Female Speaker: From the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
Patricia Gray: Hi, everybody.
I'm Patricia Gray, head of the Poetry and Literature Center here.
Welcome to the Whittall Pavilion at the Library of Congress.
Those violins that you see over there are Stradivarius violins.
This area and the big auditorium next door have served the Poetry
Program well over the years.
Welcome here today, and I'll just do a brief introduction,
and then we'll get to the real joy of today.
You're in the building that houses the office
of the Poet Laureate of the United States.
She's Kay Ryan.
She's not here this month, but we thought it really appropriate
that we provide some live poetry for you for those of you
who found your way to the Whittall Pavilion.
This reading we're having right now is part
of the Poetry at Noon program.
This is a program I created here almost 15 years ago.
It'll be 15 years old in February on Valentine's Day.
Today's program is very special.
It's part of the Poet Laureate's choice, and by that I mean,
state Poets Laureate are invited to choose some of the best poets
from their state to come here and share their poetic voices
with the Washington community in the nation's capital.
In the past, we've had guest poets from Virginia, Maryland, Washington,
D.C., Florida, South Carolina, Kentucky
and today caps it all: Indiana.
So [laughs] this group is very special as you probably know
because it contains two Poets Laureate,
the immediate past Laureate, Joyce Brinkman,
and the current Laureate, Norbert Krapf.
And so Joyce and I talked about this a year or two ago, and she mentioned
that in her state there are Airpoets.
[Laughs] So you're going to be treated to some Airpoets today,
and I'm going to leave it to Joyce to explain to you
and introduce the poets, but I want to also point
out that this is the first time we've used visuals in Poetry
At Noon reading like this, so I hope you enjoy it,
and please help me welcome Joyce Brinkman.
[applause] Joyce Brinkman:
This is the first time they've used visuals, and we hope they work.
[laughter] As you can see for the first visual,
"The Airpoets With Windows to Poetry," windows really were a way
of bringing this group together, the Airpoets.
We submitted to a contest the call for poetry to go
into the new terminal that they were building
at the Indianapolis International Airport.
And the five of us had poetry selected.
It was used by British glass artist Martin Donlin,
and these magnificent windows that make
up the airport now were manufactured in Germany, and they were inspired
by our poems and contained words
from either a whole poem or words from our poems.
So we're going to share some of those poems with you today that are
at the airport and show you some pictures of those poems.
We hope sometime if you come to Indianapolis you will enjoy them
in the actual windows in the airport themselves,
and then we will also share with you other poems in our book,
because we continue to meet and write together,
and as a result we wrote a book of travel metaphor called
"Rivers, Rails and Runways."
Just as a matter of introduction, here are the five Airpoets.
On my far right and your left is Jeannie Deeter Smith.
Jeannie is not able to be with us today.
And then the handsome guy in the back is Dr. Joe Heithaus.
I'm sort of the mother of the group and the -- [laughter] --
and, you know, mothers are always happy when you have doctors
in the family -- [laughter] -- and this is one of our doctors.
He's head of the English Department at DePauw University,
and he has his doctorate from Indiana University.
Then right below Joe is Ruthelen Burns,
and one of the very special things
about Ruthelen is not only is she a wonderful poet,
but she is also a wonderful artist.
And in our book we have with each poem a little sketch,
some little sketches that run through the book that Ruthelen did
to illustrate our themes.
Next is myself and then the guy that looks like he's
with the Secret Service -- [laughter] --
is the other doctor that fits well in Washington.
Norbert is the other doctor in our family, Dr. Norbert Krapf,
and his degree is from Notre Dame.
And so with no further ado, I'll ask my fellow Airpoets to come
up here so we can begin reading.
[ Poem formats may differ from author's original format ]
Norbert Krapf: I'm going to read a poem by Jeannie Deeter Smith,
and it's her poem that was selected through the competition
to become part of the stained glass panel by Martin Donlin.
And this poem introduces our book.   It's called "Streaming."
