Emerging Alaska poets remind us of our roots - Anchorage Daily News 21/5/20 17:03

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Emerging Alaska poets remind us

NO THANKS ALLOW

of our roots
Author: Heather Lende Updated: April 23, 2017
Published April 23, 2017

I have a confession: I really wish I could write a good poem. One. I

have poet envy and Alaska poets are in part to blame for this.

When I was a young mother, new to Alaska, feeling far from my East
Coast roots up in the middle of nowhere (even though I was not in a
cabin in the wilderness. We lived in a 1,000-square-foot apartment
above our lumberyard in Haines), I attended a reading by visiting
Alaska Poet Laureate Tom Sexton, as the state's writer laureate was
called then. His New England accent was comfortably familiar, but his
poems, especially one about listening to country music from the Fort
Yukon radio station late at night in a lonely cabin, changed my notion
of the genre.

In school, I'd studied masters like Shakespeare, Keats and T.S. Eliot,
and learned to analyze them in an academic way. But Sexton was a
whole new kind of poet for me. I understood what he was saying
without a dictionary, diagram or lecture. What's more, I felt it in my
soul. Since then, I've made reading poems a habit. These days I even
receive a poem a day in my email inbox. (It's free. Which is to say, you
can too.)

Another poet and former writer laureate is John Straley of Sitka. His
newest collection, "100 Poems of Spring," has just been released by
Shorefast Editions in Juneau. Publisher Katrina Wolford believes it
will appeal to tourists and locals alike. "Poetry is healing, especially in
difficult times," she says.

"Poetry gives the human heart and the human brain something it
can't get in any other genre," Straley says. It uses language, sounds
and all our senses "to reach the deepest parts of our sensibility." He

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says one reason poets thrive in do-it-yourself Alaska is because the

only equipment needed to create a poem are a pencil, a notepad and a
willing heart. "Poetry can be done anywhere, by anyone. It's portable,
simple, elegant and democratic, from haiku to its highest forms."

On the frontier

Straley says the other reason is that Alaska is still on the frontier of
the major elements that run through all American literature: "race
and space." ("I didn't make that up. Russell Banks did," Straley says.)
Straley says creating and sustaining culture, community, individual
freedom and the space to do those things are the heart of the Alaska
experience.

The 49 Writers group was established in 2010 and through its website,
blog, events and workshops has become a hub of the Alaska writing
community. Members and supporters usually seek local publication in
a handful of small literary journals, alternative presses, small weekly
papers and the University of Alaska Press. The organization's
executive director, poet Jeremy Pataky, is concerned that the "slow
collapse" of the University of Alaska system will hurt the state's
growing literary scene.

"Two fantastic young poets just left," he laments. Pataky says he's not
sure how many poets remain in Alaska, "but there are many, including
some extremely accomplished ones." He ticks off a list that begins
with "our most famous living poet," Olena Kalytiak Davis, followed by
Whiting Award-winning Joan Naviyuk Kane, an Inupiaq writer who
lives in Anchorage.

Davis has won a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship, the same award

that 35 of the 45 United States poet laureates have received. She
breathes rarified air even for a poet. In a 2014 New Yorker review, Don
Chiasson writes that her poems "can be tawdry, but any art so fixated
on its imperfections comes off as weirdly pure." He wonders if this has
to do with geography, since Davis, who is an attorney, lives in
Anchorage, where Chiasson may have assumed there is not much of a
literary scene.

Pataky argues the opposite, but agrees that poetry is linked to

geography by its nature. He notes that the poet Anne Coray of Lake
Clark was responsible for publishing Joan Kane's first book and credits

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Fairbanks' Peggy Shumaker, "a wonderful poet and writer," with being
a dedicated "literary citizen" who champions Alaska's literary arts as
well as individual poets.

Place-making

In the big picture, Pataky says, Alaska needs poetry to remind us who
we are and where we came from. "I think our poets accomplish a kind
of 'place-making' for us in both the geographic world itself and in that
place of language, which is layered onto — and allows for an
apprehension of — geographies. Many Native poets teach us
newcomers that Alaska is more than the sum of a bunch of
cliches/myths/ideas but that it is — and has been — home to peoples
since time immemorial. When we read each other's work, or read to
each other, we build community."

We are talking about all this because April is National Poetry Month
and also the 35th anniversary of Alaska Quarterly Review, our state's
premier literary journal and one of the nation's leading literary
publications, which has sometimes made for an awkward relationship
with the state's writers.

AQR is of Alaska rather than Alaskan. Editor and University of Alaska

Anchorage professor Ron Spatz says he's proud that AQR is in the
company of such august publications as McSweeney's and Glimmer
Train. He believes that AQR is a major bridge between Alaska and the
Outside literary community.

"We've been glad to publish poets like Eva Saulitis, Peggy Shumaker,
Olena Davis, Joan Kane, Gary Holthaus and Sean Hill — poets who are
national in their voice and who also happen to live in Alaska," Spatz
says.

Poems that he chose to publish by both Joan Kane and Olena Davis
have been selected from AQR for Best American Poetry anthologies.

Passionate about poets

To say Spatz is passionate about poets and poetry is an

understatement. Once he starts talking about AQR, poets and writing
it's difficult to get a word in edgewise. He likens his work as the

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journal's editor to that of a film director and producer rolled into one.

"I don't select them to be placed in a pretty book and sit on the shelf.
I'm catching these things — stories, narratives — and launching them
with all of my heart out into the world through AQR."

