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Morton Marcus: This is KUSP community sponsored radio for Monterey Salinas, Santa Cruz, the entire Bay Area, down to Big Sur and over to the Santa Clara area and 88.9 fm and a whole lot of other fm. Stay tuned for the Poetry Show, tonight's guest,

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the wonderful young poet Kevin Hearle. Good evening this is Morton Marcus and the wonderful Irish music in the background welcomes tonight's guest Kevin Hearle, who is wondering what's happening to his CD, which has gotten beaten up here. But

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before we meet Kevin, KUSP thanks Plaza Books for providing a grant in support of this program. Plaza Books is located at 1111 Pacific Avenue in Santa Cruz. Give them your business, they are wonderful for supporting us and the art of

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poetry. Tonight's guest is Kevin Hearle and Kevin, welcome to The Poetry Show. Kevin Hearle: Thanks, Morton. Morton Marcus: This has been a long time coming, I think he was

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supposed to be on here for around a year or so. And- Kevin Hearle: We've been talking about it. Morton Marcus: Right. But finally something is going to happen. The last time we actually heard from you is with

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the translation- Kevin Hearle: Translation Institute. The past two summers. Morton Marcus: Right, and you were the person who made sure that everything worked right for them.

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Kevin Hearle: Well, so did you. Morton Marcus: Well, with your help. I happen to know Kevin, though, as a really fine young poet who has gotten a manuscript together called ‘’Sour Grass‘’, and I have been wanting to have

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him on the show to read us some of his poetry. But before we get into that, Kevin, where are you from? Kevin Hearle: I'm originally from Santa Ana, which is in Southern California, near Anaheim.

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Morton Marcus: And you grew up down there Kevin Hearle: And I grew up down there and I'm a I'm a fifth generation Californian. My, my great great grandfather was the first doctor in Santa Ana and my family had been in the town for

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over 100 years when I was born, which in Southern California specially is a very odd sort of radition to have. Morton Marcus: Well, that's amazing and you did your undergraduate work, come down there or-

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Kevin Hearle: I did my undergraduate work at Stanford Morton Marcus: At Stanford. And then do you have does your family have a tradition of going to Stanford? Kevin Hearle: No, no, I'm the first one.

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Morton Marcus: All right. And now you're doing your PhD at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Kevin Hearle: Right. Morton Marcus: Kevin, a question that I ask a lot of people when

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they come. When did you start writing poetry? Why did you start writing poetry? Kevin Hearle: First time I started writing it was probably sixth grade because it was an assignment but I sort of got a

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kick out of it. It was something that- that I realized early on that I did well. I didn't do a lot of it until probably in high school, and most of that I have since thrown away because I can't bear to look at it anymore, but it was a good

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start. Morton Marcus: So you knew that you- early on that you wanted to be a poet. Kevin Hearle: I knew early on I wanted to be a writer. I wasn't

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sure it was- I wanted to be a poet until later on. Morton Marcus: A strange question. I introduced a young eighth grader who answered a question why he wanted to be a writer and had some things that I when I was in the eighth grade

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would have never answered. They were amazing answers. What is the purpose that you want to write and did you know this, even though maybe you couldn't verbalize it, way back when in those sixth grade days. Pre-pubescent-

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Kevin Hearle: No, it took me a while to find my subject [inaudible]- I mean, my subject to some extent became California and- and the whole notion of tradition and memory. But I really didn't focus in on that until, strangely enough, I went

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to Iowa for the MFA. And I realized suddenly how much of a Californian I truly was. Morton Marcus: Certainly not an Iowan Kevin Hearle: Certainly not an Iowan, no.

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Morton Marcus: So you in other words, we missed some of your education. You did do an MFA. Kevin Hearle: I have an MFA from Iowa Morton Marcus: And who were some of the poets you learned under

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there? Kevin Hearle: Marvin Bell, Donald Justice, Larry Levis? Morton Marcus: Great. Well, three very diversified terrific people.

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Kevin Hearle: Yeah. And Stanley Plumly was my thesis advisor. Morton Marcus: So I want to ask some questions about Plumly. Amazingly energetic and proficient our- Morton Marcus: Prolific, that‘s the word I wanted. Amazingly

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Kevin Hearle: Prolific? prolific guy. Poems that seem to have a set quality you know, and he doesn't lose a lot of the times which is incredible. Kevin Hearle: Yeah, he's I'm very fond of, well actually, I'm

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very fond of all four of those. Morton Marcus: Wow, let's good group. Now everyone out there says, well, what's his poetry like? And so let us hear an introductory poem. Again, our guest tonight is Kevin Hearle.

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Kevin Hearle: The first poem I want to read is entitled ‘’Each Thing We Know is Changed Because We Know It‘’. I should have to mention that this is- within the Yale Review because they still have the copyright. It would help you to know that eucalyptus

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trees are used as windbreaks for around orange groves and other types of groves, especially in Southern California. And that a smudge pot is a large sort of Franklin stove-ish looking affair, usually burns kerosene and is used to keep the fruit

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from getting too cold, or I should say used to be used because now because of air pollution problems, they no longer allow them. Okay. EACH THING WE KNOW IS CHANGED BECAUSE WE KNOW IT

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A Eucalyptus has its implications where I come from, it means the autumn winds return each year like brushfires from the desert, return is dry reminders of the oaks, who's place this was, Valley oak, blue oak, and the oracle which thrive

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on little water. And Eucalyptus means the orange groves once flourished here, that rivers were diverted, that winter was denied, and smoke hung low over the valley the night of the first frost, smudge pots warming and darkening the sky. And

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Eucalyptus means that people lived here, the flesh tones of the model trunk, the bark in strips that dry and curl and fall to the ground mean that my mother's family would walk through walnut orchards and orange groves to church.

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Saturday nights, three women, three generations bound for the revival meeting, each collecting more friends as she went further south through town and eucalyptus leaves, silver scythe like, shaken down by the wind the tree still tall, scented the

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questions that my mother asked when her senile grandmother would get out of the house walk, south through the orchards south, right through downtown straight to the water tower. Dark letters spilled across it six foot tall, Santa Ana, Santa

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Ana, high and circular the water name the town. Great grandmother would stand beneath it, no words she could recall to call herself, just waiting for what she didn't know and trying on names.

