River Painting, drive-by shooting of dusk along the Mississippi River after a walk with two Midwest writers, Minneapolis, Minnesota, July 2008, photo © 2008-2009 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
Last week I finished reading writer Patricia Hampl’s memoir The Florist’s Daughter. It is set in her hometown of St. Paul, Minnesota. The landmarks are familiar to me, and I identify with her descriptions of “middledom” — the ordered streets, the litterless greenways and lakes, the pressure to conform that naturally seeps into the psyche when one lives in the Midwest.
But I was telling a friend, after 25 years of living in the Twin Cities (and I do love it here), I am still a transplant. My roots are steeped in memories of Southern dialect, and the writing and letters of writers like Flannery O’Connor, Alice Walker, and Carson McCullers. I feel an intense connection to the land and culture in the South. The years in Georgia (birth to 12), less than half the time I have lived in Minnesota, shaped me.
I am from the Midwest but not of it.
The Midwest. The flyover, where even the towns have fled to the margins, groceries warehoused in Wal-Marts hugging the freeways, the red barns of family farms sagging, dismantled and sold as “distressed” wood for McMansion kitchens, the feedlots of agribusiness crouched low to the prairie ground. Of all the American regions, the Midwest remains the most imaginary, ahistorical but fiercely emblematic. It’s Nowheresville. But it’s also the Heartland. That weight again: the innocent middle. Though it isn’t innocent. It’s where the American imagination has decided to archive innocence.
-excerpt from The Florist’s Daughter, by Patricia Hampl
Patrician Hampl is a poet and a writer. She has written four memoirs and two collections of poetry. And maybe because it’s National Poetry Month, I was drawn to the way she weaves poetry into memoir when describing the differences in her relationship with her mother and father. One wanted her to be a poet; the other, a writer:
He could accept the notion of my being “a poet” better than my mother’s idea that I was “a writer.” Poets are innocents, they belong to the ether and the earth. They don’t narrow their eyes and tell tales as “writers” do, proving in their mean-spirited way that the earthlings are filled with greed and envy, that the world is a spiral of small-minded gestures. Poets, at least, don’t tell tales on other people. They celebrate beauty. They make much of the little. Flowers, birds, the names of things are important to them. So being a poet was all right, though hopeless.There was, even in “tragic” poetry, a note of optimism, of hope, the lyric lilt of meaning and significance. And he was determined to be cheerful all his life.
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But for the most part he was silent, absolutely without affect. Finally let down his guard. I would chatter, ask him things, I got nothing—nothing—back. He just sat there, staring. Natter, natter, natter, my voice doing all the cheerfulness, his voice fallen silent as the midsummer fronds of wild rice made low hissing sounds in the wind. His real being, bleached to virtual absence by sun and water, descended to the soundless fish world where you didn’t need to say a thing.
Something about silence, something of silence was at the resistant core of poetry. Silence had to do with honesty. Just sit in the boat and stare at the lake’s troubled surface. No opinions, no judgments. No Leo the Lion—she almost never went out in the boat.
-excerpts from The Florist’s Daughter by Patricia Hampl
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
A few days ago, a Bill Holm poem rolled into my inbox; it was sent by Ted Kooser on behalf of American Life in Poetry. Two more Midwest poets. We had been speaking of Bill Holm in the comments on several posts after he died unexpectedly a few months ago. He spent much of his time near his roots in Iceland, and I got to thinking, what is a regional writer?
What if you were born and spent your formative years in Virginia, your teenage and college years in Nebraska, then moved to Pittsburgh and New York like Willa Cather. Or were born and raised in Iowa but lived most of your adult life in Nebraska like Ted Kooser. Where are you from? What if you lived in Georgia as a child, Pennsylvania as a teenager, Montana in your twenties, and Minnesota for the rest of your life. Are you a Midwest, Northeast, or Southern writer?
Is it personal preference? The place you were born and raised. The town where you spent most of your life. Do you choose the place. Or does the place choose you? When have you lived in a place long enough to say “I’m from….” When can you call a place “home?”
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American Life in Poetry: Column 213
By Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate, 2004-2006
Bill Holm, one of the most intelligent and engaging writers of our northern plains, died on February 25th. He will be greatly missed. He and I were of the same generation and we shared the same sense of wonder, amusement, and skepticism about the course of technology. I don’t yet own an Earbud, but I won’t need to, now that we have Bill’s poem.
Earbud
Earbud–a tiny marble sheathed in foam
to wear like an interior earring so you
can enjoy private noises wherever you go,
protected from any sudden silence.
Only check your batteries, then copy
a thousand secret songs and stories
on the tiny pod you carry in your pocket.
You are safe now from other noises made
by other people, other machines, by chance,
noises you have not chosen as your own.
To get your attention, I touch your arm
to show you the tornado or the polar bear.
Sometimes I catch you humming or talking to the air
as if to a shrunken lover waiting in your ear.
___________________________________________
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c)2008 by Bill Holm, whose most recent book of poems is “Playing the Black Piano,” Milkweed Editions, 2004. Poem reprinted by permission of Bill Holm. Introduction copyright (c)2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.