Sometimes in dreams I forget that I need a body to fly
And I go streaming high above cities small towns, tall buildings,
all the world below me I'm a cluster of multifaceted energy twinkling,
dipping side angling, something like laughing but no sound,
no instrument for utterance, soaring to giddy heights,
free from the gravitationally attractive lure
of magnetic mother earth   Female Speaker: Midnight Flight
Silver whale in celestial seas Mount moonbeam currents rapidly
As cloudy eddies multiply The safely sheathed zomnify Hum your song
on tonight's red eye.   Driving to Chicago
Cars weave in braided fashion Up the paved path to Chicago
through a land made flat by ice.
Some find this stretch monotonous, the ubiquitous summer greens,
frosted winter whites,
the persistent flaxen rust and reds of fall.
Why love a land so flat and consistent?
Then the smell of hogs from Paul's succulent pork chops,
golden Corn immersed in fresh butter
And red ripe tomatoes still Hot from the sun.
Suddenly Always appears in red, as an 18-wheeler fails
to concede the right of way entering this concrete auto concourse strewn
over mundane low terrain.
It's an easy drive here No hairpin turns
or falling rock No mountain crevices
to swallow a rig Deflated dirt doesn't fight It yields,
and harried truckers press On with heavy loads
Searching Through Water
I've become your eyes Those handsome brown crystals
That now evade the light Your eyes in which I watched You love me,
where now I see through droplets of water To your fear,
fear that if I Would leave your world would Collapse,
crumble from under you Like the Minneapolis bridge
And you would be left to search In murkiness, like the mother
Who still searches for her infant Even
as her own bones settle into mud   Joe Heithaus: Indiana Flight
Just over ulitic or winnemac, a white streak Blazes behind you
and hangs over creek beds Of jewel weed, prairies fringed
in goldenrod Live forever, blooming by roads, pointed Toward South Bend
or Fontinet, Floyd's Knobs Or Reelsville,
Below you home lies somewhere In the patterns of soy and alfalfa,
winter wheat and corn But for now, you're flying over quarry lakes,
green water Where stone was once cut
for the Empire State, the nation's Capital.
Buildings all over the world aspiring toward Sky,
deep and blue as you heading away back,
thinking Of the people below living their lives above bedrock,
Formed from the silt of ancient seas, prairies plowed flat
By glacial ice and though you are of that land for these Few moments,
you float above the spinning world below With some small time away
from the matters you're Going to, the things you've left behind
It's worth noting "Four Postcards" that I'm going to read next,
the postcards were to each of the other poets.
Four Postcards
I. Wish you were here, inside The baby teeth of my longing And desire,
rattling and singing Inside these words like pebbles
in a rain stick Wish you were here inside The sound of the rain,
where I huddle against a stone in Bell Union, Indiana,
imagining you Shadowing the lamplight
II. Wish you were here, in The library
of my hands The tiny words written In the creases of my palm Untoward,
crimson, ache As if language was not About open lips, or tongues
Or breath, but of what's held Or imagined, rough wood Of the barn,
crystal light In the thin crack
of glass The way all things come Together in an image folded Secretly
into the pages of a Book, the way a poem Breaks open the heart
III. Wish you were here, by The sweet vermilion creek Named
from memory's blood Or the tint on the run at dawn Just below that crop
of limestone And the tumble of water Glistening white You're here now,
making memory Or remembering the sound
Of a car door opening Your mother's voice deep As the pool
in the cascade below Us, accepting the endless spill
IV. Wish you were here, inside The watch my father gave me His father's
watch, once Held with the thumb in the pocket Of a vest,
once kept out of the Light, like a secret Here's the sturdy tick
that Is my heart, the stout workings
Of the Poet's art Here's what my grandfather Must have done He pulled
the watch and held It under the sun, where secrets Flower
like these precious Gifts we get from the dead
Tug of coal cars and box cars The little tick, little click,
Little tick, tapping the infinity Of track, muddle of engines Groan
of the horn On autumn nights I hear it Come, late two a.m., the click
And mutter and hum across Roofs, trees laden with leaves, The streets
and sidewalks, the Whole sleepy town dried out From a rainless summer
