tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56773962009-06-05T21:01:02.144-07:00Tales from W.T. Pfefferle's year-long journey around the country assembling material for his new book project, Poets on Place (Utah State University Press, Spring 2005) © W.T. Pfefferle 2005W.T.noreply@blogger.comBlogger102125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5677396.post-1083790979952775462004-05-05T14:02:00.000-07:002004-05-05T14:13:45.030-07:00

I made my last stop today, in Bethesda, Maryland, to meet with my MFA advisor, the gifted and gentle Henry Taylor, a man of immense humanity and talent. I went to American University to work in his program in the early 80s as a fiction writer, and was turned on to poetry by his book An Afternoon of Pocket Billiards. His work is deft and exacting, funny, and so finely wrought that it is

W.T.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5677396.post-1081826119424227122004-04-12T20:15:00.000-07:002004-04-12T20:19:50.780-07:00

We left Logan, Utah in brilliant sunshine on a cold spring morning, and headed east through valleys and passes toward the Colorado border. Before we reached the stateline we hit a tiny town called Garden City, right on Big Bear Lake, a splendid body of water that emerged before us hundreds of feet below as we descended to it. With food once again driving my desires, we found the only

W.T.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5677396.post-1081739979768375382004-04-11T20:19:00.000-07:002004-04-11T20:22:28.390-07:00

Traveling north out of Salt Lake City, we are stunned by the remarkable landscape changes just an hour or so up I-15. We turn east and plunge into a part of the Wasatch range, and when we emerge on the highway to Logan, we are surrounded by deep green valleys, pastures, horses, cows, pretty farm houses. It's like the lushest part of Iowa, but at 5000 feet, and surrounded by snow capped

W.T.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5677396.post-1081626597203946462004-04-10T12:49:00.000-07:002004-04-10T16:00:52.670-07:00

I don't know what was more frightening, the rapid fire barking of Hana, one of Paisley Rekdal's beautiful (large) dogs, or the size and chocolate content of the enormous pastry I was served. Both items took much of my concentration during my visit to Rekdal's spectacular and sunny home on a hillside overlooking Salt Lake City. But I'm exaggerating. I'm given to hyperbole. Hana settled down, and

W.T.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5677396.post-1081536599517530472004-04-09T11:49:00.000-07:002004-04-09T11:57:16.216-07:00

The trip - which at times has threatened to swallow us whole - is winding down faster than we thought. We are on this last leg through Texas, Utah, and Colorado, and with a couple of days off we found ourselves in southern Utah near two gigantic national parks, Canyonland and Arches. Like normal tourists, we loaded up the sandwiches and cameras and went for another of a seemingly endless

W.T.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5677396.post-1081218357817308012004-04-05T19:25:00.000-07:002004-04-10T04:39:56.670-07:00

William Wenthe, when referring to his move from bucolic Virginia to hardscrabble Lubbock, Texas, calls it geographic shock. The New Jersey native had made a real home in the area in and around Charlottesville during his pursuit of MA and PhD degrees, so had some adjustments to make when arriving in this splendid but isolated panhandle city. As an adopted Texan with nearly 15 years in the

W.T.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5677396.post-1080782817077848182004-04-01T03:42:00.000-08:002004-04-01T06:00:30.076-08:00

We follow I-55 looking for a state highway, then take it into a regional park where we pick up the first of two dirt roads on our way to Yopo, a tiny town about twenty miles from Kankakee, Illinois. When we pull up, the poet Lars Fad is waiting on a large painted glider. He gives a big wave and heads over to us. He is wearing a striped shirt, long khaki shorts, and flip flops. It is 33 degrees

W.T.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5677396.post-1080701057963579332004-03-30T18:44:00.000-08:002004-03-31T11:18:21.140-08:00

Karen, a young and brilliant nomadic poet, buzzes me into her apartment in Ukranian Village, a close-knit urban neighborhood just a little north and west of downtown. She tells me she's been here for about six months after more than a year in Hyde Park, a much different part of the city. She tells me Hyde Park is an enclave unto itself, while her new neighborhood is tied to the city in a real