-posted on red Ravine from the Midwest, salt of the Earth country, on April 22nd, Earth Day, 2009
-related to posts: Got Poetry? (National Poem In Your Pocket Day), Book Talk – Do You Let Yourself Read?, Desire And A Library Card — The Only Tools Necessary To Start A Poetry Group, WRITING TOPIC – A PLACE TO STAND
QM: I’m so glad to claim you as my writing pal. Your posts are interesting, thoughtful, well-researched and include great photos. They have eye and ear appeal and pretty much cause my usual ruminations to sound like drivel. But, that’s not a bad thing, because you inspire me to do more research, which helps my writing to become more interesting and thoughtful. So, thanks for being an inspiration to me.
About my home, I’m from the midwest, but I’ve lived in Wyoming for over 30 years now. Native Wyomingites are quick to tell you that they were “born and raised” here. The rest of us, well, we’re just from somewhere else.
I was raised north of Chicago. My mother still lives there, but it does not feel like home anymore. The western prairie is my home. My sons were born and raised here, which grafted my heart to this place. I couldn’t move back to greater Chicagoland. It is way too much city for me after so many years of wide-open spaces and five-minute “rush hours.” If I moved back to the Midwest, it would be to the deep woods in northwestern Wisconsin. I’ve spent time each summer there since childhood. My heart also answers to loon and eagle calls.
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QM, I can really relate to the questions you ask here. I was born in NJ, spent 6 years in Chicago, and moved to Atlanta when I was 12. Been in Georgia ever since, but I am not a southerner. Except when I go up north, and I realize how much the southern climate has mellowed me.
Patricia Hempl is obviously a strong writer, and she does write with a lot of poetry, always good for any writer. I think it helps to write across the genres, if nothing else than to strengthen one’s primary medium.
I do disagree with her description of poets as innocents, however. Not all poets are concerned with beauty as their exclusive source of inspiration, and many do tell tales. I enjoy confessional poetry very much, and even angry poems are good sometimes. I think poetry differs from prose in many ways, but one way is that the canvas is very small.
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I listened to a interview of poet Naomi Shihab Nye today. She talked of feeling homesick for something, for some place, since she was three years old.
I wonder, QM, if this restlessness and searching for home is part of the creative heart. It’s not a very comforting thought, but it struck me to hear her say it (and then to read your post) in a matter of a few hours.
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Wow, QM, the photo does look like a painting. And it has an effect of looking out at a place and not being sure of what you’re seeing. Which is, in some ways, what you ask about.
When I think of regional writers in New Mexico, immediately my mind jumps to Rudolfo Anaya or Tony Hillerman (who died recently). They set their stories in NM, they write about NM themes, culture, characters. Even Terry Tempest Williams strikes me as a regional writer; so much of her writing is about place, the broader Southwest and/or West. Of course, when your themes are about the environment and nature, it’s hard not to be associated with place.
Antonya (sp?) Nelson lives and teaches in Las Cruces, but I don’t think of her as a regional writer, although I was delighted one day to run across a short story of hers in the New Yorker set in Durango, CO, a place I know well.
It seems that there are regional writers (although, I’m not sure any would like that label, are you?) and then there is the phenomenon of many if not all writers being influenced by the place they call home.
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BTW, on the topic of home, I am, of course, a daughter of Rio Grande Valley. Any part of the valley is home to me. Not so much Albuquerque, but specificially the RGV. And my father, I think, was a Valley boy, too. He came from San Luis Valley, and when he and my mom settled in Albuquerque, they went first to the south valley, then the north valley. I’m still in the north valley area, as are my mom and dad and most my siblings.
And after that specific place (RGV), then comes New Mexico. Although, even if I look at places I’d live in NM, it’s always the greater RGV area (like Taos).
Also, there was a period of about ten years when I was fascinated with this region. In my undergrad years I worked on a project that studied the 16th and 17th history of the region, translating letters from the conquistadores of Spain. And then I went to Spain, and then when I came back I studied the common history of the broad Latin American region, including NM. And there have been several oral history projects plus traditions like going each year to Costilla with my dad.
Yet, in spite of all of that historical grounding, I don’t think I’m a regional writer or artist. I’m influenced by the color and the energy, but I have little interest in trying to paint a picture of the place, past or present. I wouldn’t hesitate to set a story in the place, but my goal is not to capture the place as much as it is to capture the people and their conflicts.
‘
But I could be wrong. It’s so hard to figure out what we, ourselves, are, isn’t it? It’s probably way easier for someone else to look at our work and say, You are xyz.
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BTW, QM, I love the drive-by shot, too and the way that the trees in the foreground are blurred with movement, but the background is clear and still. Lovely.
A friend of mine moved from the Wyoming prairie, where she was born and raised to Washburn, Wisconsin on the shores of Lake Superior, where she’d spent wonderful summers with her grandmother. After moving, she said “it is one way to wreck a great summer vacation.”
I’ve thought about that since … of how a place I love to visit might change with the day-to-day obligations of living there.