Of Davis he says, "She is really, truly a poet through and through." Her
voice is so unique, he says, that he can tell instantly it's her when he
reads a line or two "and you can't say that about a lot poets."

I was a little afraid to tell him that I hadn't read any of Davis' poems.
He sent me one and pointed me toward others, and I understood what
he meant. Her poems are frank, fearless and intelligent. She must read
all the time.

I hoped to share her poem from AQR that was included in The Best
American Poetry, "On the Certainty of Bryan," (aqreview.org/on-the-
certainty-of-bryan/ ) but can't because of the adult language, which
also speaks for the value of AQR and other journals for poets and
writers. "Olena has a difficult voice," Spatz says, "a difficult, sensitive,
perceptive and necessary voice."

Five Alaska writers

For the latest book-sized issue of AQR, which is out now, Spatz chose
five Alaska writers, including four poets. Two are from Southeast,
Emily Wall and X'unei-Lance Twitchell, a Tlingit language writer. The
pair of University of Alaska Southeast teachers collaborated on the
birth story of Twitchell's daughter, Ava Shaawatk'é, writing it in
Tlingit and English.

"Shaawatke'é's Birth," Spatz says, "is certainly born in Alaska, and

strongly related to place." However, its themes transcend geographic
boundaries at a time when, "There is such tension between an
English-only and nativistic vision of America and the vision that
recognizes the diversity of peoples, cultures and languages that in
actuality created the fabric of our great nation."

Wall praises Spatz for his editorial guidance. "Ron actually helped us
create the final version by suggesting the use of footnotes. Then
a couple of weeks ago he called with the idea of creating a short film

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of Lance and me reading the poem to help celebrate the

35th anniversary of AQR. We hope to start filming soon."

Current writer laureate Ernestine Hayes always speaks frankly about

race in Alaska. She sees stories — poetic or otherwise — as a way to
understanding. When she spoke in Haines at the library last year, she
said we must recognize our shared past, Native and non-Native, the
good, bad and ugly, in order to "hold hands and walk together" into
the future.

Culmination

Twitchell and Wall's poem about the birth of a baby girl is a fine place
to begin that. Here's what the poets have to say:

Wall: The poem is part of a five-year project collecting birth stories

and turning them into poems. A couple of years ago I approached
Lance as I didn't have any poems from a father's perspective, and his
daughter had just been born. I ended up weaving the birth speech,
exactly as he had written it (and said it) into the poem, to create a
collaborative braided narrative poem. I then used some principles
from Tlingit oral storytelling style to craft the poem.

Twitchell: My wife Miriah had recently had our second child, Ava
Shaawatkʼé Twitchell. I had written down the words because I didnʼt
want to forget them and shared them with some folks. Emily
approached us about writing the poem, and we thought it was a good
idea. The birth experience was primarily my wifeʼs, but I have been
there to catch all of our children and have made sure that the first
language they heard after birth was Tlingit.

Wall: When I was a graduate student in Arizona, (former Alaska

writer laureates) Nora and Dick Dauenhauer came to Tucson and gave
an incredible performance/reading of their work. This was my first
introduction to Tlingit oratory and the stylistics of oral storytelling.
Later, after I moved to Alaska, I was really lucky to study and work
with Dick and Nora. I'm in no way an expert on oratory, but I loved
what I was learning from them. When X'unei and I started working on
this birth poem, I decided to try and incorporate some
of the principles of oratory into the poem.

Twitchell: I had spoken Tlingit to my first child, but the idea of

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silencing the room to allow the language to really be heard came from
Randall Tetlichi, a Vuntut Gwich'in First Nation elder. The words
came from emotion. The idea of raising a child with our language and
protecting them from some of the terrible racism in the world
resulted in a message of love.

Wall: The Dauenhauers also talk about "exact repetition," which is

repeating a phrase word for word. You can really see X'unei's use of
this in his portion of the poem and I used it a little bit too.

Twitchell: I liked weaving our voices and languages, and thinking

about how we might handle translation. It was wonderful working
with Emily because I could tell she was invested in the experience. We
could share a lot because we both work in language, story, poetry and
we are both parents. I remember sharing things with her and feeling a
space of shared emotion.

Wall: I feel like diverse and rich stories, from all kinds of people, need
to be passed back and forth, maybe especially right now. The poem is
half in Tlingit and I believe sharing that language is so important. I
think because so many of us go through birth, and it's such an
elemental human experience, that it opens the door to sharing so
many different beliefs.

Twitchell: It is always a joy to relive a moment such as the birth of

one of your children, and I advocate for the presence of Alaska Native
languages in all spaces. I am thankful that Ava can see this written
years from now, and that it has a prestigious place in the world of
literature. Sometimes people think our language is in some separate
field, to be analyzed as a cultural artifact rather than as art and
literature.

Wall: AQR is definitely a high bar. Ron Spatz and the university have
done a remarkable job showcasing some of the literary talent we have
here.

Without new and emerging poets such as Wall and Twitchell, AQR
wouldn't have endured more than three decades, Spatz affirms.

"AQR is doing what the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses

calls 'the backstage work of American Literature.' It's important,
necessary work," Spatz says. "Although it is not glamorous at all, it is

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always exciting to meet a new voice, to find work by a writer, and the
joy in reading such a work is in discovering something true."

Haines author Heather Lende's third book is "Find the Good." Check her
blog or Facebook page.

About this Author

Heather Lende

Heather Lende is the author of "If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name:
News From Small-Town Alaska." To contact Heather or read her new
blog, The News From Small-Town Alaska, visit www.heatherlende.com.

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