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Morton Marcus: Beautiful poem I love the tone, it's very, very quiet, elegiac. Kevin Hearle: Thank you Morton Marcus: And I- you started this because this is a

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poem about women and about becoming- actually it's women were dying, but women were also giving birth to a new land. Kevin Hearle: And also because I think it sets a place fairly well and I'm very much interested in- in place and what

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it means- I mean, the interactions of culture in place and how important those really are. Especially if we're going to- to give some sense of the land to generations that follow. Morton Marcus: But as you even say, which is very interesting

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and a real crisis in our psyche as well as our physical landscape in California, so much of the land that you know, and I'll say Joe Stroud who sits at this desk every other week knows, it's no longer there.

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Kevin Hearle: Oh, exactly. I mean- so I mean, there's you're definitely right when you say there's certain elegiac tone to it and giving birth that there will be some- a new place coming up. I often joke that I'm from the county seat of Disneyland

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because- Morton Marcus: Amazing, I mean that you see that, I mean, knowing that Disneyland is around there, and it is you know? He sort of has a resonance behind this, which is just

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terrifying. Go on, please read another one and continue to build this mood. Kevin Hearle: All right. I'd like to read a poem for my grandmother called:

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HUNCHBACK SUNDAY'S Black shoes in the house of the Lord, black shoes. Though Christ was barefoot throughout Sunday school, I wore God's heavy shoes, small, black and corrective, and rode beside my

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grandmother to church. Watching her upstretched arms reach for the wheel, which she steered, which circumscribed her face, an aureole made in Detroit for her. And therefore, unlike those of o her saints, whose feet had n ver pawed the air to reach

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the pedals of their cars, her own black halo, more solid than the Christ's, whose back wa so straight, so perfect th t I never understood exactly how she came to love him Morton Marcus: Keep going. Okay, let's build.

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Kevin Hearle: Okay. All right. By the way, in the last poem, ‘’aureole‘’ there was not the bird, it's the halo. I'm sure most of you know that. But I think, read a poem called ‘’West Seventh Street.‘’ And this is just simply because it's the

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first street that I remember living on. WEST SEVENTH STREET. In childhood cruelty was a separate language, as was the Spanish that GP and Yolanda spoke to their Mexican

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grandmother, who muttered those grave, inconsolable syllables to her shoes. And when she looked up, you understood and ran away, and cruelty was like the solar eclipse the summer that old packard parked down the block long before your time, and

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unexplicable, exploded into flames under the date palms. Your parents told you not to look but it was there, the cold hollow sun and the dark. Or maybe it was like the birthday parties they had across the street, with the burro pinata

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slung with ropes from the second story and the children taking their turns with the incised bat and the blindfold, each one wanting it to swing low, full of their need to break it open. Yes, it must have been like that. All that sweetness hanging

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in the air, and kids just swinging wildly. Morton Marcus: The reader out there cannot see that this poem is composed of very long lines. Kevin Hearle: Yes.

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Morton Marcus: And sometimes I was counting almost seven beats to line. And the last line, "and kids just swinging wildly." That is the whole last line. So it just sort of almost works as a counterpoint to the long sweeping lines now.

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Kevin Hearle: Yeah, that's- Morton Marcus: Very lovely. Kevin Hearle: Thank you. Morton Marcus: This is summoning up a Steinbeckian and

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[inaudible]. Kevin Hearle: They're- So I'm doing my dissertation on Steinbeck. So- Kevin Hearle: Yeah, so a lot of these poems are- are about my

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Morton Marcus: Really? grandmother or dedicated to my grandmother because she lived with my family when I grew up. And as I said before, and as the poem "Hunchback Sunday" as indicated she was a hunchba

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k, but she was also the fam ly genealogist and so I learne a lot of the other family hist ry and the tales from her. So e en though most of these places w re gone when I was- durin my lifetime, I knew about them and they were part of my childh

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Morton Marcus: What happened to your grandfather, he was dead by this time I take it? Kevin Hearle: Yes, my my mother's - this is my mother's mother. My mother's father died before my mother was born. He

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died of tuberculosis. That's another poem that- Morton Marcus: Okay. Onward. Kevin Hearle: Want to read a poem called ‘’The Lesson‘’ which is sort of about my grandmother and I, and my learning some of

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these lessons. THE LESSON, for my grandmother. When my shoulders shook, you told me how when you were three, meningitis had curled your spine, you held my strange

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unruly hand, the doctors hadn't thought you would live, it became an incantation. The doctors don't know everything, you will be normal, someday, normal. We sat on the lower bunk, repeating the cross, the poles, the tugs, and all the

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loops I'd memorized as dread, and as failure. Repeated for three years, for an hour each day, one knee tucked up under my chin, it became an act of creation. This fumbling at myself and the dust motes, strangling and shaping the light

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as it sank. A material thing to the wood slat floor. You told me you died once, that looking up, you'd seen a light you had known must have been God, blinding and bright, lifting you out of yourself. Looking down, then you'd seen your question mark

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body on the table. The doctors had been so frantic, so normal, they're calling you back to the particular boundaries of the flesh, that you had smiled and let them pull you back. I tie my shoes by instinct now, my mind giving itself up to the common

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world of things. But if I think about the movement, then I remember you. I slow down. And once again, these are my hands. Morton Marcus: Now the poem that Kevin has just read, unlike the other one which had long lines, actually has short lines in

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there. Three line stanzas. And what I, what you heard out there is exactly the way this poem looks, because he is observing the lines very strictly to get emphasis on the first words of the next line. So I'm going to ask you to do Kevin, and I don't

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know how we're going to mark this. I guess I- listener, I'm going to go [snaps his fingers] like that every time he's about to go on to the next line. Kevin Hearle: So you want me to read that again?

