Raw to the Bone: On Springsteen, Rivers, and the Arc of Creativity in Poets' Quarterly

April Lindner had the idea to gather us (Jane Satterfield, Ned Balbo, Ann Michael, me—her Springsteen loving friends) at the Glory Days Symposium at Monmouth University more than a year ago. We each gave papers, each talked about the influence that Bruce Springsteen has had on us.

I spoke about the arc of creativity under the influence of Bruce Springsteen's river songs, and I'm so happy to be able to share a link to that full essay here today, for the piece now stands among works by Donald Hall, Daisy Fried, Barbara Crooker, and Caroline Maun (among others) in the current issue of Poets' Quarterly.

It begins like this, below, and carries forward here:

Might as well start with “Shenandoah,” the old pioneer song that Springsteen and the Seeger Sessions Band transformed into sweet bitters in the living room of Springsteen’s fabled New Jersey farmhouse.  “Shenandoah,” the tenth song on the We Shall Overcome/Seeger Sessions album, is music being made, as Springsteen himself has said. Music created in the moment, held between teeth, conducted with the frayed bracelet strings of an uplifted hand. It’s music hummed, hymned, and high in the shoulder blades, deep in the blue pulse of a straining vein. Patti’s lighting candles in the darkening farmhouse, as the band tunes in. The antique clock ticks. The thickly framed mirror doubles the volumes of sound and space. And now the Sessions Band is elaborating, confabulating, and the Shenandoah roves.

 Many thanks to Leslie Nielsen, and Ann Michael.

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In the Garden of Stone/Susan Tekulve

You know how it is when you steal that time to read the book you desperately want to read? I have been stealing that time.

Among the many wonderful people I met at the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference (a conference I attended so that I could spend more time with the great Jayne Anne Phillips)—Brooks Hansen, Anne Lamott, Jane Satterfield, Leslie Pietrzyk, Jay Kirk, Olena Kalytiak Davis, my first editor, Alane Salierno Mason (W.W. Norton), my second editor in chief, Janet Silver, Grace Paley, even—there was a young scholarship winner named Susan Tekulve, who hailed from the south and told intriguing tales. Through the years Susan and I remained in touch as she published short stories and built a reputation as a fine teacher at Converse College in Spartanburg, SC. She traveled to and taught in Italy. She spent time among the Appalachian hills, where my great grandfather had left a mark. She brokered fascinating details. She was always humble and she, like me, loved chocolate, cats, and gardens.

Not long ago, Susan won the South Carolina First Novel Prize for In the Garden of Stone, which will be released in a beautifully designed package by Hub City Press in late April. Kirkus gave it a huge star. Library Journal named it as a Spring Break. None other than Robert Olmstead, Thomas E. Kennedy, and Josephine Humphreys have sung its praises, and I asked for an early copy.

This is the book I've been desperate to read, and my joy for Susan, my enthusiasm, my deep respect, I'll use the word "awe"—it overflows. I'm 100 pages in and now must leave it for a spell to do some corporate work. I'll write a full response in a few days. But for now let me say that this generational book about the south and southern Italy (yes, they combine to perfection here) is so brilliantly built and quietly affecting that I could choose any single paragraph and it would impress you.

Here's just one. It's 1924, the first evening of a southern honeymoon.

Around the mountain pool, the butterflies flattened themselves against long, polished stones, drinking the water held in their dimpled surfaces. Emma took off her shoes and walked across the slippery rocks. Water sprayed her face and arms as she dodged the drinking butterflies and stood at the pool's edge, watching the giant trout swim around the pool. Dark blue and mottled, they skulled just below the surface, gulping up butterflies and water, their stomachs filling like empty buckets. She saw now why her husband had released them. She, too, was satisfied just to know that they were there.

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Her Familiars/Jane Satterfield: Reflections

It has become my habit to wake at 1:47 most nights, two hours of sleeping in.  I make my decision—to wait in the upstairs dark, to wait in the downstairs dark, or to somehow make use of the time.

For many weeks now (I am not counting, I am afraid), I have made use of the time—doing the work set down before me, leaving all the stacks of books that aren't required reading somewhere to the side, for an intangible, mythical then. 