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I have that same concern about Taos. That visiting, staying for even an extended stay, is all wonderous and heaven, but to live there would be such a different experience. My father is from Costilla and Taos and always said he could never move back. Jim and I have talked about moving there or perhaps somewhere else in northern NM after the girls are out of the high school, but I don’t know that we will when the time comes.
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breathepeace, thank you so much. I appreciate your comment. Sometimes it feels like my thoughts are so heavy and serious. And it does my heart good to know they can inspire in some way. 8)
I did think of both you and Christine when I was writing this post, writers who I know have spent a lot of time other places. I can relate to the Western sense of being “born and raised” in Wyoming, or, for me, it was Montana. When I lived in Montana for about 8 years, those born and raised there were always quick to tell us transplants so.
I attributed that to the way the West has often been taken over by outsiders who come in and buy up chunks of beautiful land, making it expensive for those who have lived there all their lives to make a living. At least, it was that way in Montana. It was always a struggle when I lived there because I absolutely considered myself a Montanan at the time and thought I might never leave. Yet, I did end up moving further East again.
breathepeace, it’s interesting what you say about how having your children grow up in Wyoming grafted your heart to that place. It reminds me of my own mother who raised most her kids in Pennsylvania; two born there, the rest there since elementary school (I was in junior high when we moved).
I think her heart and roots are in the South. But she is probably not likely to move because her children and their families are in Pennsylvania. And she herself has been there so long now, kind of like I’ve been in the Midwest. It changes you. But there is always that pull toward home.
I wanted to say one other thing about you breathepeace — I always feel a sense of calm in your presence or when you comment on red Ravine. You bring a centeredness and generosity of spirit that really resonates with me. And I appreciate every time you visit.
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Christine, I didn’t know about the NJ connection, or had forgotten. I did remember Chicago. And when I think of you, it’s in Georgia where you’ve been since 12. I left at 12; you’ve been there since you were 12. Yet I feel the connection to being a Southerner and you are rooted more in the North. Yet the East is very different than the Midwest. It’s interesting to think about age in connection to land and place. When we lived in a certain place, what age were we, and how did it affect us. Three of my sibs were born in the South and have that history and heritage. I know they feel a connection there because their father is still there. But I haven’t ever asked them if they’d ever move down there. I think they are pretty rooted in PA. It’s also interesting to note that my great grandfather was also from PA. And there are several other family tree connections to the North.
About what Patricia Hampl writes about poetry in the excerpts in the post — I’m in agreement with you. And I like the edge of confessional poetry as well. I have to admit, I have never read any of Patricia Hampl’s poetry so I don’t know what kind of poetry she writes. But I wonder — in the context of her memoir and the excerpt I posted — it occurs to me that she may be paraphrasing what she thinks her father is thinking about poetry. Perhaps it’s not what she herself thinks. Maybe her father felt that it was safer for her to be a poet because he only read traditional poetry and not what might be more modern or confessional. I’m not sure. I thought that might be a good point to debate though. Thanks for bringing that to light in the comments.
I really enjoyed how Patricia Hampl’s writing leaned to the poetic. It took me a chapter or so to get into the rhythm of the way she writes. It sometimes has shorter and what might appear as incomplete sentences if you don’t know the poetry connection. After a while, I got into the rhythm of it. It’s almost like you are right in there, privy to her thoughts as she becomes the caretaker for her mother near the end of her life. I’d like to read her other memoirs now to see if they carry this same poetic style.
Christine, is most of your family in Georgia, or the Midwest? I was curious if your family had settled in Georgia as well.
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Sinclair, that makes a lot of sense. A restlessness and searching for home. I had thought it might make a difference if you were born and raised and lived your whole life in one place, that perhaps that search may not be the same as when someone has moved a few times, or lived their childhood years one place, their adult years another. But I don’t know. Maybe it is a restlessness that many share. I had the thought, too, that those children who are raised with military parents and who may end up moving around a lot — where is home to them? Will they always be searching for it?
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I work with a guy whose family moved around a lot when he was a kid, and he is definitely searching. He lived in NM for a while, but this didn’t turn out to be home for him and his wife. He moved to central California, but that wasn’t working out. And then I think he was thinking of the Pacific Northwest.
The ironic thing was that he and his wife, in their quest to find home, were creating what I imagine will become almost the same sense of wanderlust (wander-lost) for their children.
But you know, he was and is an ungrounded person. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was an air sign. Some people are just grounded, no matter where they land. I wonder if the sense of searching for place has more to do with one’s internal compass versus where they were born, brought up, living now. (Like most things, it’s probably a balance of all factors.)
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ybonesy, I had not heard about Tony Hillerman dying. I know people who have read every single thing he’s ever written. I wondered how you would weigh in on this subject, since you’ve lived most of your life in the place you were born. I like reading your point of view. That living in one place, doesn’t necessarily make you drawn to be a regional writer. About the label, I used it for lack of a better term. But I think having a sense of a region does help to give context to certain writers’ work. Terry Tempest Williams would be one of them. Yet not all who live in a certain place all their lives consider themselves regional writers. Perhaps it is that sense of writing about place.