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Morton Marcus: Just, let's say maybe the first four stanzas. Kevin Hearle: Okay. Morton Marcus: Up to, up to "failure" and I will just go like that after every line so that people can realize the

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importance in line endings, and how it gives them a total nuance to the poem and the way the poem should be read. All right, here we go. Kevin Hearle: When my shoulders shook [finger snapping] you told

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me how when you were three [finger snapping] meningitis had curled [finger snapping] your spine, you held [finger snapping] my strange unruly hand [finger snapping] the doctors hadn't thought you would live [finger snapping] it became an

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incantation [finger snapping] the doctors don't know [finger snapping] everything you will be normal[finger snapping] someday normal, we sat [finger snapping] on the lower bunk [finger snapping] repeating the cross, the poles [finger snapping] the

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tugs, and all the loops I'd memorized as dread [finger snapping] and as failure. Morton Marcus: Give everyone a sense out there as you're doing this- this is the technical stuff they just can't see.

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Kevin Hearle: I know there's, there's some poems that I probably won't read tonight because they're- Oh- you really need the the typography in some of them. Yeah. Morton Marcus: Okay.

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Kevin Hearle: Ah, let's see. Well, as long as you introduced- Well, actually, let me do one. There's one poem here called ‘’One Day‘’ and since this is baseball season, I think I'll read my, my one baseball type poem.

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Morton Marcus: Okay, it‘s an important day after in fact, since Nolan Ryan just pitched- Kevin Hearle: That's right. Morton Marcus: The first time in the history of baseball-

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Kevin Hearle: Six, six no hitters. Well, he- [Recording stalls at this point] Morton Marcus: 43 years of age. Makes people like me sitting here in this brace, my body falling to pieces feel much

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better. Kevin Hearle: Well, actually since, well, he mentions- the poem mentions the person who is second in line for most no hitters, so it is very appropriate.

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ONE DAY Sometimes it seems everything happened in childhood during the summer that it rained, and the greenhouse sat skewed across the thin front lawn. The summer sky and each plastic window a

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momentary sheet of hothouse glare, both blinding and transparent, through which the world was changed. I learned to read that year, perhaps Kennedy was shot and I. dreaming of Sandy Koufax, collected papers for the school paper drive. It

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couldn't have happened the way I remember, except that the sky was close to the trees that day, and I had filled the greenhouse with papers past my head. A five year old growing a stack of time and a list of neighborhood widows, aprons, and quiet

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garages, boxes and bundles mildewed and sad. Only Koufax on the radio or streaky on the black and white TV could rise above the hot pitched roof of heaven and read perfection in the news. I fumbled through the bundles, searching for his name,

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wanting to be him. When Churchill died, a man knocked on the door and offered us a truckload more of papers for the lawn. Dad said I had enough, but thank you. Still, we lost and it rained that day from 1:05 to 1:15, the slow heavy drops

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spotting the driveway and sidewalk before the air lightened and that one day in the dry season was more than I could understand. Morton Marcus: That reference to Eliot I think it is very

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intentional. Oh, okay. Here I am, an old man in a dry season. Oh, boy. No. Kevin Hearle: One actually- Morton Marcus: See it's into the psyche.

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Kevin Hearle: Obviously. Morton Marcus: [Unintelligible] that same kind of wasteland because you don't understand time going by, you know definitely that- that Eliott's talking about [unidentified].

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Kevin Hearle: Actually, no, I- that was not a conscious echo that- Morton Marcus: I'll make one of my statements which we'll get calls all over the place. I think we remember more of

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Eliott's lines unconsciously maybe more than anyone else's. Kevin Hearle: Could be because there's so- there's such a musicality to them and there's- there's a feel to them as if- as if you should as if-you should know them

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Morton Marcus: Because they're so 20th century. And so- and they almost seem at time so offhandedly because they're- they really are talk, they're really speech. Kevin Hearle: But the best of speech. I wouldn't compare Eliot

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to anything that- that most of us would-would would say in daily conversation. Morton Marcus: Point well taken. Kevin Hearle: Well as long as you- as long as you introduced

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me by saying that I have a collection of poems and I'm- I might as well read the the title poem which is called ‘’Sour Grass.‘’ There's a legend in my family that sour sour grass which grows like weeds everywhere was not native to

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Southern California, but was brought to- was brought to Orange County by an- by a great aunt of my mother's, whom I never met, she was dead long, but so sour grass, which is just that oxalis, the long stemmed green with the little yellow

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flowers at the end, has a certain meaning for me and the poem attests- says a fair amount of it. SOUR GRASS Your mother hates the stuff. She blames some great great aunt and

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can't forget the day John Sherwin pulled the dead cow out of his family's barn. It had turned to blue a bit and green some places. Your mother and her friends thought that was more than spectacle enough for them and walked down Flower Street

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toward the old peppertree they played in after school. They saw her then, Amanda Greenleaf, your great grandmother, gray haired and loony going door to door selling sour grass. Your mother and grandmother spent most of Sunday's that year visiting at

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the state hospital. They found her once up on the shelf, crouched in her small dark closet, her eyes all crazed with light glaring at them like a hoot owl's. That day of the dead cow, well after she'd deposited Amanda safely at home, your

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mother's friends told her insanity's hereditary. And she never showed you the small yellow flowers planted by that bad painter, great, great aunt, along the banks of irrigation ditches. Perhaps she was thinking of her own mother, a

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hunchback genealogist who planted whole yards without permission, plum pits, roses, geraniums, and carrots, good intentions, spreading like weeds to water in a dry land. The family eyes still shifting hazel, stare at your mother now

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through you, who loved the past almost as much as your grandmother did, who read your future in the gypsies cards for emphasis on wishes. She showed you how to save her green and sour, to chew the stock that long impressionist green shaft

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of growth until you two felt redolent with light, luminous, tasting the odd liberty of weeds. Morton Marcus: Beautiful stuff. Kevin Hearle: Thanks.

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Morton Marcus: I of course have a soft spot in my heart for recreating families from the past. Kevin Hearle: Yes. Morton Marcus: And this is some totally different atmosphere. I

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mean, again, it's this richness that America has with- with with its memories, you know. Kevin Hearle: It- there's a tremendous cultural variety- I mean cultural variety and different people have, you‘re

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right these incredibly different traditions. I mean, even myself, I know- most of these poems are about, actually just about all of these poems are about my mother's side of the family. My father's side of the family, I have some, I have other

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traditions, but my father's family was not one to talk about them very much. So I mean, I know the sketches, but they're, they're different. Morton Marcus: And, you know, I mean, yours and mine are stories

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that are well known as being American stories, now, Korean- Kevin Hearle: Oh, yes. Morton Marcus: Vietnamese. I mean, so many different kinds of people coming in.