W.T.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5677396.post-1080697408962245202004-03-29T07:43:00.000-08:002004-03-30T18:48:32.716-08:00

At the Rainbow Restaurant and Pancake House in Elmhurst, Illinois, they really bring the food to the guy at the next table. He starts with a three egg omelette full of sausage and covered with cheese. He's got hash browns, four pieces of toast, a double side of bacon. His wife and kid sit across from him eating their own food. The kid, about 8 or 9, eats a short stack of pancakes, leaving half

W.T.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5677396.post-1080505324577061202004-03-28T12:22:00.000-08:002004-03-28T12:40:52.500-08:00

There is one real reason people live in Chicago instead of New York: Lake Michigan. On a pretty Sunday morning, I'm sitting with Mark Strand about ten floors up looking out over Lake Shore Drive, while the 70 degree weather pours in through a bank of open windows. The blinds flutter sometimes, and the sound of weekend construction floats up to us as we talk. From my chair I can see the water

W.T.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5677396.post-1080152586900977472004-03-24T10:23:00.000-08:002004-03-24T10:25:36.936-08:00

Alongside highway 71 in Missouri, we pulled off in Butler for a bite to eat. I've been doing this low carb thing for about 9 hours so I was ready to treat myself. We found the Dinner Bell Family Restaurant with an empty parking lot and the cook out back changing his oil. We went in, looked over the menu, and I opted for the Hot Beef sandwich. $3.95. It arrived within 3 minutes, a gigantic gob

W.T.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5677396.post-1080052802792183342004-03-23T06:40:00.000-08:002004-03-23T06:42:58.763-08:00

We're on the road briefly after about ten days in Arkansas. Off to a job interview somewhere in Iowa, then on to Chicago to see the terrific Karen Volkman - and possibly another poet, a revered and magnificent writer who doesn't do many interviews. We are keeping our fingers crossed and hope to blurb-icize this news soon. If it all falls apart, you'll never know who it was and I'll retain a bit

W.T.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5677396.post-1079009841491196592004-03-11T04:57:00.000-08:002004-03-11T04:59:37.873-08:00

The good folks at Utah State University Press have made an offer to publish The Poetry of Place in June 2005. We are overjoyed to have a home for this extraordinary project. We will hunker down in NW Arkansas for the next few months as I finish the book.

W.T.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5677396.post-1079008723165983192004-03-11T04:38:00.000-08:002004-03-11T05:53:18.170-08:00

155 days or so later, we drove back into the restful and pleasant burg of Bella Vista, AR, the home to our furniture, my wife's parents, and a small house we bought last summer. 5 months to the day that we left to head north toward Kansas and the first October interviews, we eased the dependable, honorable, and lovable Winnie Cooper into the driveway and put it in park one last time. Oh, she

W.T.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5677396.post-1078796116858423542004-03-08T17:35:00.000-08:002004-03-08T17:37:31.060-08:00

Frederick Smock's writing room is spartan and perfect. A tiny wooden desk sits in one corner next to a large wood-framed window (a dozen panes easy). Out the window is the small street in front of Smock's apartment (in a 2 story home from 20s or so). Past Smock's street, but straight out the 2nd floor window, is Cave Hill cemetery, a sweeping and gigantic mid 19th century graveyard where

W.T.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5677396.post-1078615512153373482004-03-06T15:25:00.000-08:002004-03-06T15:31:23.060-08:00

Winnie Cooper strains in most neighborhoods as I bend her to my evil will, bouncing over curbs, taking down power lines and tree limbs, scaring outdoor pets, and pinning car pool moms and soccer dads to 1/8th of the normal avenue, boulevard, or lane. But south of Nashville, off one of the main north/south highways, I steer recklessly through the spacious neighborhood where I'll find Mark

W.T.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5677396.post-1078535158551429082004-03-05T17:34:00.000-08:002004-03-06T04:59:34.530-08:00

