September 26, 2001
Meredith Herald
Campus News
Pulitzer Prize winning poet to visit
campus, read from collected works
Christina Holder
Editor In Chief
EH If he could
choose a meai and a
dining companion,
he would choose to
eat oatmeal with
Keats.
If French artist Manet and
Pulitzer Prize winning poet
Galway Kinnell had lived in
the same time period, they
would have had at least one
thing in common: an unsullied
drive to perfect the art each
created.
-However, one thing would
stand between them.
For Manet it was the muse
um curator, who Kinnell raen-
dons in the Author’s Note of
his most recent book of poetry
A New Selected Poems, who
wrestled Manet’s paint box
from the artist so he would not
try to retouch his own creations
on display in the museum
gallery.
Kinnell claims his own gate
keeper—his editor—was a bit
more tolerant than Manet’s
curator. The editor allowed the
poet to coddle his typewriter,
mull over rewrites, replace
words and delete lines for A
New Selected Poems, a volume
containing selections from
Kinnell’s eight previous books.
The volume includes selec
tions from What a Kingdom
Was; Flower Herding on
Mount Monadnock', Body
Rags-, The Book of Nightmares',
Mortal Acts, Mortal Wounds;
The Past; When One Has Lived
a Long Time Alone and Imper
fect Thirst.
Whether the poems are
improved or impaired is a judg
ment he leaves to the reader.
Kinnell’s poems plait rich
detail into his simple but grace
ful verse, verse that can easily
satisfy much in the same way
as can the act of patting a child
on the head or whispering a
secret in the night air.
All are pleasing not because
they are plain but because they
are unwaveringly real and
carry with them contentment
that cannot necessarily be pin
pointed.
So flows Kinnell’s style.
He uses simple subjects—
mostly from his life-from his
young son to a bowl of oat
meal, to draw the reader into
lovely rounds of verse that
come-cry anywhere in the
house” and comes running for
his parents’ bedroom.
• The reader laughs.
In the simply-titled “Oat
meal’' from When One Has
Lived a Long Time Alone, Kin
nell creates jovial but imagi-
Pulitizer Prize winning poet Galway Kinnell will read
from his works on Oct.1, 2001 in Kresge Auditorium
at 7:30 p.m..
leave him or her satisfied, full
and quiet at the end.
Often, his simple subjects
give way to witty reflections of
life. For example in his poem
“Kissing the Toad" from Mor
tal Acts, Mortal Wounds, Kin
nell likens the "immense ivory
belly” of a toad to “those old
entrepreneurs sprawling on
Mediterranean beaches.”
The reader laughs.
Or the unpredictable but
amusing actions of children are
venerated in “After Making
Love We Hear Footsteps,” in
which Kinnell’s young son Fer
gus, who can sleep through his
father’s snoring “like a bull
horn” or talking loudly “with
any reasonably sober Irish
man,” awakes at the sound of
“heavy breathing or a stifled
Photo Courtesev of Feux Cano6i.aru
nary conversations with John
Keats while both men eat oat
meal. Keats divulges how “eat
ing oatmeal alone" inspired
him to write parts of “To
Autumn.”
Yet Kinnell warns the reader
in the fourth line that he is
“aware it is not good to eat oat
meal alone” or any other food.
The reader sees he means it
when in the last three lines he
says he will eat a “damp, slip
pery, and simultaneously
gummy and crumbly" leftover
baked potato and will therefore
bid Patrick Kavanagh’s compa
ny for dinner.
The reader cannot help but
to laugh.
Kinnell’s poetry is seldom
dark, but it is not without
aggression or melancholy. A
Campus
Briefs
cluster of his pieces are drib
bled with powerful graphics
that leave the reader with
unsettled thoughts to ponder.
For example in “The Supper
After the Last” from What a
Kingdom It Was, Kinnell cre
ates a “wild man” who vicious
ly “forks the fowl-eye” from a
roasted chicken on the table.
In stanza four of “The Bear”
from Body Rags, Kinnell
writes of extreme survival and
spiritual self-discovery. He
creates a starving and frozen
narrator crawling in the woods,
a man who decides to “hack a
ravine” in a bear’s thigh "open
him and climb in and close him
up...against the wind, and
sleep.”
Kinnell's first edition of
Selected Poems won both the
Pulitzer Prize and the National
Book Award in 1982.
He is a MacArthur fellow, a
recepient of the pretigious
grant awarded to those who
show potential in producing
creative works.
Currently, Kinnell teaches at
New York University where he
is the Erich Maria Remarque
Professor of Creative writing.
Throughout his career, he
has written thirteen books of
poetry.
A New Selected Poems was
selected as a finalist for the
2000 National Book Award.
He will read his works on
Monday, Oct. 1, 2001 at 7:30
p.m. in lO-esge Auditorium.
A reception and book-sign
ing will follow after the read
ing.
The reading is free and open
to the public.
Not all Meredith
studcnU eligible for
dub .sports
at NCSU
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