Today when I woke I realized that I had a very small pocket of time that was indeed my own.  And so I came downstairs, turned on the light, and opened a book that had been sent to me weeks ago by my long-time friend Jane Satterfield.  Jane and I met at Bread Loaf years ago and never lost touch, though sometimes too much time goes by without a correspondence.  I saw Jane most recently during the Bruce Springsteen Glory Days symposium at Monmouth University.  We hardly had the time to speak as we like to speak.  It was a public forum.

In any case, Jane's book, Her Familiars, is a third collection of Satterfield poems, and there was no way I was going to rush through it.  Jane has a habit of filling her poems with entire worlds, of researching an idea, committing history to the page, surprising the reader with allusion and symbol.  She writes magnificently, and without shortcuts.  I wanted to take her poems slow.  I did.

Thankfully, for those who aren't nearly as well-read as Jane, Jane includes, in Her Familiars, some end notes to help contextualize her work.  And so, poem by poem, I read, thinking—This is the one I will share on my blog!  Or, This is the one I will read to my students!  Flipping back to the note pages, always, to be sure I received the full intent of the poem.

And then I got to the title poem, "Her Familiars," which begins like this:

Just past her birthday (thirteenth)
my daugther's engrossed
in the antics of the Pretty Committee
who, swish bags in tow,
shop for amazing LBDs....

and then sweeps into its larger meditation on beauty, age, oddness, the recharge of time—coiling higher and higher, in trademark Jane style, thrillingly, to this mid-point passage:

... Just look at
the woodcut, frontispiece to
The Discovery of Witches,
London, circa 1647, where one-legged
Elizabeth Clarke, whose
mother (maybe witchy
with words or wise with a cure?),
a heretic, hung before her.....

And, toward the end, leaves us with this line:

.... The feeble, the poor, &
otherwise popular didn't
stand a chance.....

I knew, reading, that I loved this poem.  But I also knew that I didn't fully understand it, that I had not fully penetrated its many reverbing layers, its codices, its effects and affects, so I went to the notes and found this:

Nigel Cawthorne's Witch Hunt:  History of a Persecution (London: Arcturus, 2003) provided useful background; the "Pretty Committee" appears in the YA Series, The Clique.  This poem is for Beth Kephart.

I could read no further.  I had to stop.  Had to thank Jane Satterfield right then, right now—for being my friend, for putting up with my ridiculous schedule, for writing so magnificently, always. For remembering me and for bringing me solace, in the midst of another dark night.

You are the true and brilliant poet, Jane.

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Bruce Springsteen, Asbury Park, Monmouth University

As readers of this blog know, it has been a tumultuous time here—a sinking realization that not all the people you trust to get something right (or to do right) do.  A sense of helplessness about a false newspaper claim.  And so many friends stepping in to cry out against the injustice.

And while I will never be able to leave this cruelty behind—for it is not about me (about that I would not care) but about someone I deeply love—I did physically leave home very early yesterday morning to join friends at the Glory Days Symposium, an intelligent gathering of people who recognize that Springsteen does so much more than entertain. (One of my own—many—appreciations of Springsteen is here.)  I was proud to join April Lindner, Jane Satterfield, Ann E. Michael, and Ned Balbo on a storytelling panel, and deeply inspired by the conversations I heard along the way.  I was happy to at last meet Mark Bernhard, an associate provost at University of Southern Indiana, who puts so much of himself into this event.

Mid-afternoon I slipped away to Asbury Park and walked the boardwalk alone.  Sea and salt and time to be.  A quick but essential exchange with my editor, Tamra Tuller.  A funny, I-am-the-luckiest-mother-on-earth text carnival with my son.

Monmouth University, where the Glory Days Symposium was held, is a green campus, architecturally cohering and whole.  At its center stands Wilson Hall, a Horace Trumbauer designed mansion originally built, in 1929, as the private residence of F.W. Woolworth Co. president Hubert Templeton Parson.  In the summer of 1916, in a building lost to fire on this same site, Woodrow Wilson worked through his presidential campaign.  If this Trumbauer building looks familiar to you, that's because it served as the set for the movie, Annie.

I share above some images from the day.

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Raw to the Bone: Putting the Springsteen Paper to Rest

Yes, it has obsessed me, but it is done.  "Raw to the Bone:  Transported to Truth and Memory by Springsteen's River Songs" is written at last, and it will slumber now, until September, when I will have the great pleasure of joining April Lindner, Jane Satterfield, Ned Balbo, and Ann Michael at the Glory Days Symposium at Monmouth University.  This blog will now return to its regularly scheduled (ha, I never schedule anything) program.

