SPRING 2007– SPRING 2008 Literary Reference NEWSLETTER OF THE CREATIVE WRITING PROGRAM LIVING ACUTELY IN LANGUAGE An interview with author Tess Gallagher by Amber Larson ess Gallagher is a poet, fiction Amber Larson: You once took a T writer, essayist, screenplay writer, class from Theodore Roethke. and translator. Among her many poetry What was that experience like? collections are Under Stars, Amplitude: New Who were some of your other and Selected Poems, Moon Crossing Bridge, early influences as a writer? Portable Kisses, and Dear Ghosts. Her hon- Tess Gallagher: Being in ors include a fellowship from the Guggen- Roethke’s class was a life- heim Foundation, two National Endow- changing event. I was so young ment of the Arts Awards, the Maxine that everything he said went Cushing Gray Foundation Award, and the into me so deeply. I had just Elliston Award for “best book of poetry wanted to write poetry, but I published by a small press” for Instruc- discovered a way of inquiry, a tions to the Double. way of living acutely in lan- In her most recent collection, Dear guage. I think the music of lan- Ghosts (Graywolf Press, 2006), the ghosts guage and how it affected the of the past are conjured and communed memory and the body itself with: the deceased beloved, the father impressed me. Roethke made long dead, the victims of holocaust and you feel this in his way of teach- war. With these spirits beside her, Galla- ing. I think his having us gher, a cancer survivor, confronts her own memorize poems and recite illness and mortality and celebrates new them aloud was very compel- love and friendship in these spare lyrics ling. It became a central part of and sprawling narratives. my own teaching when I began to get positions at universities Tess Gallagher participated in the 2006- around the country. 2007 Visiting Writers’ Series, offered by T.G. I’ve probably never experienced the University of Oregon Creative Writing As for my other influences: David writer’s block. I just have periods when I Program. She read to a full house on Wagoner and Mark Strand were strong am working on something else. I seem to April 12, 2007. influences while I was still in the North- go more deeply into many kinds of read- west. When I went to the University of ing too. I love reading short stories, of Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 1972, I met course, and always have. I had written IN THIS ISSUE many young poets from around the them early on and tried to get into Stan- country and they really became influ- ford to write stories in the beginning of PROGRAM CHANGES 2 ences. I ultimately married Michael my writing aspirations, but failed to gain & FACULTY NEWS Burkard, a poet I very much admired. entrance. My poetry was beginning to We were in some classes together with gain notice though, so I just turned my CRWR COURSES 3 Norman Dubie and Marvin Bell, Donald head toward poetry. It wasn’t until I met Justice, Larry Levis as our teachers. Of Raymond Carver and we began to make a course everything I read began to influ- life together that I went back to writing KIDD PROGRAM 4 ence me: especially work in translation stories. Right now I love nothing better such as Anna Akhmatova. than to discover a good book of short sto- MEET THE MFAs 5&8 ries to read. I just finished Creatures of the A.L. You write poetry, fiction, essays Earth by John McGahern, a wonderful and screenplays. How does writing in Irish writer who passed away recently, POEM: THE CRYSTAL 9 different genres influence your writing but who is from the part of Ireland I have PALACE as a whole? LANGUAGE–Continued on page 6 Page 2 SPRING 2007-SPRING 2008 UO Creative Writing Program | Literary Reference Creative Writing Dorianne Laux, after and “Swan Goes“) and Southwest Review ten years with CRWR, (“The Passion of Mary, Called Magda- Program Changes recently accepted a lene”). Her poems “City” and position at North “Impedimenta” will appear this fall in Geri Doran joined the Carolina State Univer- TriQuarterly. Creative Writing Faculty sity, where she will Laurie Lynn Drummond received a as a Visiting Assistant teach in the graduate residency fellowship to Ucross last June, Professor for 2007-2009. creative writing program. She will be and she has received another fellowship Geri received her AB from much missed by the Program, as will Joe there for this August. In the past year, she Vassar College and her Millar, her husband and a former Kidd has given readings at Pennsylvania State MFA from the University Tutorial Program Director. Dorianne’s University and Ashland University. Work of Florida. She is the au- fourth book of poems, Facts about the Moon continues on her novel. thor of Resin (Louisiana (Norton, 2005), received the Oregon Book State University Press, 2005), which re- Award and was shortlisted for the 2006 Karen