Interview with Darrell Bourque Part I by Angie Ledbetter
Darrell Bourque is Professor Emeritus in English at University of Louisiana Lafayette. He is the author of five books of poems: Plainsongs, The Doors Between Us, Burnt Water Suite, The Blue Boat, and Call and Reponse: Conversations in Verse (with Jack B. Bedell). He has two books forthcoming: In Ordinary Light: New and Selected Poems (2010) and Holding the Notes, a chapbook commissioned by Chicory Bloom Press (2011). He served as Poet Laureate for a brief time in 2007-08 and then again in 2009-2011.
R&T: You seem to have favorite themes for your poetry -- human relationships, the natural world and culture. Are there others, and do you think all poets have pet themes that direct/inform their work?
Bourque: I think the themes pick the writer and that themes emerge within the writer's relationship to the world lived in as well as the aesthetic and sensibility the writer works in. For me, human relationships are the ones that intrigue me: how we evolve through our relationships with siblings, lovers, partners, parents, etc. The relationship of one human with another is often a sacred relationship and those are often the kinds of relationships I try to write about. Those special human relationships are the colors or the palette the writer works with; they are already there on the board and we chose them because they are right there in front of us, because they are part of what we have set out to do.
Another special relationship is the natural world we live in and of which we are an extension. We are never separate from the natural world and I try to convey that in much of my work, and have tried to convey that integral relationship from the very beginning of my writing. The world that "culture" creates is exciting to me because it takes those natural ingredients of human relationship and natural world and from culture emerges that identifiable thing that defines us: our music, our language, our food, our recreation, our rituals, etc. There are, of course, other themes that the writing renders and for me one of the most important is the opportunity writing offers to communicate or converse with other artists. We are all interdependent with all we live with and with all we know and with all we encounter. I love being able to somehow use what some painter has created as a jumping off place for my own explorations.
I love response. Thoughtful, respectful, inquisitive response. Often using a line from another poet to begin a poem becomes a way of connecting with the poet. The same is true of finding a starting point for a poem in a painting or a photograph. And often the collaboration yields one of the greatest rewards of writing: the discovery of something we didn’t know we knew. Writing is first and foremost an act of discovery and enlisting another artist in the effort is the highest form of praise one writer can give to another artist.
R&T: I heard you speak recently, and you said, "Go from the merely personal to the deeply personal" when writing poetry. Would you explain this a bit more?
Bourque: Going from the merely personal to the deeply personal is but one of the ways that Galway Kinnell has influenced me. The line or the directive is his, which for me means the personal is a great resource for poetry and stories and other kinds of writing. Writing that allows us to identify a writer with a region or a sensibility is often a result of the writer using the personal in the art. I think of writers like Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Robert Frost, Sharon Olds, Sheryl St. Germain and many others. But they know that the autobiographical merely reported is not art. The ways Sheryl St. Germain tells New Orleans stories about her brothers, her mother, her relationship to the lake, her relationship to swamps undeniably uses autobiographical detail. But, she (and other writers) go beyond personal detail. The conflicts, the epiphanies, the characters become archetypal in the works of art. The drug user brother in a St. Germain poem is the brother we all have who have insatiable thirsts for whatever relief is available to us as human beings for the pain of loneliness, separation, desire. Laura Wingfield begins in the person of Tennessee Williams sister Rose, but as a character she is so much larger, her suffering so much more universal---and that truth is evidence of Williams’ genius as a writer. Proctor, who will die rather than tell an untruth about what others suspect of him, is closely related to Arthur Miller and his refusal to name names for the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities in their witch hunt during the Red scare, but Proctor is an archetype, one who defines himself by integrity and strength of character. What emerges in the Miller writing may begin with the merely personal but ends with something that is so deeply personal that John Proctor is part of who we all are, or can be.
R&T: You've mentioned some things that inspire you -- ancestry, music and art. Do you think you draw from these sources because you are passionate about them or because you've studied them? (Nature vs. nurture?)
Bourque: I draw from them because they are part of who I am. I am interested in ancestry because when I explore ancestry, I explore who I am individually and who I am as an artist. When a piece of music inspires a poem or is somehow an adjunct to a poem, it is because that music is part of who I am and my response is an acknowledgment of that connection. The occasion of using a part of someone else's art as the basis for a poem reveals that the human story is not told by one person or in one genre. When I write about a Van Gogh painting or a Vermeer painting, I am revealing a solidarity with that particular artist. With those two in particular, I have much in common in that we all come from "wetland" cultures and those cultures have shaped what we see, what we understand, what we value. The same is true when I find a truth in a Japanese painting, a French genre painting, in Bonnard or Rembrandt, or Elemore Morgan or Gloria Fiero, or a Chagall or a Caravaggio, a Beckett or a Almodovar or a Fellini.
I know these people and their work because I have studied them or because I have spent a great deal of time with them. But I write about them and from them because putting myself in proximity to the work produces something inexplicable, creates some connection that I do not understand at all, but that I know is there and is palpable, and, it seems to me, must be recorded.
R&T: What are your most and least favorite things about being the Louisiana State Poet Laureate?
Bourque: I like everything about the position. The base that one works with is pretty much undefined so the PL can do with the position whatever is desired or is possible. The only requirement of the position is that the PL give one public reading a year during the two-year tenure and the position is considered an honorific by the people who administer the title, so if a PL does nothing but the two public readings then he/she has met the obligation of the award. The LEH, which oversees the selection, also makes available a number of grants that libraries and community organizations can use to bring the PL into their communities and in my case, those grants were well utilized. But, so much more is possible. The previous PL was the remarkable poet Brenda Marie Osbey and months after she was named, Hurricane Katrina devastated her home city and her home base. So, she was impeded in a way because of events beyond her control. But still she made appearances and made herself available whenever she could.
My work was modeled on an earlier PL, Pinkie Gordon Lane, who served in the 80s under Governor Buddy Roemer. While the job was as this one is, primarily an honorific one, she was active and creative in developing poetry audiences and serving as the poetry ambassador for the State of Louisiana. Pinkie Gordon Lane was a colleague and a friend who I valued highly and there was no doubt in my mind when I received the title that I would try to invest as much energy as she did in the work that the position made possible.
R&T: What date on your calendar are you most looking forward to? And what are you working on now?
Bourque: One of the dates that I am looking forward to is the date when the LEH will name the new Louisiana Poet Laureate. The nominating process will begin late this year and we have many incredibly talented poets in the state and many poets who deserve the title. I look forward to seeing what they bring to the position.
Right now I am working on a "new and selected" volume which will be published by University of Louisiana Press as well as a chapbook commissioned by Chicory Bloom Press out of Thibodaux.
Visit Roses & Thorns next Wednesday to read Part II of Darrell Bourque's interview.
Angie Ledbetter is Co-Editor/Publisher of Rose & Thorn Journal. You can visit her in the blogosphere at angie-ledbetter.blogspot.com or in Twitterville at Angie Ledbetter .
d. bourque proves the fact that we do indeed give presents we would ourselves love to receive. "I love...thoughtful, respectful, inquisitive response..." exactly what he's gifted us with through this interview. 'insightful' should also be added to the list of things he loves. ms. ledbetter deserves thanks for delivering bourque's gift. looking forward to unwrapping part II.
kudos to both!
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Angie, another excellent interview. And with you I expected no less.
"I love response. Thoughtful, respectful, inquisitive response. Often using a line from another poet to begin a poem becomes a way of connecting with the poet." This is just brilliant. Thank you Mr. Bourque, for giving us this wonderful slice of inspiration.
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