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18
May 18, 1995
Sandhills keynote speaker Kinnell describes
his journey from “innocence” to publication
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By Rhonda Jones
AUGUSTA FOCUS Staff Writer
He stepped away from the podi
um to pour a glass of water — un
hurried, deliberate, as if that, too,
were a poem. While the audience
waited, hebegan againina voicesoft
around the edges like torn paper, to
blur the line between death and life
with beautiful, dark images. Here
and there, a breath drawn in, a
muffled groan, expressed the star
tled pleasure that such “physical
words” can wring from an audience.
Ten hours earlier, during his key
note address for the 1995 Sandhills
Writers' Conference at Augusta
College, half-Irish poet Galway
Kinnell had spoken of “the way it
was”eventhen, evenin the 1950 s —
only a decade and a half after W.B.
Yeats published his last poems —
for those writers trying to sustain a
dying art form for perhaps one more
century. He recalled that during his
first reading tour, called the Mid
west Circuit, one of his audiences
was made up of only three people,
including the guy who picked him
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up at the airport.
When people do attend a poetry
reading, he said, it is often out of
curiosity. They want to get a look at
Speaking of decades past led him to describe his years as
a young writer, and the “innocence” that exists only
before publication, as a magic time when the writer is "full
"“.n
oneofthese nearly extinct creatures
they've heard about in school, these
mythical beings called poets. And
for that reason, Mr. Kinnell is often
introduced as “the living American
poet.”
Speaking of decades past led him
to describe his years as a young
writer, and the “innocence” that ex
ists only before publication, as a
magictime when thewriteris “full of
hope.” He had as mentors poets like
William Carlos Williams and Rob
ert Frost on whom he inflicted the
awkward poems of his youth. Once,
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When people do aftend a
poetry reading, said
Galway Kinnell, it is often
out of curiosity. They want
to get a look at one of
these nearly extinct crea
tures they've heard about
in school.
Mr. Kinnell said, having spenta day
with him and oneofhis writings, Mr.
Frost told the young poet, “This is
truepoetry, butitdoesn'thaveatrue
ending.”
Though he treasured these expe
riences, he eventually stopped seek
ing advice from elders of the poet
tribe, and simply worked on his
craft. He let the words themselves
teachhim whattodo, and they drove
him toward the inevitability that he
eloquently compared to the fall of
man. “At last,” he said, “one by one
my friends and I stepped out of our
Eden, and published.”
But in the literary world, the sea
partsfornoone,and hisstrivingsleft
Mr. Kinnell with a stack of often
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humorous rejection letters. He read
a few generated by his poem “Yan
kee West.” “Omit the third stanza,”
wrote one editor, while another im
plored him to cut the second. Still
anotherthoughtthefirstcould “stand
on its own,” and there was an omi
nous letter that condemned the po
etry’s lack of “humanistic ictus.”
He then read another sort of let
ter, from a fan for whom his poetry
was salve on wounds created by
sexual abuse, who had, for years,
been shrinking from the human
touch. The letter called his words
“physical” and, referring to a poem
about a child, ended with the sug
gestion that while Mr. Kinnell held
that poem-child close, he was also
holding a frightened child far away.
“Everywritergetsletterslikethis,”
he said.
He seemed to suggest that such
sensual writingwould nothave been
possible in an earlier time, when
poems only dealt with difficult sub-
Jects, like the body, under what he
called a “heavy cover of tortured
metaphor.” He praised contempo
rary writers’ ability to write about
anything, andonly halfjokinglymen
tioned the nose as a possible subject.
After all, he said, “if you can't say
everything, then perhaps you can't
say anything.”
After reading the last poem of the
night, Mr. Kinnell withdrew from
the stage amid the audience’s excit
edapplause. Somestood;otherssim
ply watched him make his way to
the door at the back of the room,
head down, the shadow of a content
smile on his lips.
Galway Kinnell, the State Poet of
Vermont, is a recipient of a
MacArthur fellowship, and Erich
Maria Remarque Professor of Cre
ative Writing at New York Universi
ty. His poetry anthologies include
When One Has Lived a Long Time
Alone (1990), The Book of Night
mares(l97l),and Body Rags(l96B).
His new book Imperfect Thirst has
Just been released from Houghton
Mifflinand isavailable at Magnolia
Bookshop on Central Ave.
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