The relentless nature of pain, a newsroom on a quiet Saturday, a gritty old reporter and an earnest daughter practicing ballet were some of the topics of poems read recently by the two new 2007 Witter Bynner poetry fellows at the Library.
The poetry fellows are Laurie Lamon, a college professor from Spokane, Wash., and David Tucker, a newspaper editor from Newark, N.J. U.S. Poet Laureate Donald Hall selected Lamon and Tucker for the Witter Bynner fellowships, citing them as two new important voices in American poetry. The fellows each received a $10,000 award.
At the poetry reading, held at the Library of Congress on March 29, Hall described the poetry of both Witter Bynner fellows as "decidedly in contrast."
"Laurie is an exquisite writer of lyrics, absolutely female and a great poet of inwardness. Her work is delicate and pure," said Hall. "David Tucker, on the other hand, has a reputation as a gruff, grunting, yelling, cursing, bulldog-type editor. His colleagues were astonished that he was a poet. His writing is precise and economical."
Hall said Tucker, who is the deputy managing editor of the Newark Star-Ledger, likes to draw the following comparison: "'Journalism is what the facts tell us; poetry is what the facts don't tell us.'"
Lamon, who teaches creative writing at Whitworth College in Spokane, Wash., read poems from her book "The Fork Without Hunger" (2005) and from a second manuscript that is under way. She read four of the 12 pain poems published in "The Fork." In the book's foreword, Hall said, "throughout these luxuriant lyrics physical pain runs like an underground river. Pain is unpunctuated, a constant presence, a motion under the earth's surface—but that surface is cherished."
"Pain Thinks of Addressing the Body"
As you tear down the frozen
stalks, as you rake over
the garden,
as you drain the fountain,
and at night, listening for
the small
shapes of animals lunging
through snow —
you are not thinking of
paradise.
Like you, I endure
as the season you love endures,
radiant and frozen.
Tucker read poems primarily from his book "Late for Work" (2006), which covers an array of topics: working at a newspaper; growing up in Linden, Tenn.; nature; and human love. The gruff newspaperman was nowhere to be found in the last of the 12 poems that he read, which he dedicated to his daughter, Emily.
"The Dancer"
Class is over, the teacher
and the pianist gone,
but one dancer
in a pale blue
leotard stays
to practice alone without music,
turning grand jetés
through the haze of late afternoon.
Her eyes are focused
on the balancing point
no one else sees
as she spins in this quiet
made of mirrors and light —
a blue rose on a nail —
then stops and lifts
her arms in an oval pause
and leans out
a little more, a little more,
there, in slow motion
upon the air.
The Witter Bynner fellows are appointed each year by the Poet Laureate; applications are not taken. The fellowships are to be used to support the writing of poetry. Only two things are asked of the fellows: that they organize a reading in their hometown and participate in a reading and recording session at the Library of Congress. For more information on the fellowships, visit www.loc.gov/poetry/.
To view a webcast of the March 29 poetry reading, go to www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=4039.