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Kevin Hearle: Well, the Japanese- the Japanese, the Chinese, the Filipinos, and the Chicanos- and Chicanos have been have been in- just in California for, I mean, for centuries. And so it really is an intro. I mean-

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Morton Marcus: You saw "Blade Runner," I take it. Yes [laughs] A picture of LA around [inaudible]. I think that so many people from LA just love that film and it's like, their

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favorite cult film, because they really see the future in that film. And on it, it's coming to pass, I mean, if you've been down to LA lately it‘s almost frightening. Kevin Hearle: Well, I try not to go down to LA too often. But

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actually, I do love that movie. Morton Marcus: So Stephen Kessler, he's another Los Angelean. Los Angelean? Kevin Hearle: Los Angelino

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Morton Marcus: Los Angelino. Well, we are just almost about to take our break and I don't know that you planned on reading it later or planning on reading it at all. But this would be a wonderful time to read the poem to John Logan.

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Kevin Hearle: Sure. Morton Marcus: A connection that Kevin, Joe, and I have beyond the confines of this little room and beyond the confines of Santa Cruz, a name that certainly this show will repeat time and time

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again, to keep him alive. Joe did a show on him I guess around a month, month and a half ago, and that is the great American poet John Logan, who's collected poems are out now, beautiful work. Who died three years ago already. And, in fact more than

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three years. Kevin Hearle: No, it‘s two and a half. Morton Marcus: Is just two and a half, really? Kevin Hearle: Yeah

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Morton Marcus: We've only had two of them. No, we've had three of those memorials. The first one was the year before that, okay. Yes, yeah, it's gonna be- But really one of the great American poets, a person who influenced and taught so many

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people. Where did you know him from Kevin? Kevin Hearle: He came to read at Iowa when I was, when I was there and then when I moved back to, to this area, I decided that I would go to the Foothill Writers Conference just to meet

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some- some people and John was there. And he and I got to know each other pretty well and at that point, and I would, after that, I had him over for dinner. And I would, once or twice I took him to some readings. And I visited him in the hospital

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after his strokes. Morton Marcus: So did Joe and I, but you see, he had run away both times. Kevin Hearle: Oh, he was very hard to find. He was very hard

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to find. Morton Marcus: You know, he discovered me. Kevin Hearle: I didn't know. Morton Marcus: Yes, he was doing "Choice" and I sent some poems

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to "Choice" and he just- he just discovered me. He took a poem, he just thought it was absolutely wild. And what I was doing with sound and when I was also doing thematically and he never ever forgot me. Whenever he was doing an anthology,

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whenever he was editing a magazine somewhere, I- one of the really amazing human beings, who the love for him is just so great. Just so much- Anyway, everyone has been trying to write John Logan poems and this is because someone was editing

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an anthology, still is editing an anthology of remembrances of John, and did you see that magazine that came out from the East, you know that- Kevin Hearle: No I didn't know, no.

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Morton Marcus: It is memories, essays and poems on John, some incredible stuff. Oh. By Phil [unidentified] and Haas and other people.

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Kevin Hearle: Oh, no, I didn't. Morton Marcus: And it's it's wonderful. But anyway, everyone is trying to in some way get their memories of John and- this is Kevin's poem, you can tell us a little more about it.

00:27:57.680 - 00:28:18.500

Kevin Hearle: Sure. I had just started the Ph. D. program here at Santa Cruz. Just before John died, I mean in the same fall, and I was very busy. I had- I had moved. I was very busy getting adjusted to the program, and I had tried to reach him on

00:28:18.500 - 00:28:37.370

the phone, but he was very difficult to reach in any case, and I hadn't realized that he had died until I picked up a copy of the "Poetry Flash." And I just sat down on the floor and started crying. And when I finished, I started writing and

00:28:37.370 - 00:28:48.530

this is the poem that- that came out it was just- I just felt a great loss. Morton Marcus: As we all did. Kevin Hearle: The poem is called:

00:28:48.530 - 00:29:13.690

IN MEMORIAN John Logan 1923-1987 A fall, his tongue raging at itself, creating such loneliness, his mother dead in childbirth. The words and memory stolen from him by stroke, his breath, too soft now, then too

00:29:13.690 - 00:29:35.840

hard, his lips stunned by meanings they could not convey. His palsied hand and arm no longer a support. He saw the earth approaching and kissed it uncontrollably. I perhaps I should have said that John had had a series of

00:29:35.840 - 00:29:49.160

strokes before. Before the fall which killed him. Morton Marcus: But I think it's clear Kevin Hearle: Yeah. Morton Marcus: Yes and on that note, and if you want to know

00:29:49.160 - 00:29:59.300

who we've been talking to, we are talking to Kevin Hearle who will be back reading some more of this wonderful long book a family memory, state memory, national consciousness, if you will, across-

00:29:59.030 - 00:30:17.000

[Music: Irish Traditional, "Pat Reilly"] Unknown: I'd have you take the bounty and come along with me To the sweet County Longford, strange faces there you'll see" "Oh no kind sir, a soldier's life with me would not agree

00:30:17.210 - 00:30:36.560

Nor neither would I bind myself down from my liberty For I lived as happy as a prince, my mind does tell me so So fare thee well, I'm just goin' down, my shuttles for to throw "Oh are you in a hurry, are you goin' away? Or won't you stop

00:30:36.560 - 00:31:02.810

and listen to these words I'm goin' to say Perhaps now Pat Reilly, you might do something worse Than to leave your native country and enlist in the Black Horse" Oh it's I took the bounty, the reckoning was paid The ribbons were brought out, me

00:31:02.810 - 00:31:32.570

boys, and into my cockade It's early the next morning we all were made to stand Before our grand general with hats all in our hands He says to Pat Reilly "You are a little too low With some other regiment I fear you have to go" "I may go where

00:31:32.570 - 00:31:54.200

I will, I have no-one to mourn Morton Marcus: Hello again, this is Mark Marcus and I have one announcement today and I hope everyone out there who imagines themselves a writer, who knows that they are a writer, or he or