From the paper:

The music will rise through the soles of my feet.  It will scour, channel, silt, and further rise.   In the dark cavern of my hips it will catch and swish.  Outside, perhaps, the stars have come up, and probably the deer have vanished, and maybe the cicadas are rumbling around in their own mangled souls.  But inside, a river churns, widens, roars, and steeps, and I am dancing Springsteen.    

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Bruce Springsteen, Glory Days Symposium, and Thanks

Could there be anything more thrilling (for a reader-rocker) than reading the beautifully researched, impeccably written David Remnick profile of Bruce Springsteen in the July 30 issue of The New Yorker?  The story is called "We Are Alive," and most everyone read it before I did, because my issue didn't arrive until late yesterday afternoon.  I'd read pieces online.  I'd read the raves.  But yesterday, after a very long day of corporate work and minor agitations, I found a breeze and read the profile through.  I didn't have to fall in love again with Bruce Springsteen; I've been in love since I was a kid.  But I loved, loved, loved every word of this story.  I would like to frame it.

(For those who haven't seen my Devon Horse Show photos and video of Jessica Springsteen, who is as sensational in her way as Bruce is, I share them here.)

Perhaps my favorite part of Remnick's article was discovering the way that Springsteen reads, how he thinks about books.  You don't get to be sixty-two and still magnetic, necessary, pulsingly, yes, alive if you don't know something, and if you don't commit yourself to endless learning.  Reading is one of the many ways Springsteen stays so connected to us, and so relevant.  From The New Yorker:

Lately, he has been consumed with Russian fiction.  "It's compensatory—what you missed the first time around," he said.  "I'm sixty-some, and I think, There are a lot of these Russian guys!  What's all the fuss about?  So I was just curious.  That was an incredible book: 'The Brothers Karamazov.' Then I read 'The Gambler.'  The social play in the first half was less interesting to me, but the second half, about obsession, was fun.  That could speak to me. I was a big John Cheever fan, and so when I got into Chekhov I could see where Cheever was coming from.  And I was a big Philip Roth fan, so I got into Saul Bellow, 'Augie March.' These are all new connections for me.  It'd be like finding out now that the Stones covered Chuck Berry."

Next week, I'll begin to write my paper for Glory Days: The Bruce Springsteen Symposium, which is being held in mid-September at Monmouth University, and where I'll be joining April Lindner, Ann Michael, Jane Satterfield, and Ned Balbo on a panel called "Sitting Round Here Trying to Write This Book: Bruce Springsteen and Literary Inspiration." I don't know if I've ever been so intimidated, or (at the same time) excited.  I don't know what I have in me, if I can write smart and well enough.

But this morning I take my energy, my inspiration, from the friends and good souls who have written over the past few days to tell me about their experience with Small Damages.  We writers write a long time, and sometimes our work resonates, and when it does, we are so grateful.  When others reach out to us, we don't know what to say.  We hope that thank you is enough.  And so, this morning, thank you, Jennifer Brown.  Thank you, Alyson Hagy and Robb Forman Dew.  Thank you, Tamara Smith.  Thank you, Elizabeth Ator and Katherine Wilson.  Thank you, Jessica Ferro.  Thank you, Hilary Hanes.  And thank you, Miss Rosella Eleanor LaFevre, who interviewed me a few years ago about Dangerous Neighbors, and who has stayed in touch ever since.  I don't even know how to say thank you for her blog magazine thoughts on Small Damages today.  I can only suggest that if you read it through, you'll know something important about her heart.

To being inspired.  To writing forward.  To keeping on with keeping on, with the hope of better work.  Always.

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A few upcoming events

Just a few things, should they be of interest:

Tomorrow evening, November 7, beginning at 6:30 PM, I'll be at the Haub Executive Center of St. Joseph's University talking about the future of young adult literature, reading from You Are My Only, and convening (and cavorting) with some early readers of the book.  A huge thank you to April Lindner and Ann Green, as well as to Jane Satterfield, who introduced me to April more than a year ago.

On Wednesday, November 9, starting at 7:00 PM, I'll be in West Chester, at the fabulous Chester County Book & Music Company (West Goshen Center) for a You Are My Only reading.  Last week I read from Emmy's chapters.  That night I plan to read from Sophie's.  Whatever happens, I'll be grateful to be inside this fantastaic independent bookstores.  A big thank you to Thea Kotroba.