I think there may be a few who would be proud to be labeled as regional writers. Others who may not. It depends on the writer. I agree with you though, I think it’s easier for someone else to look at our writing and define it, than it is for us. I like when you write about the Rio Grande Valley because I get to learn more about it from a person who is rooted there. It helps me to understand the peoples, the culture, the land better. Maybe that’s what regional writers do for me, now that I think about it. They help me to understand a specific area that I may not ever be able to see in quite that same way. I don’t know. I’m still thinking about it.
It seems like you don’t have to have been born some place to write about it though. Or have lived in a place most of your life either. It really does depend on where you feel connected, what you relate to. ybonesy, maybe it’s that sense of big place, little place you have written about. Some writers seem more expansive and have the ability to connect at the global level. Some hone in on a specific area, time, place. What is it exactly that makes us feel at home? No answers, only more questions. It’s fun to discuss though and get different perspectives.
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breathepeace, so does your friend regret that she moved there? You bring up a good point — about how the feelings we connect to a certain place might be grounded in another time. And not of the present moment. I don’t think I could ever live in the South again, though I feel a strong connection to it. I actually love living in the Midwest now and when I visit the South, I realize that I’ve really changed. I am a different person from having lived most of my life somewhere else.
About your friend though, that longing to claim that feeling of being safe with her grandmother, wanting to claim it for herself in her adult life. Sometimes I feel that way when I go back to the South. I am reclaiming a deep part of me. And I wouldn’t trade the experiences I have had with my relatives there over the last two summers as I’ve been able to open up and see them in a different light. We are all different people now than we were when I was a child; yet we are connected through this thread of history. It’s all so amazing to think about.
I want to add one more quote from Patricia Hampl that I found on her website (which I link to in the post). It really captures some of these feelings:
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It’s fun and important to talk about, I think. And the only reason I question whether someone would not like the label of “regional writer” is because it is a label. (And as such, it can be helpful to others who are looking for ways to understand writers and artists.)
I’ve been looking closely at different artists lately, and many of my favorites paint place. Or rather, the place where they are from and/or connect to embues their work. Look at Georgia O’Keeffe. She connected in a profound way with a specific part of the world. Chose to live there, paint there, make paintings of there (i.e., influenced by the colors and images and drama of there). Yet, her work both captures and transcends place and location. It is universal.
Diego Rivera, too. Such vibrancy of Mexican life, politics, class and race. Is he a Mexican artist or an artist? Both, I suppose.
But isn’t it true that some artists and writers don’t necessarily transcend that label? Why do some and not others?
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That’s a good observation about artists and place. And how some artists don’t necessarily transcend the regional label; others’ work is universal, even though they capture images from a certain area or region.
You’ve made me think about the photographers I love in the same way. If I think about Edward Curtis who was born in Wisconsin, died in California — I think primarily of his portraiture work with Native Americans. I could look at these elegant sepia-toned portraits forever because of the dignified and detailed way in which he captured images of peoples and their connection to their land. For me, his legacy is this body of work about a part of the history of this country that may otherwise have been lost forever. It is important work. And it teaches us about the importance of that part of our history. Because of that, I associate Curtis with the West.
What about Ansel Adams? His work is universal, yet I think of him photographing Yosemite in California. Or Dorothea Lange? Born in NJ, died in CA, she worked for the FSA (Farm Security Administration) and photographed human suffering during the Great Depression. She also recorded the forced evacuation of Japanese Americans to relocation or internment camps, on assignment for the War Relocation Authority (WRA). Her work transcends place, yet she documents what was going on in this country at that time. A simple portrait can be very political.
Gordon Parks comes to mind, too. He also worked for the FSA and ended up photographing for Life magazine. I love his work. He was born in the Midwest (Kansas) and died in NYC. It’s interesting about O’Keeffe, born in Sun Prairie Wisconsin, because she kind of adopted New Mexico as her home or the place where she felt connected to the land. And her life and work are associated with that place. Yet her roots are not there.
Maybe there are some artists who don’t want to move beyond the regional label. Could that be possible? Those who may want to be known for their work in a specific area. I have to think more about it. You know, Georgia had a reputation of being a little edgy and not necessarily the warmest or most compassionate person. Yet her ability to capture the land — astounding. She seemed much more intimate and comfortable with the land than with people. Yet people everywhere connected with her work.
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Making it as an artist or writer, truly breaking through, is something to be proud no matter what labels people put on your work. Or at least, that’s how I would feel. 8)
BTW, I *love* the poem “Earbud.” I’ve been reading it and going back to it. You know, Jim and the girls all got iPods for Christmas. Jim dislikes the earbuds that come with them; he wants real headphones.
But yeah, protecting oneself from silence. And other people. Reminds me of when I’m in my road warrior mode and have my MP3 player on, a signal to others to leave me be. It’s a private way to live, but all it takes is one drunk passenger sitting next to you to slobber all over your necklace and then as you’re leaving tell you you have a great ass (this happened to me) to harden you to strangers.
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yb, I agree. Breaking through is breaking through. Earbud is great, isn’t it? I don’t like the earbuds either and will use headphones when I can. I even have a really HUGE pair from long, long ago in the Dark Ages of my youth. An old pair of Koss, the kind the envelop your whole ear and are soft and cushiony. I don’t like those little things in my ear either. I feel like they are going to get lost in there. I most often use a mid-sized pair that Liz had though. They are more transportable.