00:31:54.200 - 00:32:07.340

she is a writer. Well listen closely because I'm about to tell you about the most exciting literary event I think in Northern California and maybe in these here United States. As many of you know, out there from one side of the country to the

00:32:07.340 - 00:32:23.180

other, the summer is the time for writers conferences, when writers famous and non famous will appear, usually for exorbitant fees, four to $600 at one college or another throughout the country. Well, what people don't know because

00:32:23.180 - 00:32:39.410

it just never for some reason gets the publicity it deserves is that maybe the most exciting writers conference of them all is right here at Foothill College. And it is appropriately called the Foothill Writers Conference and it is at 12345,

00:32:39.440 - 00:33:01.640

believe it or not, El Monte Road in Los Altos Hills, and I would urge you, and I'm looking for the telephone number right now, to give these people a call or just get the number from your- yep, I don't have a number here, it does not have a number, it

00:33:01.640 - 00:33:17.690

would be in the 415 area code though, and- Anyway, it is on El Monte Road just ask for Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, California, and tell them that you want to know particulars about the Foothill Writers Conference. This is the 15th

00:33:17.690 - 00:33:40.820

annual conference, and it will go from June 21, a Thursday through June 26. And there are 29, count them, 29 writers of national and international note, both prose writers and poets, males and females. For example, Lorna Dee Cervantes was moved to

00:33:40.820 - 00:33:58.520

Colorado and is teaching at Colorado State, she is going to be here. Alan Cheuse, the author of ‘’The Bohemians‘’, ‘’The Grandmothers Club‘’, ‘’Fall Out of Heaven‘’, and also the reviewer for the New York Times, and you probably heard him on

00:33:58.520 - 00:34:15.680

National Public Radio right here on KUSP. Victor Hernandez Cruz one of the really exciting Latino poets, William Dickey, the great old perennial favorite from San Francisco State, James D. Houston from Santa Cruz, Ed Kleinschmidt, the winner of the

00:34:15.680 - 00:34:32.690

Jupiter prize- Juniper Prize this year and last year's Bay Area Book Reviewers Award, Phil Levine maybe the greatest poet in America living today, Ishmael Reed, Gerald Rosen, and Gary Soto, Al Young, who's been teaching at UC for the last

00:34:32.690 - 00:34:50.240

several years, Lisa Bernstein, who graduated from San Francisco State, is a jazz singer and who originally comes from Santa Cruz, founder of the Five Finger Review, Ed Bullins a person has written five plays, all of which have been produced on Broadway.

00:34:51.110 - 00:35:06.200

It's just goes on and on and on, and yours truly will be there. Also, I'm one of the regulars at the conference. This year in fact, I'll be working with a person who many of you know and that is Sarah Wilburn, the dancer and choreographer. And on

00:35:06.200 - 00:35:23.930

Friday we are going to present with Laura Shift, a movement and literature day, which will have three different sections to it, and Andy Connell another wonderful synthesizes and clarinetist will also be there. That, by the way, in case you're

00:35:23.930 - 00:35:46.550

interested, is on June 22, next- not this Friday, but next Friday. So I would definitely urge everyone- and here is the number. If you've got a pencil handy, here is the number and the number is 415-949-7509. That's 415-949-7509. I'll

00:35:46.550 - 00:36:01.910

announce that again at the end of the program. It is not this weekend, but next weekend, all of this happens from the 21st to the 26th. And I mean, I just go for all the days myself, I only teach let's say three, you don't teach all of them. But I'm just

00:36:01.910 - 00:36:16.520

so fascinated by what's going on. And Kevin, you will be interested to know the panel discussion I am doing with George Keithley, whose name I did not mention here, the writer of ‘’The Donner Party‘’ and other books of national

00:36:16.520 - 00:36:36.320

recognition. George Keithley and I who are old schoolmates from Iowa – you want to get some connections? – We are going to talk about place and character in poetry. And as you both know, we have the narrative poets who have set up the worlds of the

00:36:36.320 - 00:36:52.580

19th century, much like you're doing here, so panel discussions, workshops, individual one-on-one sessions with the writers I mentioned, it is really something you should not miss out there. That is the 15th Foothill writers conference

00:36:52.820 - 00:37:10.970

at Los Altos Hills, just drive over the hill, $25 for five days incredible morning to night coverage, and you go into any one of them, they are all for you. Well, we are talking with Kevin Hearle and we have the Irish music in the background.

00:37:11.000 - 00:37:31.130

Did we ever get the CD to open its mouth? Oh good, okay, but we won't try to play one. And we are talking to Kevin and we are having him read from a book, we- am I getting that heavy? I am having him read from a book called ‘’Sour Grass‘’, which is

00:37:31.940 - 00:37:44.210

up to this point his collection, which will be added to, I'm sure, about the life of his family, who are five generations deep in the history of Santa Ana, California, down in Southern California.

00:37:47.270 - 00:38:00.650

Kevin Hearle: The poem I'm going to read now is entitled ‘’To Go Home‘’. The reason I'm going to read this one now is because I don't want anyone to think that I'm the first writer to ever claim Santa Ana as a territory. There's a- some of you may have

00:38:00.650 - 00:38:18.650

heard of Joseph Heller in- and you may remember that in ‘’Catch 22‘’ that Yossarian trained at the Santa Ana Army Air Corps Base and that's now actually in Costa Mesa, but it's close enough. And there's a lead- my mother once told me that when

00:38:18.650 - 00:38:35.090

she was a child, the- there were always planes circling the property, which is very strange, because there weren't that many planes at that point. And she said, she went to ask a pilot about it later on when she was grown and he said, "Oh- he said,

00:38:35.810 - 00:38:51.380

can you describe the place?" And she said, "Well, we had this, you know, we had this huge peppertree." And he said, "Oh, that, that was the green spot that we always navigated from." So in this poem, I'm imagining that this area and I have this

00:38:51.380 - 00:39:06.120

deep connection. So this is called: TO GO HOME. Yossarian, Yossarian, you and I, we never met Yossarian, I am the son of the granddaughter of the crazy woman whose tree you must