And I roll over In the still heat and know you Are beside me,
and one of the Girls has tucked herself Between us,
I listen to the sounds Of my own small breathing Against the heft
of that train Carrying away what it will And I feel alone
Ruthelen Burns: Echoes
Night has settled, draping the Suspended metal winged bird
In gentle darkness Inside Stillness breathes, perched Between the hum
and glow Of a cabin nearly asleep I gaze
through a small plastic Glass window, my territory For the moment,
resting, reflecting On news read, a conversation had A journey at hand,
contemplating stars across a lit and living landscape and our small
yet perfect place within them How sweetly we slice the two Heaven
and earth, or stitch them Together on our journeys of destination
And heart, while watchful eyes Of earth and sky wink at each other
As they pass on their rotations Aviators, aeronauts,
common travelers all we are simply passing
through at our own speed in our own way
Chama Riversong
An hour before dusk and camp is lively With the pitching of tents,
the roar of fire And laughter comingling Behind the sun dips
down over a ridge Of darkened pine, while clouds still As breaths held,
hover, watching the last rays Beam luminous
on sandstone canyon walls An expanse of light
so bright it simply cannot Be contained, but must return
in crimson strokes To bathe the river's waves and eddies
and Saturate the sage and grasses and the wildflowers
With their stained glass pedals in vermilions, violets,
golds And splash upon our faces young
and old their rosy mark while we are cradled in ancient arms
To be a fish freed think it best to go under down Below the royal
and roll of tree-spilled, litter-strewn banks Lodged
between crevice rock, pause on water moss, soft Spawn a bit,
sleep why eyes wide open Give up one kind of breath for another,
develop Gills, trust in instinct degrees bones Swim along silvered
pale somewhere not important at all
With heaven above, the rush of sunlit waves
Male Speaker: "Back in Indiana,"   Part II is in the window.
I. You may find the weather extreme
and the people unseasonably mild Unlike the folks
on the coasts we look you right in the eye and speak
from the interior Our humor can be so dry It hits you only
as you leave Our speech doesn't go off like firecrackers
But our poets sing close to the ground And keep the fire burning
In Indiana, Isaiah must learn to prophesy In a flat cornfield,
not from a mountaintop When you leave that hum you hear Is a song
of a people in love with where They live II.
Back home on the ground we discover
That the gift the great wings gave us Is new eyes to see
that this place Where we live, we love more than we knew
"Journeys,"   pauses between each stanza.
If Basho journeyed to the far north I'll go into the hills of the South
where Spirit can disappear When a place holds your past Go
down into it What you explore may be dark But you'll find eyes
With vision we can go beyond any here
Sometimes I awaken in the hours before dawn Read a few pages,
reflect, fall back asleep Drift to a pond where I fished A field
in which I would walk Woods in which I would lose myself
So that I might discover a way back out And I see the youthful face
of a friend I lost too soon Here the voices of people I love
and it becomes unclear which world I live in Which one I drift toward
In Indiana, we love trains.
This is "Downtown Indy Freight Trains."
I awake to hear them sound their warning song In a minor key
in the middle of the night As they wind their steady way downtown
through What was once a great railway hub I awake to the memory
of those freight trains That wound into my hometown in the hills
To the south, bearing the lumber that my father
and other men Would make into chairs and desks
and cabinets Always there were men in those after-war years
Who rode the freight trains wearing stubble and sadness
in their gaunt faces and some showed up on our porch to ask politely
for a bite to eat Our mother would nod
and make them A peanut butter sandwich, a peanut butter
and jelly Sandwich and hand it to them There was a soft light
in their eyes that stays with me As I hear the Indy freight train songs
and also The quiet duet the hobos sang with my mother As they turned
to walk back toward buffalo Swamp
to jump another freight Thank you kindly, ma'am, they said Why,
I'm not sure if I get more poems because I'm Indiana Poet Laureate
or have the greatest hair.   Don't comment, please.
As I said, we love trains, and we had our own Indiana railroad
at one time that no longer exists.