It is strange how no one looks you in the eye anymore when you’re walking down the street. People are either texting or listening to music or talking on the phone. I guess the intimacy has to travel all the way across the airwaves rather than through someone’s eyes. I can totally see how one would want protection in certain situations though. Like the one with your drunk passenger. When I used to walk to the bus stop around midnight after my shift was over at the bookstore in downtown Minneapolis, I would protect myself with a headset or by calling someone to “walk” with me on the phone. I had to either walk through the skyways (creepy at night) or down the street past the not so savory bars. Either way, I did NOT want to engage. Yet I kept my eyes on high alert.
I wonder if the earbuds are something you just get used to? I supposed if that’s all you’ve ever known, why would you want something else?
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Oh, ybonesy, I’m packing and getting ready to go out of town for a few days. I will be with a few writers who have mostly grown up and lived in the Midwest — Minnesota, Missouri, Wisconsin. I think I’ll ask them how they feel about the regional ideas we’ve been addressing on this post. Two of them are the writers I was driving with when I took the drive-by photo of the Mississippi in this post. We were giving a Wisconsin native (she was here taking a class at the Loft) the whirlwind tour of Minneapolis, something like 5 landmarks in 5 minutes. 8) No really, we did spend a little more time. One of the things we did was drive by one local writer’s home who lives up behind the Walker. I don’t know why but it’s so great to see where writers and artists live and work. It’s inspiring.
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Safe travels, you. Take lots of pictures. Any famous writer or artist homes you’ll drive by in Missouri?
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Now that’s my kinda drive by shooting QM! Bea-u-ti-ful.
Isn’t it fun to see what you get? Try that camera on a neck strap and let it dangle or just drop your arms to thigh height and start pointing and clicking. It’s amazing what cool stuff you get and how easy you learn to actually aim on a target without looking through the viewer. Plus people don’t get uptight when you take their picture cause they don’t know. I also try the timer and swing it (with a cheap camera of course) 😉
I must be boring cause I was born, raised and still live in Orange County, CA but we did hold John Wayne for a while and we still have Kobe Bryant! But, when I travel, I always dress like the natives to fit it. No Sneakers for sure. I’ve been shouted at in a German bus station (I’m a big blond thing with dark eyebrows) and once I was approached by 2 Texans at Versailles with the most hilarious French pronunciations I’ve ever heard. The look of relief when I said “Howdy” was priceless.
BTW, I hope all is well with you QM. I think about you everyday and send good thoughts. I hope things turn around very soon but in the meantime, keep up the great posts, especially the shots! You know I love them.
😉 H
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[…] weekend I was in Kansas City, Missouri for a short writing retreat with three other Midwest writers. We did Writing Practice, slow walked, sat in silence, and recalibrated our project goals for the […]
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[…] college to live around the world, but by the time he was 40 he had returned to his hometown, to his roots. He taught English and poetry for 27 years at Southwest State, and proceeded to publish 16 books. […]
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For all of you Patricia Hampl fans out there, she’s reading tonight in St. Paul. Here’s the info. Hope to see you there!
Mon., May 11
7:00 PM – 8:00 PM Patricia Hampl: Home Ground (LINK)
Location: Highland Park Library
Patricia Hampl reads from her essay in the new compilation Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape, edited by Barry Lopez, which brings together forty-five poets and writers to create more than 850 original definitions for words that describe our lands and waters.
Sponsored by The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library, Highland Park Library.
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[…] do much writing, but I did go hear Patricia Hampl at the Highland Park Library in St. Paul. I had already finished The Florist’s Daughter and made the commitment to read all of her work; she is my kind of […]
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I’m new to your blog, QM, but I was excited to see your post on regionalism and on the Midwest. I know Patricia but have not yet read The Florist’s Daughter. The quotes that you pulled out are gorgeous.
I’ve also been thinking a lot about what makes a regional writer lately, especially since the more I write, the more fiercely I claim the Midwest as at least partially responsible for my aesthetic, if not my outlook. I have been re-working my poetry manuscript lately, and more and more, it becomes about landscape, specifically the Midwest. More specifically, the flooding that has ravaged the land over the last two years.
I think being a regional writer has less to do with where you’re from than whether or not once becomes attached to and familiar with a landscape. Of that landscape. As you mentioned: has the land laid clam to you? Not all writers from a region are concerned with writing about region (or about land, for that matter).
I’m also wary about Patricia’s assigning innocence to the Midwest (and also to poets, as someone already mentioned). I’ve never thought the rest of the country saw the Midwest as particularly innocent. Perhaps I’m wrong. I was born and raised in Chicago and have lived in Macomb, IL (a small town near the Iowa border), St. Louis, MO, and most recently Indiana. But my family was from the East Coast, and I grew up saying “awnt” instead of “ant,” something my friends always teased me about. For most of my young life, I thought of myself as an Easterner temporarily living in the Midwest, even though I had been born here. This was my family’s narrative.