00:39:06.120 - 00:39:25.950

have circled, shadow in training, 1942 in Santa Ana, in California. Before you knew insanity was real and institutional. I don't believe in Christ or God, and so I pray to you, the rocket shape of fiction circling, not the barn

00:39:25.980 - 00:39:45.420

leaning into old age suspended among wisteria, but navigating upon the 36 foot trunk, and the branches bent to earth by their own weight and age. Yossarian, imaginary bombs oracular and silent fall from your eyes, burning the clouds of pharaoh

00:39:45.420 - 00:40:05.550

blue wisteria, dismembering the greenleaf family tree, a massive California pepper and flattening the groves of orange, walnut, and persimmon. Oh, bombardier, such was your practice run. Your wings they cast the hours upon our land. Too many pilots, too

00:40:05.550 - 00:40:22.260

many bombardiers it was all gone before I could be born. No shade from which my grandmother first saw her grandmother. Only legends. Old words without direction running around, lost in the subdivisions. No apple tree the neighbor's horse would

00:40:22.260 - 00:40:41.130

run to when loose. No irrigation ditches fringed with the weeds Aunt Frannie sewed. No nothing, nothing to bear them witness and no place, no, no place left for them to plant their sorrow. Yossarian, you must be crazy to go home.

00:40:44.490 - 00:40:54.000

Morton Marcus: When were you born? Kevin Hearle: 1958. Morton Marcus: Good God. Oh, okay. Kevin Hearle: Now is that a good God? Because I'm so young or-

00:40:54.450 - 00:41:11.540

Morton Marcus: Yes. Also, it's amazing. Yes. Of course. Obviously. You're that young. But the pictures that I was getting here were pictures from the 20s and the 30s. Kevin Hearle: Exactly because, as I said, the stories that I

00:41:11.540 - 00:41:23.150

grew up with are of that period and earlier. And so it's very, I mean- Morton Marcus: Well, you really evoke them. Kevin Hearle: Thank you.

00:41:23.000 - 00:41:33.830

Morton Marcus: That's real success because for some reason, I thought you were, you know, actually being told these things while they’re happening. Obviously not, but you really- it's amazing. You really evoke those times. Yeah, terrific,

00:41:34.280 - 00:41:48.860

really wonderful. Go on. Kevin Hearle: Okay. This next poem is a somewhat longer one called ‘’Two Composers in Search of One Los Angeles‘’ and the poem will tell you who the two composers are. And the, I think

00:41:48.860 - 00:42:05.120

the only thing that would help to know is that the story about my father learning to swear from Carole Lombard, as he sat on Will Rogers knee is actually the combination of two stories. My father's grandmother lived near the- I'm not sure if it was a

00:42:05.120 - 00:42:17.750

Hollywood Writers Guild or if it was called Hollywood Writer‘s Club that's- he would refer to it as the Writer‘s Club and so when he was visiting his grant- when- his family was visiting his grandmother, he would often run- run around the block and go

00:42:17.750 - 00:42:31.460

into the club. And so he- which watched them while they shot pool or whatever and evidently, at one time, Carole Lombard was swearing a lot and they told him not- they told her not to while he was there, and another time Will Rogers picked him up on his

00:42:31.460 - 00:42:43.360

knee and told him a few stories. So that has not a lot to do with anything, but I like this story. Morton Marcus: Now, I should tell you that all of these people like Schoenberg are here, you even say, in exile because

00:42:43.360 - 00:42:53.350

this is World War Two. Kevin Hearle: Yes. Morton Marcus: And how I- you know, I'm a film historian, and Hollywood was at one point called Weimar West because there

00:42:53.350 - 00:43:08.140

was so many German composers, actors, filmmakers. Kevin Hearle: There's a- there's a great book called ‘’Exiles in Paradise‘’ which details all of the different people who were in Los Angeles during this period and it truly is amazing, and

00:43:08.230 - 00:43:23.340

this poem listed a fair number of bizarre sort of juxtapositions of people who pass through. TWO COMPOSERS IN SEARCH OF ONE LOS ANGELES. One: Schoenberg understood the suburbs, half screams and

00:43:23.340 - 00:43:43.410

jabbering glissandos. In a sequence without tradition, out of pieces with no past, each note created equal a terrible new music, neighbors from Dubuque and Buffalo becoming instant Californians. Each of his note‘s an orphan, himself in

00:43:43.410 - 00:44:01.950

exile, a pariah, Schoenberg understood LA as alienation. The town drunk come forward to be saved at the altar of his town and of his Lord, there on his knees, asking forgiveness which outside after they have passed the plate, after the last amen

00:44:01.950 - 00:44:18.990

when he is sober, he knows the town will never give. He will read judgment in their eyes, their stairs when he's not looking, their sideways glances when he is, all call him drunk, call him stranger. Each look nailing him shut, his soul

00:44:18.990 - 00:44:35.700

outside of theirs. Then, walking through the walnut orchards, he will curse the stars because they are predictable and because tomorrow he will be drunk, and hanging from a parking meter on Grand he will call out greetings to nervous relatives who only

00:44:35.700 - 00:44:55.800

half understand this thing they call forgiveness. Los Angeles was in his music, not as a place but as a separation, Tabula Rasa for his soul. Two: Stravinsky understood cities as aggregates, Bertolt

00:44:55.800 - 00:45:14.040

Brecht, Howard Hughes, my father, learning to swear from Carole Lombard as he sat on Will Rogers knee, Aldous Huxley down the block from Thomas Mann. Stravinsky, he knew that archeologists measure cultures from what they throw away. And

00:45:14.040 - 00:45:31.140

so we used it all. Georgie Yates in a trance on a train from San Berdoo to the City of Angels. The Spirit speaking through her as the train, passing through orange groves and chaparral, bore William Butler Yeats toward the question, what are you here

00:45:31.140 - 00:45:51.150

for? They didn't ask the question back, they answered, we have come to give you metaphors for poetry. Stravinsky used that one belief to change Los Angeles to music. He even used my grandmother's four rented rooms. Each pair of scissors she

00:45:51.150 - 00:46:08.190

thought had been stolen became through metaphor dynamic markings, crescendo and decrescendo. Her marbles, aggies, cleary, pee wees, and the ones with the swirls inside, the ones that spun the light as they moved, became grace notes

00:46:08.190 - 00:46:29.970

almost lost among the clatter of egg cartons, painted rocks, old photographs, and cottage cheese tops. On the table her hand lettered sign, an oboe solo, kleptomaniacs and other thieves, I am a child of God became a theme like loss or paranoia,

00:46:30.360 - 00:46:46.770

swallowing lesser themes, becoming less like loss, and more like the DAR the more it grew. Until finally, it was so thin that it was memory, only another part of the pat- I‘m sorry- only another part of the pattern, or legend, in which

00:46:46.770 - 00:46:58.670

Stravinsky and Schoenberg could live in Los Angeles for the same 11 years, and somehow never meet. Morton Marcus: Very, very nice. Kevin Hearle: Thanks.

