment thoroughly and only once in a while (rather than quickly every day). Maybe it’s old school but it’s the way I like to read – like reading a book.
BTW, I actually read your comment a few nights ago but hadn’t had time to go back and respond. I like what Natalie says, too, that the energy is in the act of writing. It really supports the notion of letting go, not clinging to what we’ve written, and continuing to write from a fresh place.
Writing practice really does support getting at deeper and fresh ideas on a daily basis. I haven’t done raw practice for a few days now (except the blog work which is one form of practice for me) and am missing it. So after I check out the comments today, I plan to sit down and do a few practices. I really start to miss them. They are such a part of me.
I am finding that blogging is really good at having to come up with fresh material on a daily basis. It’s also the most spontaneous writing medium out there. Because of the speed of blogging, it’s more forgiving than print media. But it still demands high quality writing. And people expect a fresh post every day. It’s really a challenge at times.
Thanks for coming back and commenting on this piece. I enjoyed your thoughts about it.
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Okay, I can’t resist a little hometown bragging. Today Minneapolis was named 2007’s Most Literate City in the United States. Seattle comes in 2nd, St. Paul is 3rd. I feel like strutting around. A lot.
Is it any wonder we are the stopping point of so many authors, an unbelievable number of book tours, and have book sellers on every corner? I am so, so grateful to live here. People can poke fun at us all they want to about cold weather, blizzards, and those of us who will never consider leaving home.
Today I don’t care.
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Teri, don’t we just rock? Thanks for sharing this about Minneapolis. I had not heard it yet.
I have to say, I take a lot of pride as well in living in the Twin Cities. And we were talking about that at the Solstice gathering the other day. A couple of friends had moved away and they were talking about how they can’t find events like the Frida Kahlo show at the Walker or like the authors on Talking Volumes where they live. They miss living here sometimes for that reason.
I don’t mind the cold and blizzards. (I thought the snow on Christmas was nostalgic and romantic! Even though I was still shoveling it off the driveway today.) I’m adding it to my gratitude list – how much I do love living here. (Even though I miss my family!)
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Because I am feeling so smug on this Thursday, my response to people who have left the Twin Cities and now bemoan the lack of art shows and readings where they live is, “Fools! Why in God’s name did you leave the absolute best place to live? Duh!”
I may not be such a hotshot tomorrow when my car won’t start. And I may not feel so sensational in February when my skin becomes a pastier shade of white. When March rolls around and I I pull on long-johns plus three additional layers for the fifth month in a row, I may not be such a braggart. But for now, move over America. We won.
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LOL! I love hometown pride, because I relate so well to it. Congrats all you Minneapolitans. I think, Teri, it’s Mr. Schminda. His reaches are far.
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Teri, you wear long-johns? Gosh I love that word. Isn’t it a great word – long-johns. 8)
ybonesy, I think you’re right. The teachers like Mr. Schminda have a lot to do with our literary prowess in Minnesota. Rock on, Mr. S.
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Yes, I have quite a fancy and abundant stash of long-johns. I even have the top-of-the-line ones from REI that wick moisture. I only pull those out when I really need a lift. I remember my dad getting really frustrated by March with needing to wear them. He would boom, “I can’t STAND these itchy long-johns!” But then the pipes would freeze and he’d have to wear them to do repairs in the well pit.
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So, in other words, when you have too many long johns on and too many layers, and you actually start to sweat from all the stuff you’re wearing, the REI long johns will wick away the sweat? Now that’s a cool invention!
(Just kidding. Jim used to work at REI, and we have some of those sweat-wicking long johns, too. We used them when we’d push our bikes up the ski area at night and ride down in the dark — with splunker lights on our helmets, of course.)
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ybonesy,
You’re treading on thin ice…making wisecracks about a Northerner’s winterwear. I’ll let it go this time, but if it persists, perhaps I’ll just take myself to a literary place in my literary city and think literary thoughts. I’m just saying.