But something happened when I was in my 20’s, living in a small rural town in west-central Illinois. The natural cycles and people of that Midwestern sub-region claimed me fiercely. It was a transition that I felt strongly, physically, yet it was one that I resisted, having grown up believing that we would be moving back to Massachusetts (a family plan that never manifested).
As a native Midwesterner, I’ve always been interested in how the rest of the country sees us. Working at a university that draws people from all over, I am often offended by people who tell me repeatedly how awful the Midwest is, assuming that, as a Midwestern, I’ll agree with them. They are often surprised when I defend the place. I think many people, particularly people who grew up with mountains or seacoast, assume that the Midwest is a place that everyone wants to escape, a king of Purgatory. Mostly, I think this view comes from a lack of understanding about the region, its natural cycles, and/or the culture here. This is also a result of still deeply entrenched 19th century ideals about landscape aesthetics: in the eyes of Romantic painters and picturesque travelers, mountains made far more dramatic scenes than did plains.
Many of my friends have also been surprised when I make distinctions among sub-regions within the Midwest. Coming from Illinois, I did not expect to experience culture shock when I came to Indiana. But Indiana has always seemed to me (and to many other folks from Illinois…just ask them) a region unto itself.
As a regional writer, I also often struggle with the idea of geopolitical borders; ultimately, I wonder how helpful they are when discussing region, and what effects they have on the psyche. For me, northern Illinois is aligned more with Michigan and west-central Illinois with the landscape of Iowa. If we define ourselves as regional writers, how helpful are geopolitical borders to defining that region? Or when we become regionalists, do we align ourselves less with borders than with landscapes and with the cycles and people endemic to that landscape and its particular ecosystems?
I apologize for the long comment. But thanks again for your post. It gave me much food for thought.
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One correction: I was thinking of Patricia Henley, another Midwestern writer, not Patricia Hampl, both of whom write gorgeous prose. I know the former, not the latter.
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Dana, thanks for stopping by. yb, here. I’m QM’s blog partner.
Your comment is rich, with much to converse about within it, but what struck me immediately were two items:
Working at a university that draws people from all over, I am often offended by people who tell me repeatedly how awful the Midwest is, assuming that, as a Midwestern, I’ll agree with them. They are often surprised when I defend the place.
That must be maddening. I never knew much about the Midwest, to the point of not having any opinions about it, but via QM’s writing I have come to appreciate the landscape, culture, and openness (which is almost, in my view, a sort of political outlook, I guess). I still don’t know the Midwest firsthand, but writing with QM in an online writing group (which we’ve done for years) has opened my eyes to the area.
I also want to say that I feel like defending New Mexico whenever I hear someone disparage the state. It doesn’t happen often, usually on the plane during landing. Something like, “Ew, how brown,” or “Ew, how ugly.” I keep my mouth shut, though. Think to myself, “Yeah, you go on thinking that.”
And then the other thing had to do with the sub-regions within the Midwest. Perhaps that’s natural within any broad category. Again, drawing on my New Mexico experience, I’m from north-central NM, and my parents from northern NM. My friend Barin, who comments on the blog a lot, is from southwest NM. He was here last night, and it was funny how much he loves and see beauty in the part of the NM where he’s from, and the same with me for where I’m from. (We were talking about where to take one of his friends who was visiting; I advocated north while Barin advocated west.)
But even the color of the red chile, a New Mexico staple, is different in north (a bright tomato-red) versus south (a deep brown-red). Our accents, the landscape, politics, industry, what we grow–in short, everything that you tend to associate with place.
I’ll stop there. This is long enough as it is. Thanks for reviving this post. I’m always amazed by how frequently “place” and “home” come in to play in one’s day-to-day.
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Dana, what a thoughtful comment. I’ve been thinking about it for a few days now. It’s hard to know where to start in response. I’m still thinking about some of the questions you raise. It’s fun to read other views on regionalism as it affects artists and writers. I’m struck by the criticism you have heard about the Midwest. I haven’t heard people specifically criticize in that way. But I have heard explanations of the culture here being stoic and ordered and sometimes unemotional as compared to other places in the country. Oddly, those are things I have come to like and value — the structure of the Midwest is refreshing and slow moving compared to the fast paced world we live in.
ybonesy, thanks for jumping in. Your take on defending New Mexico is fascinating and what you say about yours and Barin’s different takes on the sub-regions of your state. I think that’s true here, too. The Iron Range (where Bob Dylan is from) is a completely different landscape and culture than the shores of Lake Superior near Duluth or the southern edges of Eagle country down near Redwing, Minnesota. It’s amazing how different a state can be from end to end. It makes me wonder though — what about states like Delaware where the square mileage is small? Would there be the same cultural differences as some of the bigger states we are talking about?
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Dana, I agree that not all writers from a region are concerned with writing about region or the land. It’s a certain kind of genre, a connection to place and geography. I feel lucky that ybonesy and I both feel that about the places we live, a connection to land, habitat, and ecosystems. It gives a certain cohesiveness to some of the posts that come up on red Ravine.