Ford’s “Marking Time in Native ceived the 2004 Walt Whitman Award of Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. Joe’s most America: Haiku, Elegy, Survival” is forth- the Academy of American Poets. Her recent book, Fortune (Eastern Washington coming in American Literature (2009). “The poems have appeared in The Atlantic University Press 2006), won the C. Hamil- Lives of Haiku Poetry: Self, Selflessness, Monthly, The New Republic, New England ton Bailey Prize from Oregon Literary and Solidarity in Concentration Camp Review, Southwest Review, Virginia Quar- Arts. We wish Dorianne and Joe all the Haiku” will be included in Poetry, Politics, terly Review, Tri-Quarterly, and other jour- best in their writing and new life in North and the Profession: Cary Nelson and the nals. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Carolina. Struggle for the University, SUNY Press. Stanford, she is the recipient of the 2005- Karen’s essay “The Sonnets of Satin-Legs 2006 Amy Lowell Poetry Travelling Schol- Julia Schewanick joined Brooks” appeared in Contemporary Litera- arship as well as fellowships and residen- the Creative Writing Pro- ture (Fall 2007). cies from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Confer- gram in May 2006 as Of- ence, Literary Arts, the Vermont Studio fice Coordinator. Her Ehud Havazelet was promoted this Center, and the Millay Colony for the advanced computer and spring to full professor of fiction. Ehud Arts. She will teach graduate workshops organizational skills re- has recently published his second book and seminars and undergraduate writing sulted in a promotion to (see next page). His recent and forthcom- courses at UO. Business Manager for both ing publications include stories in Plough- Creative Writing and Women’s and Gen- shares and Tin House and an essay in the der Studies in May 2007. New York Times Magazine. In other news, Ehud notes that Coby was named Most The Creative Writing Program recently Literary Reference Improved Player on his under-eight made three continuing GTF appointments AYSO soccer team—Coby claims “it’s no Literary Reference, the newsletter of the for 2008-2009 support of students and the big deal.” Creative Writing Program, is published Program. Sara Johnson will return to quarterly in conjunction with the Uni- teach Introduction to Poetry Writing; Garrett Hongo’s “Cane Fire” was selected versity of Oregon Office of Publications. Chris Roethle will teach Intermediate by Charles Wright for Best American Poetry Poetry; and Will Fleming will provide 2008; the poem originally appeared in the Director support for special projects. The Program Spring 2007 issue of Ploughshares. "Chikin Karen Ford wishes to thank our student assistants for Hekka" appears in Language for a New Cen- Faculty the past two years, Alysa Iha and Ryan tury: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle David Bradley Stoker. East, Asia, and Beyond, co-edited by Tina Geri Doran Chang, Nathalie Handal, and Ravi Laurie Lynn Drummond Shankar, foreword by Carolyn Forche Ehud Havazelet Faculty News (W.W. Norton, 2008). Other recent publi- Garrett Hongo cations include “Coral Road” and “55” in David Bradley’s “. By Any Other American Poetry Review, “Kubota Writes to Business Manager Name” will be reprinted in Best Creative Julia Schewanick José Arcadia Buendia” in Virginia Quar- Nonfiction (W. W. Norton, 2008). This es- terly Review, and “A Child’s Ark” in New say originally appeared in Obit. A piece Creative Writing Program Labor Forum. In April, Garrett gave a read- on The Autobiography of Malcolm X is forth- 144 Columbia Hall ing at the University of Vermont; this coming in A New Literary History of Amer- 5243 University of Oregon August he will teach at the Bread Loaf ica (Harvard University Press, 2009) and a Eugene, OR 97403-5243 Writers’ Conference. short essay, "Beyond Chagrin," is slated (541) 346-3944 for publication in AARP. [email protected] www.uoregon.edu/~crwrweb Geri Doran has poems in the current issues of Subtropics (“The Dark Octaves” UO Creative Writing Program | Literary Reference SPRING 2007-SPRING 2008 Page 3 CRWR Fall 2008 In Memoriam Course Schedule CRWR 230: Introduction to Poetry Writing James Byron Hall Introduction to forms and techniques of writing poetry. Instructors: Akdeniz, Peñaloza, Johnson July 21, 1918 – February 28, 2008 CRWR 240: Introduction to Fiction Writing Best known as a short-story writer and novelist, teacher and critic, James Introduction to forms and techniques of B. Hall was also instrumental in founding the Creative Writing Program writing fiction. Instructors: Goldberg, at the University of Oregon. We mourn his passing and wish to remem- Malick, Roos ber him here with an excerpt from his poem “Envoi: A Clutch of CRWR 330: Intermediate Poetry Dreams”: Writing – Verse to Free Verse T.S.