Finally—and this won't happen for a few months yet, but I'm so excited about it that I want to share early word—some of the very best in the business will be gathering at The Spiral Bookcase, another indie!, in Manayunk, PA, next March 24 for an afternoon extravaganza of teen literature.  We're still working out the details, but know this:  Susan Campbell Bartoletti, A.S. King, April Lindner, Keri Mikulski, Elizabeth Mosier, and I will join together for an afternoon that promises to be all kinds of wonderful.

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The Importance of Music to Girls, and other notes on redemption

How would you paint regret? I asked, most recently, and I have been moved beyond words by the responses, not just on this blog proper, but also on Facebook, and also late two nights ago, while talking with my son, who said: "Regret is a path directed by a one-way sign; just beyond the sign is a storm."

This morning I embrace the collective wisdom and generosity of all of you. Why blog? This is why blog. Because you get so much more than you give.

Speaking of giving: Several weeks ago, I sold an historical novel, Dangerous Neighbors, to Laura Geringer, now collaborating with the extraordinarily exciting new USA presence, Egmont. Those who have known me for a long time know just what that sale meant to me: that I would live to see a very different kind of Kephart novel in the world, that I had been buoyed by the faith of an editor whose mind I wholly value, that perhaps I, more literary, always, than commercial, would still have a future with books in a world in which commercial is the gauge by which authors are most measured.

It meant, in other words, everything, and Jane Satterfield, whose brilliant memoir, Daughters of Empire, launched a few weeks ago, celebrated the news with me by sending along a book of which she had lately been speaking: The Importance of Music to Girls, by Lavinia Greenlaw.

A few days ago, in the midst of frustration over the novel for adults that I'm now writing, I took Jane's gift outside and started to read. Utter endorphin release. Near immediate calm. The sensation that passes through me when I am confident that I am reading a good book. Over the course of fifty-six taut, quirky, magical-because-they-are-quirky essays The Importance of Music traces Greenlaw's awareness of/fascination with/life-bending relationship to music. From dancing, Roethke like, on her father's shoes, to learning to dance, to studying Bowie's attitude on the Ziggy Stardust LAp cover, to playing the piano too fast or too slow, these exquisite star bursts tremble with the true stuff of life.

Or, at least, with a life I understand. For, like Greenlaw, music has always been the charge within. I, too, was a girl dancing in the basement to music turned up loud. I was the girl singing, untamed, in the car. I was the girl dancing on ice and on a stage. I was a girl because of music. Here is Greenlaw:

If we sung out of trepidation or the need for release, the experience was nonetheless one of joy, as was dancing. I danced in line with my friends and alone in front of the mirror, as a rehearsal of love. It was preparation for saying "Look at me" and "Yes, I will" and "I know how."

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Poet at the Dance

Leave it to Jane Satterfield, the poet, memoirist, and teacher, to instruct me, again, in what I did not know but should have. We met at Bread Loaf, Jane and I. I've been learning from her ever since.

So that yesterday it was an email that contained, among other gifts, a link to this 2003 Robert McDowell interview with Rita Dove. The title? "Poet at the Dance: Rita Dove in Conversation." I probably don't need to say more.

Except that I will. I will quote from this terrific interview, and I will say, for myself, this: Last week, and the week before, something happened at the studio, a letting go (again, more) that enabled me, for the briefest moment, to skim the floor the way Dove describes such skimming. To trust so completely the dancers who kindly danced with me that I could also trust myself. I'd ruin things, of course. I'd break the spell. But for an instant I grasped what it must be to have the knowing of dance in one's bones. I grasped it. I wanted more.

From Rita Dove:

Poetry is a kind of dance already. Technically, there's the play of contemporary speech against the bass-line of the iambic, but there's also the expression of desire that is continually restrained by the limits of the page, the breath, the very architecture of the language--just as dance is limited by the capabilities of our physical bodies as well as by gravity. A dancer toils in order to skim the surface of the floor, she develops muscles most of us don't even know we have; but the goal is to appear weightless. A poet struggles to render into words that which is unsayable--the ineffable, that which is deeper than language--in the hopes that whatever words make the final cut will, in turn, strike the reader speechless.