I have felt torn most of my life, having lived in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Montana, and now Minnesota, and having developed unique relationships to each of those places, lands, and peoples. My roots are in the Deep South and that is where I find a lot of writing energy. But I came of age in Pennsylvania and Montana and that’s like a different chapter in my life. I felt very connected to the mountains in each of those states.
I know what you mean about mountains and how they draw people. The first 5 years I lived in Minnesota, I longed for the land in Montana again and seriously thought I’d move back to western Montana any year. Didn’t happen.
I’ve lived in Minnesota now for about 25 years, the longest I’ve lived anywhere, and it’s a good place for me. As I mentioned in the comment above, the structure and order can be good for a soul. Yet it has also made me feel that I’ll never really be a Midwesterner. From my point of view at least, you almost have to BE from Minnesota to be considered a Minnesotan. It’s so hard to explain.
At any rate, I sure enjoyed your comment. I think when Patricia Hampl speaks of the innocence of the Midwest, she is more talking through the eyes of her parents and perhaps another generation of people. There is something right about her characterization. Yet it is also a kind of mask over what lies beneath. Though they may not always be immediately apparent, Minnesotans have strong opinions about politics, people, the ways we should live our lives. 8)
If you come back to this comment thread, I’d like to hear more about your take on “geopolitical borders.” A good topic.
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Oh, Dana, I wasn’t familiar with Patricia Henley’s work so looked her up. For others who might want to read more about her, here are a few links and shared wisdom about writing:
Patricia Henley Biography (LINK) – author of Hummingbird House and In the River Sweet
Patricia Henley Interviews (LINK)
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I wondered the same thing about physically small states, QM. But, you know, if a single city can be comprised of such culturally distinct neighborhoods side-by-side, then surely a small state must contain many enclaves within it.
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ybonesy, good point about cities with distinct neighborhoods. That is so true. And very different cultures in each neighborhood. Sometimes you can go a few streets over and be in a totally different part of the city.
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[…] -related to post: Midwest Poets & Writers — When Can You Call A Place Home? […]
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When I recently drove crossed the border from Wisconsin to Minnesota (after having been as far east as West Virginia), I yelped with joy. It’s good to be home. To absolutely know where home is. Where the heart is. Yes.
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Teri, isn’t West Virginia beautiful? Lovely country around those parts. I’m glad you’re back in the Midwest. I like it here. It seems like a good stopping place for me, since I’ve lived North, South, East, and West and called all of those places home. Somewhere in the Middle is a good place to land. I’d never call the Midwest flyover country. 8)
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Quoin,
West Virginia looked exactly as I hoped it would. I was driving along the Ohio River (beautiful). Next time, I’d like to go deeper into the state.
Yes. I agree. You should stop here. The Midwest. Flyover country? I think not.
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[…] to give it some thought; not for long. The seed for red Ravine had been planted. Now this space is Home, a strong cottonwood by the Mother Ditch, in her adolescent years, still growing. But nothing can […]
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This post is a few years old. I hope you don’t mind me resurrecting it.
I often blog about region. I’ve read many books on the topic and have given it much thought. Immigration combined with the largeness of the country has made regionalism much more distinct in the US than in many countries.
My interest came about because I moved around a fair amount when younger, not just different regions but different kinds of communities. I was born and spent my first remembered years in a factory town in Ohio near an Amish community. After that, the first half of elementary school in a wealthy Jewish suburb of Chicago. Then the next 4 years in a smaller liberal college town in Iowa. I spent the rest of my youth and early young adulthood in Columbia SC.
My brothers had moved back to Iowa and my childhood best friend was still living there. Plus, I had felt immensely homesick for the Midwest for much of the time I had been away. This longing had magnified the regional differences and permanently ingrained them on my psyche. I did move back, but didn’t settle down right away. I spent time in North Carolina and Arizona when I wasn’t going back and forth between South Carolina and Iowa.
Genealogy brought another layer to this. My parents come from Indiana. As someone else mentioned in the comments, that is a very different state from much of the Midwest. I’ve come to think of it as Kentuckiana, especially southern Indiana.
My mom’s family a generation before her, had come from southern Indiana and, a few generations before that, from Kentucky. Even though my mom was born and raised in central Indiana, there is a recording of her when she was just maried and she has a clear Southern accent. She still speaks some words that way such as cooshion instead of cushion, but she has mostly lost it. Her spending a couple decades didn’t make her accent return. However, I remember when in high school I’d occasionally and briefly start talking like my redneck friend with whom I spent much time; alas, I couldn’t retrieve that way of speaking all these years later. People did think I spoke oddly when I came back to Iowa which I suspect was my Midwestern Standard English with an overlay of slight Southern accent and with an occasional ‘sir’ or ‘mam’ thrown in. Interestingly, my mom’s brother who didn’t go to college has maintained more of his Southern accent.
My dad’s family is more regionally mixed. His mother and her family is from the Deep South, although before coming to the Midwest she spent some of her life in Oklahoma. His father and family came from the Mid-Atlantc States of New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. The earliest known origins of my Steele lineage is Pennsylvania which I appreciate since that is the original home of the Quakers and the starting point of Midwestern culture. However, my grandfather’s
most influential years growing up was in Connecticut as the son of a gardener on a wealthy estate. His father became a gardener by being raised by Shakers who trained him well.