00:47:00.730 - 00:47:12.790

Morton Marcus: There's another book out, besides the one you mentioned, I think it‘s called ‘’The City of Webs‘’ or something like that, by Otto Friedrich. Which has gotten much more play than that little book you mentioned, which I got also.

00:47:13.120 - 00:47:24.260

I think we are the only two people who ever got all the copies of it. A lot of people are writing about that time now and it's really coming alive again. Kevin Hearle: It's a- I mean, it's a fascinating period,

00:47:24.860 - 00:47:37.480

theres no- Morton Marcus: And they never did meet. It's- It's incredible, and I'm sure that many of these people walked right past each other. Probably wanting to meet each other. I'm sure that I can

00:47:37.480 - 00:47:55.310

imagine Stravinsky reading a novel by Raymond Chandler, and then walking right past and never- never know it. Kevin Hearle: And certainly, I mean, you have Adorno writing, I know-, I mean- excuse me, um, you have Thomas Mann working

00:47:55.310 - 00:48:15.980

with Adorno on the semi- the novel that was sort of the- I can't think- I can't think of the name of it, but it was- most people feel it was based on- on Schoenberg's life. Morton Marcus: That's not the one about Venice. "Death in

00:48:15.980 - 00:48:31.820

Venice" Kevin Hearle: No, no, no, I- I can't think of it right now. But I mean, so I mean, lots of I mean, amazing group of people there, which- You had Louis Buñuel there, you had- I mean,

00:48:31.820 - 00:48:49.970

well,- I mean, it's one of the- I mean, one of the fascinating things about it is, is that for years the- the view that's gone around, it's been current about Southern California was that was really some sort of cultural wasteland, and I'm glad

00:48:50.000 - 00:48:58.210

personally that these sorts of works are coming out and suggesting, hey, you know, that's- Morton Marcus: But these works are also suggested that these people were there and

00:48:58.240 - 00:49:02.530

Kevin Hearle: Oh- Morton Marcus: Never utilized me. You know, what, what do you do with them? Kevin Hearle: This is true. I mean-

00:49:02.000 - 00:49:18.020

Morton Marcus: I you're making any of the films, I mean, how do you use these people? You know, the great joke, of course with F. Scott Fitzgerald is he couldn't write dialogue. You know, "When are you gonna learn how to write dialogue, buddy,"

00:49:19.900 - 00:49:42.520

Kevin Hearle: One of the best stories I know is that- Aldous Huxley, who always had problems with his eyes, but one of the final films he worked for was- he was hired to do a- a adaptation of Don Quixote for Mr. Magoo. Which, if you know th

00:49:42.140 - 00:49:53.200

you know, and- character, Mr. Magoo, I mean th cartoon character Mr. Magoo is mean, this blind bumbling ol man, and the other writers spen the- I mean, he was only on th project for one or two weeks

00:49:53.230 - 00:50:10.810

That was all they had hired him and the other writers spent tha entire time trying desperatel to keep from him the fact tha the character for whom they wer adapting this was a blind- was man who couldn't see, becaus they didn't- I mean, they fel

00:50:10.810 - 00:50:28.810

so tenderly toward him with so much respect. So, I mean, you re right, there definitely wa a way in which Hollywood was 't quite sure what to do with ll of these people, but at le st there were some- I mean, th re were some fascinating peo

00:50:28.810 - 00:50:41.180

le the Morton Marcus: Absolutely yeah, absolutely. Well, time is moving on, so let's hear some more poems. Were talking to Kevin Hearle, a young poet who actually lives in San Jose but

00:50:42.050 - 00:50:56.210

goes to school here at UCSC, so he has to be considered a Santa Cruz poet. We always choose the best poets for our county. Kevin Hearle: Well, I promised my wife I'd read one of my newer poems, which is to her. It's called:

00:50:56.240 - 00:51:13.650

FOR I AM BECOME DEATH In her annual buffalo nightmare, descending from the ceiling on balloons, the Bronx Zoo bison grazed upon her pillow, but this time she was awake and grown. It was a grey day edging into dusk

00:51:13.650 - 00:51:30.750

in winter, and we were wrestling on the bed. Seeing it, she froze. Looking at her, looking at the window behind me, I knew the world was over in that instant. That winds of flame would crush the eggshell walls and pouring through the broken

00:51:30.750 - 00:51:50.400

window frame would print our shadows entwined there forever upon the hardwood floor. It was a spider, of the three spider sizes she goes by, real big, which is too small for me to see without my glasses, is the smallest size. She called that

00:51:50.400 - 00:52:11.550

one a Buick and I killed it. With my thumb squashed it's hard shelled body flat, it's multiple splayed legs [unidentified] to spring around the brown black smudge on the blue wall. And then it was a habit. See a spider kill it. Only now they

00:52:11.550 - 00:52:31.830

die so easily that I've begun to share her fear of them. I killed one once and didn't feel a thing. Morton Marcus: Very interesting. I have old cigar tins, and no matter where they are, I capture them in the tin and rush

00:52:31.860 - 00:52:45.330

outside. And the rest of them are there, and they're gonna get me. Yes, we got brown recluses and black widows and everything, and the game gets tense after a while because then, they wouldn't put me in a tin and deposit me outside.