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Up to Us

So here's how I see it, in these brittle, aching times: We only have each other going forward. Nothing is matter of fact—not our jobs, not our clients, not our favorite shops (I go out, I seek, they are gone), not our favorite people in our favorite familiar places (suddenly they have been vanished, too), not our future. And those who once seemed straightforward, firm, reliably reliable are doubting, less certain, wracked by caution.

There is less of most things. There is more ache ahead. There are questions nobody can answer. And so it is up to us to fill the gaps and erase the voids, to shore these days up with our attentiveness, our kindness. To live these days, too, because we won't get them back—live them, walk them, photograph them, write them, love them, share them. We'll be older when this is over. We'll look back. We'll wonder who we were, and how we lived.

And on another note entirely (but not really; this is connected): Thank you, Jane Satterfield at Loyola University, for teaching Flow: The Life and Times of Philadelphia's Schuylkill River to your gifted students today. They are lucky to have you.

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Gifts

I am the recipient of gifts: too many, none of them earned.

Yesterday, for example, in the airport: a young girl from Penn State who, like me, waited for that ersatz plane to San Antonio. She was beautiful—dark haired, a diamond chip on the left flare of her nose, a tender kind of edgy. Studying Spanish, dreams of becoming a translator, a good sort. I liked talking with her. We made a pact. We said, If we hear again that the plane that is about to take us high in the blue cold sky (the plane that was so tiny that it had no overhead luggage compartments) needs "more" maintenance (after already waiting a long time for maintenance) then we will be officially spooked. We got word. We were, together, spooked. She went her way and I went mine, but I felt as if, during all that waiting, I had made a friend.

Another gift: Dina Sherman of HarperCollins was kind beyond description about my airport dilemma. She understood. I am an uber responsible, don't let people down if I can possibly help it sort, and I never not show up for things; it's against my annoyingly obsessive nature. Dina made it okay for me to go home during the swamp of airline confusion.

Another gift: A few days ago, Vivian of Hip Writer Mama took the time to lay out, step by step, just how one embeds links in a blog. I had no idea previously how this got done. I don't know how anyone learns this stuff in the first place. But I know that it took Vivian a long time to teach me, and this was after she had already gone the distance, interviewing me and three others for last week's Winter Blog Tour. She's something else.

Another gift: Jane Satterfield, whose beautiful, searing memoir, Daughters of Empire: A Memoir of a Year in Britain and Beyond, is due out next year, sent, arriving just today, a book of poems by Elizabeth Spires. It's called The Wave-Maker and Jane's generosity is inexplicable (except that Jane, whom I profiled not long ago on this blog, has always been enormously generous). Jane's taste is immaculate. I've been sitting with this book for the past half hour and I think I'm in love with every page. I wonder if Ms. Spires would mind me quoting a stretch from a single poem called "Translation of My Life":

Imagine: a town
in the same universe as this one,
with the same physical laws,
but no poets, no poetry.
No scribbling hands up late
at night writing words
they believed would save them.
No noisy fluttering pages
to disturb the peace
of a dreaming populace.

I hope not.

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Gifts of the Blog

It is so often the case that the responses I get to the blogs I post are far more interesting than the blogs themselves; I count myself lucky to be out here, in this generous community.

PoetJane asked if i might describe the machinations that go into a Beth meal (or something like that), I'll put it this way: I somehow have grown into this person who believes (fears?) that every meal she serves is a reflection of her inner self, her value, might I say, worth? I know it's wrong, but I can't help it, so, come 5 or so most evenings, I push back from this desk and head to the local Whole Foods or its equivalent on foot, my reusable plastic bag upon my shoulder. I walk up and down the aisles, gnawing through the possibilities (never enough possibilities) in my head. I seek wholesome, aspire to memorable. I'm a fan of fresh herbs, of organic chicken, of delicate lamb, of plump bread, of bright cheese, of overfat cookies. I walk home, my shoulder aching, my posture askew, the smell of Italian parsley wafting up toward the sky.

Once home, I unshelter each ingredient and buy, give it its space upon my less-than-spacious counter. I begin. On the nights when things don't go quite according to plan, you will hear me apologizing to the gods of gourmet. You'll hear my husband ask, Why don't we just get pizza?

There are two glasses of wine, one for each of us. Usually that's it. A single glass each, because it's healthy—so I've been told, so I wish to believe—and because it says that the night is near, another day is to be honored.