No city offers a more stunning transition from its ring of highways and interstates to its inner hub of suburban plots. Coming into Atlanta - really, anything within 70 miles - is like driving on the Ugly Highway to Ugly Town. The gray slabs extend to 4 and 5 lanes in every direction. Cloverleaf after cloverleaf - almost all of them under construction - web together endlessly. The pines that

W.T.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5677396.post-1078017216395314502004-02-28T17:13:00.000-08:002004-02-28T17:15:41.903-08:00

We're hours away from the end of February, and we are watching Queer Eye and eating Snickers ice cream bars, breathing a sigh of relief that the cruelest month (so far) is over. 4 weeks ago we crossed the Florida/Georgia border and were faced with a quandary. With temperatures north of us below freezing, with crowded cities awaiting, with virtually no campgrounds open between the Carolinas and

W.T.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5677396.post-1077905589158807342004-02-27T10:13:00.000-08:002004-04-10T04:43:04.826-07:00

Terrance Hayes and I were set to meet in Pittsburgh, PA, earlier this week (where he teaches and lives with his wife - the poet Yona Harvey - and their two children). But he got a chance to read at a book fair in his hometown of Columbia, SC, today, so we opted for that location instead. (The forecast was for snow throughout the mountains of Pennsylvania, and South Carolina would make a nice

W.T.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5677396.post-1077579061761431312004-02-23T15:31:00.000-08:002004-02-23T15:35:28.543-08:00

A poet's office is every bit as personal and idiosyncratic as a poet's home. So I'm embarrassed to admit that this morning, after setting up in one of Michael Harper's offices on the campus of Brown University, I couldn't stop myself from exclaiming - "Your office is exquisitely messy!" If I could have added context to all of this, Harper would have known something of the terrible mess of my

W.T.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5677396.post-1077480842847175482004-02-22T12:14:00.000-08:002004-02-22T14:12:13.293-08:00

God knows that the only way to do this project is with technology. So, far too late, let me offer thanks to: The Safety Camera: It runs silently in the background, capturing still images every 5-10 seconds. It provides nearly all of the author photos that appear on this site, and provides me a backup in case the 35mm shots I do at the end of interviews turn out poorly. It's an old Epson Photo PC

W.T.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5677396.post-1077475216753825352004-02-22T10:40:00.000-08:002004-02-22T10:42:15.590-08:00

C.D. Wright's work is a miracle to me. For as long as I've been reading her, I've wanted to get inside her work and pull it apart, finding the secret invisible threads that hold it all together. Unlike my own work, which remains fraught with the narrative tools left over from my start as a fiction writer, Wright's work succeeds so beautifully because of what she leaves out. The work is still

W.T.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5677396.post-1077403609284175322004-02-21T14:46:00.000-08:002004-02-21T14:52:28.233-08:00

Provincetown is at the end of the world, the tip of Cape Cod, a tiny windswept collection of B&Bs and fudge shops. We get there a day early so see the entire town, pretty clapboard houses on the water, bigger places out toward the point. We see four lighthouses, stand on frigid beaches (with tufts of snow mixed in with the wet winter sand), talk to couples with dogs wet from the surf. We even

W.T.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5677396.post-1077076370329233752004-02-17T19:52:00.000-08:002004-02-18T06:16:39.700-08:00

It's 28 degrees in lower Manhattan and we're eating gigantic chicken wraps inside our rented Ford Escape (where it's a balmy 38 degrees). We got the wraps at a funky convenience store where I mostly am amazed to see cigarettes selling for $7. Where are we, on the moon? I can see my breath as I open my mouth to finish off the wrap. We're here an hour and a half early because I'm a gigantic

W.T.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5677396.post-1076890170373206962004-02-15T16:09:00.000-08:002004-02-16T06:09:45.670-08:00

Nicole Cooley's oldest daughter has something to tell me when I first arrive: "MY NAME IS MINNIE MOUSE!" She later amends her name to "Snoop," but she says the former with real conviction and it's still in my head several hours later. I meet the whole family right away, Nicole's husband Alex, the new baby Arcadia, and of course Minnie Mouse (who sometimes is called Meridian by her folks.)

W.T.noreply@blogger.com