It was called the Monon, and I rode it to college four hours
to the north a few times.   Monon Memories
In the dark we wound up and down
Around the hills toward the small town Where the train stopped Still
in the dark, I said goodbye to my parents
for another few months boarded the train in Peoli with a suitcase full
of fresh laundry and partially underlined books
and lurched north some towns like Mitchel and Arlenes I was awake
for Others I dozed through even When I half heard there names
As if being reintroduced to cousins I'd met but didn't see often Enough
to remember And then I would be sitting by myself
In full daylight wondering where I was Going,
even though I knew the days Destination.
I wondered how a rolling Landscape I loved could turn so easily
into A monotony of windy flatness Would I ever wake up to
where I'd come from And what that means?
At a stop in Rancolier, I knew it was my place to get off Aware
that I was the first to go to college
Since those whose names I did not yet know Had come
down the Ohio River a long time Ago.
I lifted my suitcase of books and clothes
And started the long walk back to the Catholic Campus the other side
of town It never occurred to me to call a cab, if There was a cab
to call in a town so small Lugging the suitcase I turned
in the right Direction, and put down one foot At a time,
just as they had done when they Stepped off the big boat
and began the long journey Into the interior
which led to the walk I was taking
This one is end of the path, and this is the end of the book
and the end of the reading.   Female Speaker: [Inaudible].
[laughter] Norbert Krapf: [Laughs] How nice.
End of the Path
A path led from beyond the garden through the woods to the other side.
Beyond the woods, a patch of blackberries,
some polkberries and covies of quail.
The dogs and I crossed a creek, bypassed an old farmhouse
about to collapse, came into a small woods full of squirrels,
out the other side to a persimmon tree.
My eyes absorbed how ripe the fruit was.
Not many steps more and we stood on the banks of the Potoka,
along the bottom of which skimmed old catfish and carp.
I pulled on a long rope tied to a tree
and raised someone's trap full of flopping fish.
Mysterious light glinted off their silvery scales.
May their dark energy rise again in these lines.
Thank you.   [ Applause ]
Patricia Gray: Thank you so much Indiana poets.
The Indianapolis International Airport
where the stained glass now is on display opened when?
Three weeks, four weeks ago?
Female Speaker: The first planes came
in on Veteran's Day, November 11.   Patricia Gray: Oh, okay.
Female Speaker: November 11.
Norbert Krapf: It was delayed by two weeks, of course,
because of the renaming of one of the -- what do we call it -- the --
Female Speaker: They named it the -- Norbert Krapf: The terminal.
Female Speaker: The terminal.   Norbert Krapf: After a veteran.
Female Speaker: World War I veteran, so they wanted to do it
on Veteran's Day [inaudible].
Patricia Gray: So you're here on the ground floor,
and we're very grateful that you came and shared all this with us.
And I think you should be called the Transportation Poets.
[laughter] The airports, the rail --
Norbert Krapf: We should get discount passes, I think.
Patricia Gray: [Laughs] And also, I'd like to mention
that if you are interested in the anthology or books by these poets,
please speak with them individually afterwards and also,
while we're here, I want to mention
that we have another past Poet Laureate in the room,
and she was Poet Laureate of Virginia,
and her name is Carolyn Krider, but I don't know what --
Female Speaker: [Unintelligible].   Patricia Gray: Veronda, okay.
Yeah, okay, okay.
And so we're really happy to see you again, Carolyn.
And thank you all for coming.
This is the final Poetry at Noon and poetry reading for the fall season.
In the spring, we'll begin at the end of February, February 26,
when the Poet Laureate will return.   So thank you for coming today.
Norbert Krapf: Do they want to ask questions?
Female Speaker: Okay, do you want to -- Female Speaker: Is there time?
Patricia Gray: Sure.
Maybe five, 10 minutes worth of questions, if you're interested
and you have some questions, go ahead.
Joyce Brinkman: Do we have any questions from anybody?
Norbert Krapf: Except our spouses.   Female Speaker: You can ask to.
Where were you last night?
[laughter] Male Speaker: How do you become a Poet Laureate
of a state, in particular Indiana?