With that confession now rendered, let me celebrate Lenore, who so kindly posted a blog—the very first outside my own!—on Nothing but Ghosts. Let me celebrate S. Krishna who spoke honestly about House of Dance, which didn't quite work for her in those crucial opening pages. Honesty is an essential component of courage, and I've always liked courageous people.

Let me finally say thank you to paperxxflowers (I love that blog name, so I'll use it) for posting an interview she conducted with me a few weeks ago.

Finally, in case you are wondering about the eggplant pictured here—that's Aideen (one of my key characters from House of Dance) sharing a ripe Linvilla Orchard find with my husband.

http://paperxxflowers.blogspot.com/2008/10/authors-in-corner-mini-view-with-beth.html

http://presentinglenore.blogspot.com/2008/10/waiting-on-wednesday-3-nothing-but.html

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Second Chances

I posted earlier this week about the gifts of friendship yielded by the mostly private writing life; I wrote, particularly, about Jayne Anne Phillips.

My story was about the time I'd spent with Jayne Anne in Prague; Jay Kirk, that enormously gifted writer whom I've praised in other blog entries (most recently that gorgeous Rwanda piece in GQ) and whom I've benefited so hugely from knowing since 2005, wrote to tell me about the quality of a critique Jayne Anne had given him at Bread Loaf. The email dialogue went (paraphrasically) thusly:

Me: Wait. What year were you at Bread Loaf?

Jay: I was there in '96.

Me: As was I. Grace Paley. Anne Lamott. The gorgeous Olena Kaltyiak Davis. Jane Satterfield. Brooks Hansen.

Jay: Wait. You were in our class? Or were you teaching...

Well, indeed. You get that point. Apparently, I've known Jay since 1996. Apparently, we sat in the same small classroom. Surely, I read pages from his then novel-in-progress; I remember the beating pulse of the guy's talent. And beyond this being one of those ain't-life-strange conjunctions, it raises for me this question:

How do I keep managing to trip up against blazing talents who are also (don't ever take this for granted) hugely good souls? The sort of people I need to know, because without them I wouldn't think nearly as hard. I had the chance to know Jay a long time ago, it seems. I was given (fluke that it was) a second chance. Thank goodness I was finally paying attention in '05. It would have been lousy if I hadn't.

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Introducing Professor Jane Satterfield of Loyola University

I'd never taken a writing course during my undergraduate days at Penn, and when I wrote I was forever writing alone, reading alone, gauging all the gaps alone. It wasn't until I was in my thirties, then, that I inserted myself into the writing world, taking "family vacations" at workshops in Spoleto, in Prague, and finally at Bread Loaf in Vermont. (My husband being a good sport to go along, my toddler son not having much say in the matter.)

It was at Bread Loaf that I met the poet and memoirist Jane Satterfield. She was ethereal and talented, but also groundedly kind. She was working through transitions, speaking of England, where she'd been born, musing over photographs. The conference was soon over, but we remained friends, and I have watched her come into her own ever since, publishing poetry collections (Shepherdess with an Automatic, Assignation at Vanishing Point), winning poetry grants (including a National Endowment for the Arts award), gaining recognition for her nonfiction as well. Raising a daughter through it all, marrying fellow poet Ned Balbo, and teaching at Loyola, where one day not so long ago she invited me in for a day of teaching as well, and where I saw first hand just how carefully and lovingly she prepares for every day.

It's one thing to be a student of writing. It's another to try to light the way. Today I post excerpts from a recent conversation that I had with Jane—the first of what will be two Jane postings—to help remind us all (as this school year begins) just what teaching writers do, how much of themselves they give.

How did Loyola find you, and when? What made that university and your interests a fit?

That’s an interesting question, Beth, because my story’s a little unusual. After I finished my M.F.A at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop I was doing some composition teaching at a local community college when Phil McCaffrey, the English and Writing Chair at Loyola, called to see if I could cover two classes at the last minute. There were other young writers like me teaching in the program and there was a great deal of literary energy and a sense of community: we had—and still have—a vital reading series, for instance, and many of us shared work-in-progress that would later appear in our first books. Loyola’s commitment to the liberal arts is strong and I felt very comfortable teaching at an institution where interdisciplinary study is encouraged.

Your students are some of the luckiest souls around. Talk a little bit about the classes you teach, the students you meet, and the one or two lessons you hope your students will remember.