Genealogy has made me realize that most of my family has come from the South. It also has made me realize that maybe most of my family even earlier came from the Mid-Atlantic states or else what was the Middle Colonies. I have som family who went to the West Coast as well, but that isn’t as much a part of my personal world. The region I feel least connected to is New England which I’ve never even visited for some strange reason. Kentuckiana captures my family the best, where the South meets and merges with the South. However, on a more personal level, I’m an Iowan, the place that forever captured my childhood imagination, the land of rivers and creeks.
Landscape is part of region, but alone it doesn’t define a sense of place. I live in eastern Iowa. The western central area of Iowa is what people think of with its flat endless fields. Where I live, it is quite rolling as in the paintings by Grant Wood, one of the most famous regionalist artists who was born near here and died in this very town, Iowa City. He captured the landscape here, but it is similar to the landscape throghout parts of the Midwest and the Upper South. I felt more at home in North Carolina partly because the landscape feels more Midwestern than Southern.
North Carolina and South Carolina are to different worlds in terms of geography and that geography led to different cultures and politics. Much of my mom’s family originated from NC and the culture isn’t all that different from Indiana and other Lower Midwestern states. The fundamentalsm is slightly stronger in NC, but you get the same strains of conservative-minded liberalism and community-minded progressivism. Both Midwesterners and Upper Southerners have wariness of when things become too large, whether big government or big business.
To me, it is more the culture and politics that define the place in terms of how it is perceived, used and lived in. However, it can be geography that attracts particular people with particular cultures and politics.
The Scots-Irish were used to poor soil and so they were content in Appalachia. Germans knew how to farm sustainably on good soil and so they settled the Midwest. Still, many Germans made their way to the Midwest by way of Appalachia as did my mom’s family. He further away you get from Appalachia the more you get that Northern European culture.
Iowa in many ways is more culturally and politically like Minnesota and Wisconsin. However, southern Iowa has the coal mining that is also found in the Ozarks and Appalachia. Those Iowa mining towns have a very different mix. In my eastern Iowa, there is also the well-rooted New England culture of small college towns surrounded by farm fields.
Then again, small college towns dotting the rural landscape is common in North Carolina as well. This might have something to do with the Quaker influence which NC shares with the Midwest. Certainly, though, NC lacks the neat orderliness that the Midwest is known for. The mountains don’t allow for such precise plotting of land.
In Iowa, there is one major difference to consider. I think it was the first state to be plotted so orderly in advance of the first major settlements. Iowa was carefully planned with roads, railroads and towns. This is what makes Iowa the bicyclists paradise and why Ragbrai happens here.
This planning also meant very little land went to ‘waste’. Iowa has the least amount of undeveloped land in the country. The entire state was nearly endless wetlands and it was pretty much all drained. Can you imagine that? A land known for nothng but water drained in a single generation.
That is what it means to have culture and politics enforced onto the landscape. Even the land was ordered here. If we had any mountains, some settler would have flattened them just as long as there was that beautiful dark soil.
Some places humans have to adapt to the landscape or perish. Not so in the Midwest. That German love of order conquers even nature. However, it wasn’t as destructive as it could have been. Germans built things to last, including their farms and farmland. If you want to see the last remnants of this, visit the German-speaking Amish.
There are Amish communities nearby to this town and are found all across the Midwest along with some in the Upper South. Indepemdent communities is one of those shared traits of the Midwest and the Upper South, although the ethnic island variety is more common in the Midwest especially the Upper Midwest.
As I see it, regions aren’t absolute distinctions. They merge and develop.
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What a thoughtful comment. I am always happy when a reader revives an older piece because I become reacquainted with conversations that sometimes took place years ago, and have a chance to rethink and/or pick up where the thread left off. Thank you for your insights.
I had just been doing more research on my ancestry today and was primed to think again about region and place. My blood father’s family was from North Carolina. My mother’s mostly from Georgia. I have found that my memories of the different regions in which I have lived sometimes freeze those regions into place for me, based on my experiences while living there. I will never know what it would be like to live in those places as the person I am today. But in writing a memoir, I would be inclined to draw on the past, juxtaposed with what I have learned since.
Regions are sure not as distinctive as they used to be before we became more physically transient and globally connected. But I like using them as a jump-off place for my thinking about landscape and the people who inhabit them. I will think more about your words. Thanks again for stopping by and reviving this piece.
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[…] to posts: Discovering The Big Read, Midwest Poets & Writers — When Can You Call A Place Home?, The Vitality Of Place — Preserving The Legacy Of “Home”, The World According To Mr. Schminda […]
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[…] -related to posts: Standing Your Ground —-Arroyo, Gulch, Gully & Wash, Midwest Poets & Writers — When Can You Call A Place Home? […]
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question: if you were the current Midwest based editor for a poetry magazine and charged with interviewing poets and spoken word (beat) performers, who are the first five-other than Kooser (whom I have already contacted and awaiting an answer)-poets you would interview?
I just obtained this dubious mission and am in need of some advice. As a poet, I know how reclusive we can be and how little we like to be interviewed.
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