00:52:45.360 - 00:53:02.940

Kevin Hearle: No. See, how much do I have time for one or two more? Oh, yeah. I'd say two more. Okay. Let me read. As long as we're talking about people who are in Hollywood, I have a poem about Rita Hayworth, and the poem is titled ‘’Rita,

00:53:02.940 - 00:53:18.180

Yasmine and the Mirror‘’ and for those of you who don't know much about Rita Hayworth, she died of Alzheimer's. And one of the the common sort of exercises that are- that you do with Alzheimer's patients are you put them in front of the mirror and

00:53:18.180 - 00:53:36.060

you point at them so that they can keep the right- it's an attempt to let them hold on to their identity as long as possible. And in this poem, I use a fair number of excerpts from- from her films, most specifically, ‘’Lady from

00:53:36.060 - 00:53:57.080

Shanghai‘’, and ‘’Gilda‘’ RITA, YASMIN AND THE MIRROR. That's you, Rita. Rita, you. Her hair is white, Rita's hair. Look in the mirror. That's your face, Rita's face. My hair was red.

00:53:57.440 - 00:54:16.880

That is not my face, not Rita‘s. Mother, Rita in the mirror, remember, my hair is black. Remember? Not Rita's. That's an easy name to forget. Rita, Margarita, Carmen [unidentified], Cansino, Wells, Gilda, Love Goddess Hayworth,

00:54:16.910 - 00:54:35.030

bombshell star. There never was a girl like Gilda. They named a bomb for Gilda. A bomb. Black satin striptease of atoms sloughed slipping off electrons, sloughing off identity, the nuclear gloves coming off. Remember the Alamogordo, put the

00:54:35.030 - 00:54:51.140

blame on Maine, boys, I am become death, destroyer of worlds, in my night gown all white satin and black lace descending on Hiroshima. The light fantastic, a light so bright no I could bear to see it, tripping and blowing my

00:54:51.140 - 00:55:12.830

technicolor hair and that cloud of hell all lace and bare shoulders. I am become death. That's an easy name to forget. Whose face is that in the mirror? Maybe I'll live so long that I'll forget her. Maybe I'll die trying, the bomb, publicity,

00:55:12.950 - 00:55:30.440

my name, the photos, thousands dead. The most exciting girl on the screen broke into tears of real gratitude, and then threw up when they named the bomb for her, for Gilda. That's an easy girl to forget. Maybe I'll die trying. Her husband did, in the

00:55:30.440 - 00:55:45.740

funhouse, in the hall of mirrors, forgetting her one by one, killing the blonde in one mirror, the brunette in another, shattering image after image. That's not my face. One husband murdered me and the other directed him. I don't want to be

00:55:45.740 - 00:56:01.730

within 1000 miles of that city, or any other city when they start dropping those bombs. But that's not my face. That's not my name. I am become forgetting. There never was a girl like me. That was not my bomb.

00:56:05.540 - 00:56:11.510

Morton Marcus: And that last one- Kevin Hearle: Sure. Morton Marcus: That when you if you want one more we can do a short one.

00:56:12.290 - 00:56:19.380

Kevin Hearle: Okay. Morton Marcus: Since the last two- the spider and this one dealt with the bomb and we might as well send them off- Kevin Hearle: More cheerfully.

00:56:19.500 - 00:56:25.960

Morton Marcus: More cheerfully. Kevin Hearle: Yeah, this one's called: BLUE WILLOW PATTERN and it's for Libby Beneath the teacup sky tipped upside down and spun around

00:56:25.960 - 00:56:43.870

three times, we are the wish, the tea leaves, and our fortune. Perhaps the Gypsy apricot picker, reader of cards foretold this. In the sixth year of Eisenhower, in a town named for the river with a name for the wind that blows through the City

00:56:43.870 - 00:57:03.670

of Angels on the shore of the bay of smokes. A child will be born to love the queen of clubs, a light skinned, dark haired woman. Such ease to claim our lives are fated and such eduction. I have chosen this, my once general wish for love

00:57:03.820 - 00:57:26.440

cupped in aunt's Willow ware c uld not have conceived of or a commodated us. At dawn, the s ill tree filled with sleeping b rds shatters into song. I wake a d you rise to all my senses. Morton Marcus: That was the poetry of Kevin Hearle you just

00:57:26.440 - 00:57:37.240

heard and that is a great counterpoint to those other two poems. It is a delight having you here Kevin, this will not be the last time and it was way too long in happening. Thank you so much for sharing that with us.

00:57:37.270 - 00:57:49.190

Kevin Hearle: Oh, thank you for inviting me. Morton Marcus: This is Mort Marcus and this is The Poetry Show, KUSP thanks Nicholas Van Angle for providing a grant to help make this program possible. Nicholas Van Angle is a realtor

00:57:49.190 - 00:58:05.000

in Carmel, lover of poetry, and thank you Nicholas some for doing this week after week, month after month, and in fact year after year. Next week Patrice Vecchione will be with you, as Joe is on vacation. The following week, I will bring you

00:58:05.000 - 00:58:22.220

a program in which I will introduce a totally new nonprofit poetry organization that is attempting to set itself up in Santa Cruz. And with the readings departing from Zachary's, and no real steady reading happening now, here is

00:58:22.250 - 00:58:38.270

an organization that plans every other week to have a reading in the Galleria and the people will tell us more about that and there will be many, many things going on there, poetry workshops, etc, etc. So that will be two weeks from today.

00:58:39.020 - 00:58:59.330

Last thing I want to say is to please if you are interested in going to a writers conference this summer, from June 21 to June 26. The Foothill Writers Conference in Los Altos Hills, for $25 you get 29 writers of such scope as Gary Soto, Al

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Young, Allen Chu, Lauren de Cervantes, James D. Houston, Phil Levine, Ed Kleinschmidt Ed Bullins, it is just a wonderful series of workshops, panel discussions and just a very, very hang loose, some intense but joyous atmosphere. It is my

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favorite writers conference and I don't know of a better one in the United States, and certainly one you don't get more for your money, then. And if you're there I will see you there, actually after the next show I do, but until then, I would like you to

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stay tuned for "Out Front Out Back" with Larry Blood coming up in the next two minutes. This is Mort Marcus saying thank you Kevin Hearle and here's music to take us out.