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[…] I wrote Ode to Galway Kinnell (We Are Not The Poem), Teri commented (Comment 6) that it was Josephine who inspired her most; she emailed two poems to me […]
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Hi, I didn’t know anything about Kinnell until today when I found a poem I’d scribbled down years ago after seeing it on a train and decided to put it on my blog. Thanks for showing the photos and putting up some of his poems and an interesting blog.
http://a2zero.wordpress.com/
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a2zero, welcome to red Ravine. Galway Kinnell is moving, isn’t he? I feel lucky to have seen him read in person. And it was extra special with Josephine Dickinson there, too.
I read the poem you saw on the train. If you come back this way, I was wondering — did someone handwrite it on the train? Or was it printed. Just curious. And are you really over in Ireland? I always wanted to travel over that way.
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Hi, Quoinmonkey, thanks. I wandered around wordpress to see if anyone else was talking about him and found you that way, your enthusiasm is infectious. I love the photo of his hands.
I think with the poem I quoted, I liked the simplicity and the fact that he expressed something I was feeling but that I didn’t have words for, even in my thoughts – he untangled my thoughts, I suppose.
Yes I live in Dublin and the train has a programme of displaying poetry alongside its advertising boards, so they’re printed and usually chosen carefully. I love it, sometimes you don’t get the poem but many’s the time I’ve rooted in my bag to copy down something wonderful.
But it might have made a better story had someone handwritten it on the train.
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a2zero, so great to read you again. How cool that the train displays poetry beside its ads. I wonder if that could ever catch on here. I think that’s just as powerful as seeing something handwritten. I was mostly just curious.
I like how you put that – the poet’s words untangled your thoughts. That’s a good way to describe a poem that really hits us at the heart. Poetry has a way of penetrating through all the crap. I think it’s the fewer, more precise words.
Thank you for coming back to comment. I appreciate it and hope you’ll return. Two of my brothers visited Ireland with their dad over the last few years. I’ve always wanted to travel there, for the Celtic roots, and to explore some ancestry. The joys of the Internet – we are all connected.
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I’m new to blogging and just found this entry today by searching “Galway Kinnell.” A lovely read. I’ll be back to explore your blog when I have more time.
Galway Kinnell is one of my favorite poets, and the one time I had the luck to hear him read, it was wonderful.
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TD, how delightful that you’ve found this post. It was refreshing for me to read it again and remember that night when I saw Galway Kinnell and Josephine Dickinson on stage with Kerri Miller! It was a fantastic night. I really appreciate you leaving a comment. Made my day.
Aren’t these lines great from Kinnell:
and forgot I was still hiding.
I remained hidden as a matter
of honor until the moon rose.
Since I wrote this post, I’ve gone to see many writers and poets and hear them read their work. Absolutely inspiring. I feel like a different person than I was in 2007. Thank goodness we all change.
My friend who attended this event with me started a Poetry & Meditation Group some time after this. We’ve taken a break but are meeting again this Thursday. I’m looking forward to it.
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We will be listening to an NPR interview at Poetry and Meditation about Ruth Stone. I was pleased and delighted that one of the poets who spoke about her work was Galway Kinnell:
“Her poems startle us over and over with their shapeliness, their humor, their youthfulness, their wild aptness, their strangeness, their sudden familiarity, the authority of their insights, the moral gulps they prompt, their fierce exactness of language and memory” – Galway Kinnell.
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Teri, I love the quote. It’s a poem in and of itself. Looking forward to Ruth tonight. Printed out my poems.
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I started a class at The Loft last night–we’re reading the poetry of Robert Bly, William Stafford, and Galway Kinnell. The instructor is leading us through their work. A delight. I’m so glad I saw GK at the Fitz.
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Teri, how wonderful that you are taking a poetry class at The Loft! Exciting. I read back over the comments and this piece. It brings back memories of that night at the Fitz. I really enjoyed seeing Galway and Josephine together there. I’ll never forget it. Knowing he was her mentor added to the richness.
Hard to believe that Ruth Stone is no longer with us. Her poetry goes on. Hopefully. I wonder sometimes what happens to writing after the poets and writers are gone. It has to be the readers that keep it alive. How can some poets work move on through the years and others fall by the wayside. Donald Hall wrote recently on aging. This country does not do well at supporting those on the wiser side of life. Will look forward to talking to you about your class.
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