Thanks, Beth, that’s so generous. I enjoy seeing my students discover new ways of thinking and writing. There’s so much growth that happens for students over the course of a single semester and I’ve been lucky in recent years to have “repeaters” so I can really watch young writers develop into formidable stylists. I teach workshop courses in the essay and in poetry and all my classes are very interactive—lots of group work and presentations along with daily writing and discussion centering on what we can learn, as writers, from each work we read.

I’ve met so many wonderful students over the years. There’s always some excitement in the classroom—moments of thoughtful discussion or good workshop sessions where students’ generous response to each others’ work sparks real growth. I remember one group of first-students who were especially kind and honest. “Tom, we love you,” one student said to another, “and this is why I can say this: verbosity is pomposity. Tell it to us true.” I held my breath. Wondered what would happen next. “You’re right,” Tom said, “point well taken.” And the class burst into laughter.

Is there a book or a poem that you always teach, always reference in some way?

If I’m relentless on one thing, it’s reading. Sometimes I maybe assign (is it truly possible?) too much. Jamaica Kincaid’s essays “Columbus in Chains,” “On Seeing England for the First Time,” “Girl” and “Biography of a Dress” are standards for me. They’re so visually sharp and deal with uncomfortable truths. Although many of my students aren’t likely to have experienced the tragedies of colonialism and oppression first-hand, Kincaid reveals just how deeply our language and education shape us.

One of my favorite books to teach is Michael Ondaatje’s Running in the Family. It’s simply gorgeous prose, a narrative mosaic that’s fugue-like and dense but also poignant and funny. The historical backdrop is powerfully woven throughout the book; his portraits are sharply honest and empathetic. What’s not to love? Plus his acknowledgements are long and detailed—his material comes out of book research, interviews, and travel and he makes it clear that writing’s a collaborative act born out of connection to a community. I like students to learn those lessons.

How does one begin a conversation about books? How much can you really frame up in advance? How much of teaching requires being able to think and assimilate right there, in that room?

How right you are! There’s a certain degree of preparation: you decide you’re going to highlight voice or use of controlling metaphor or character or whatever; maybe you give discussion questions ahead of time or at the start of class. But sometimes the class swings to something else entirely, issues that concern your young writers at that very moment in that very room. For instance, "What makes Don DeLillo think he can or should write about 9/11 in a novel?" That came up in a class of seniors recently. The teacher’s choice is: we can stop and think about that or we can move on. I like to stop and linger when questions come up spontaneously. Even if that question sounded slightly critical and was voiced a little sarcastically, I like to think the student was really asking something quite different: how do we—and should we—decide what’s a “fit” topic for literature?

Learning’s not always linear. The same senior class reacted very negatively to an innovative book of poems. I was so disappointed. I had to find a way to turn discussion around without sounding like a scolding parent. But when the students attended the writer’s reading, they gained additional insights and became rather fond of the book. Reading’s an intellectual act but it’s also very emotional. Guiding discussion is a tough balance.

(to be continued)

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Making the Characters Real

I have the privilege, in this life, of being enriched by extraordinary friends—their stories, their insights, their questions. I don't get locked too deeply inside of me because of them. I get snapped out, to the broader perspective.

Yesterday—a long climb, a battle, even—I reached the 100-page mark in this novel I've been writing. I was attempting, over email, to explain its essence to Jane Satterfield, another Bread Loaf connection, a poet, a memoirist, an extraordinary professor at Loyola (I know, I've been there, I've met her students). Despite the garble of my email she seemed at once to understand where I am going, what I am wanting, how I am challenged, why I keep on waking up at 4 each morning, just for a shot at a small encounter with the novel. She had it down, she had me down, and then she asked this question: So you have imagined the characters into a very real past? Or has the research convinced you they are real? That is, that these imagined beings are ghosted by very real events?

It occurred to me that I'd never asked myself this question—and that the answer lies somewhere between the two poles of Jane's counterpoised assertion: The characters are real to me because at some basic level I share their impulses—because I have been ruined, too, by inadequacy, jealousy, inequity; because I have been spared by hope, by love. The research (into the streets they walk, the contraptions they encounter, the domestic politics of a long lost era, the weather) is what sets the characters free from me, gives them complex lives of their own.

Well, it took me all morning to figure that out. Now to open the tightly fisted bud of page one hundred and one.

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