Joyce Brinkman: Well, the rules are different in every state,
but we actually now have legislation that spells it out in Indiana.
It's under legislation.   It's a two-year term.
There's a committee.   First of all, you can be nominated.
I don't know if you're living in Indiana now.
I heard you say you were from Jasper.
But anybody in Indiana can nominate someone to be Poet Laureate,
and then there's a committee that oversees and makes the selection.
And the one thing about being Poet Laureate, and I know Carolyn well
and Carolyn works very hard as a Poet Laureate.
It's being an ambassador for poetry, and we felt very strongly
that we wanted the Poet Laureate to really be out there doing things.
You know, it's wonderful to have a title,
but it's really great to be doing something.
And we see a big connection between poetry and education,
and so spending time in the schools and helping with programs
with young people is something we really like to focus on.
Yes, sir?
Male Speaker: The stained-glass artisan [unintelligible],
did you interact?
Or did he prepare beforehand the windows?
Did he -- was part of the windows inspired by your poems?
Joyce Brinkman: His windows were inspired by our poems,
but we didn't see his windows until --
I mean, we didn't see the drawings.   I mean, we were blown away.
I guess we were all blown away when we saw the drawings.
We had submitted.
We had been told that we had been selected.
We knew he was a British glass artist.
I had looked at his work.
I wrote a really little short poem because I thought, you know,
he's going to use several poems on a glass piece.
There's not going to be very much room.
So when I saw mine was on a 25-foot window, I was absolutely amazed.
Did you guys want to make a comment?
Male Speaker: Yeah, I think the answer is
that I think originally they were going to choose dead poets,
and I think the artist said it's such a contemporary design
for an airport, we should have living poets.
So I don't know -- Joyce always says --
how many poems were submitted by -- Joyce Brinkman: 4,000.
Male Speaker: So I think they brought it
down to a reasonable number, and I think he sort of worked
with the poems and looked which ones would sort
of fit designs maybe he already had in mind, and others --
Male Speaker: And the themes.
Male Speaker: Yeah, I mean, I think Joyce's is very much connected
to the poem itself, so you can sense that he designed
that after looking at the poem.   Female Speaker: [Inaudible].
Joyce Brinkman: It was the artist's idea.
We have to give the airport credit that they decided
to spend half a million dollars on our -- well, no, more than that.
Male Speaker: 3.9.   Joyce Brinkman: 3.9 million?
Is that what it was?
On artwork, on all kinds of artwork in the airport.
And this artist has a -- the glass artist, our glass artist,
has a major part of that because he did 14 windows.
But it was his -- he has used, as Joe has said, he's put poetry
in his glasswork before, but he's always used Shakespeare
and Keats and, you know, those old dead guys.
And so this time, he thought that he would get --
Male Speaker: The really good ones.   [laughter]
Joyce Brinkman: [Laughs] He thought he would get some live ones this
time, and we were very fortunate to be chosen.
Male Speaker: So we're the living poets society.
[laughter]
Joyce Brinkman: Patricia, if you would come back up here.
Let me say we are absolutely thrilled that poetry is enshrined
in this magnificent international airport in Indianapolis.
We're also thrilled about what you do with poetry here at the Library
of Congress, and we just wanted -- we'll never forget being here, okay,
and we don't want you to forget us being here,
and we've brought you something.
This is a little -- this is a little blown-glass heart
because our poetry is in glass and this is a little blown-glass art,
and the person who did this is an artist's friend of Ruthellen's,
and she has a studio in Zionsville, Indiana, which is a place
where we read at a -- where we all have been or are going
to be doing a reading at Poetry on Brick Street.
So Zionsville's kind of special.
We think glass art's kind of special.
We think you're kind of special for what you do
and so we hope you'll take this and not forget the Airpoets.
[applause]   Patricia Gray: Oh, thank you.
How nice. I think, you know, I've done this
as a volunteer all these years.
I think this is the first time anybody actually gave me anything,
so thank you so much and come back to see us next year.
[applause]
Female Speaker: This has been a presentation
of the Library of Congress.   Visit us at loc.gov.