Galway Kinnell honored by poets, friends

MONTPELIER – Poets and common folk filled the seats of the Statehouse chamber Thursday afternoon to honor former Vermont Poet Laureate Galway Kinnell.

Flanked by his family, Kinnell, 87, of Sheffield listened in the front row as poets from across New England read his work. The final reader was Kinnell's teenage granddaughter, who recited by heart a poem written for her mother.

The crowd gave Mirah Kozodoy a standing ovation and then turned to applaud her grandfather.

Though in poor health, Kinnell rose and walked to the podium. He motioned audience members to take their seats and then looked for the right words. With the help of his son Fergus who joined him on stage, Kinnell delivered a simple and heartfelt thank you.

Father and son embraced, and the crowd applauded a final time.

A poet of the people

Madeleine Kunin, who revived the poet laureate post during her governorship and instated Kinnell in 1989, offered comments during the introduction. She noted that Kinnell had been the first poet to hold the post since Robert Frost.

"He's been a treasure for the state of Vermont, not only here but worldwide. That's one thing I know, that I absolutely made the right decision," Kunin said of her selecting Kinnell for the post.

Although Kinnell was born in Rhode Island and spent many years teaching in New York, Vermont became Kinnell's chosen home. He bought a house in Sheffield in 1960 and lived there on and off until the mid-2000s when he retired from New York University.

"It wasn't a place I thought I'd like living, but I like it," Kinnell said of Vermont during a brief interview before the reading began.

Lisa von Kann, director of Back Roads Readings based in the Northeast Kingdom and the person who initiated Thursday's event, said Kinnell has been influential in bringing poetry to Vermonters. She and Kinnell worked together for more than 20 years to create readings in the Northeast Kingdom. They brought nationally recognized poets to the region, and Kinnell always insisted the readings be free.

Kinnell often read, too.

"He's been so generous in reading and going to public places," von Kann said. "From the pine forests of the Bread and Puppet farm to the Statehouse, he's brought poetry."

About 12 years ago, Kinnell worked with von Kann to plan a special reading to honor poet and Johnson resident Hayden Carruth, who died in 2008.

Von Kann has been planning for several years to honor Kinnell similarly.

"I felt it was time to do that for Galway," she said.

'We reached out for things'

Kinnell has received numerous national awards and honors, including a Pulitzer Prize in 1983.

C.K. Williams, a friend of Kinnell's and also a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, said in a recent phone interview that Kinnell is among the best poets of the 20th century.

"He's at the very top with sheer talent," Williams said.

His poetry is preserved in books and also on video. A quick YouTube search calls up footage of Kinnell over the years at many readings. It also brings up the likes of actor Bill Murray reading Kinnell's "Saint Francis and the Sow" (a poem Edward Hirsch read at the Statehouse event) at the Poets House 17th Annual Poetry Walk in New York City.

Donald Hall, former U.S. poet laureate and friend of Kinnell's, said Kinnell wrote in a style that was similar to Walt Whitman's, but also distinctive.

Hall, now 85, and Kinnell tried new things. They experimented with the "repetition of lines at a distance."

"Our generation, which was born in the late 1920s — it has been an unusually fruitful generation," Hall said in a phone interview last month. "We came to our maturity when the U.S. was post-war, prosperous. ... We reached out for things."

A brotherhood

Kinnell's generation of poets worked together to develop their craft. Kinnell did so with Williams, Hall and former U.S. Poet Laureate Philip Levine.

Hall, 85, and Levine, 86, have been friends with Kinnell for some 60 years (Williams is a bit younger). Their bonds run deep.

"It's very important," Hall said of the friendship.

Kinnell and Hall solidified their friendship through visits and writing letters. He and Levine taught together and enjoyed playing tennis. And poetry always was present.

"Poetry is the common thread," Hall said. "We never saw each other without talking about poetry."

Asked in a 1976 interview about what poets of his generation he admired, Kinnell named Hall and Levine, among others.

"We helped each other with our poems," Hall said.

The three poets placed great trust in Kinnell's artistic sense.

"I met certain people in my life that became my audience. ... Powerfully moral people and sensitive," Levine said in a phone interview in late July. "Galway was right up there. ... If he couldn't say it was really good, he wouldn't say anything. It made me want him as a friend."

Hall said Kinnell stayed with him while writing "The Book of Nightmares." Hall suggested a radical move in the book-length poem — which Hall said is too complicated to explain in a newspaper interview. Kinnell incorporated his suggestion.

As travel has become more difficult, Hall and Kinnell last met in 2009.

"We talked about each other's poems," Hall said of the last time they saw one another. "I showed him my poems; he showed me his."

Poetry and politics

Kinnell, a veteran of the U.S. Navy, and his friends also were outspoken critics of the Vietnam war.

"I met him frequently in anti-Vietnam demonstrations," Levine said.

Their poetry and politics bled into one another. In a 1971 interview that touched on his political involvement, Kinnell said, "I doubt if poetry can come from a person who feels nothing for others, who can't imagine someone else's sufferings."

Kinnell enjoyed the peace of rural Vermont during the Vietnam war. But that quickly evaporated when he saw a bomber overhead while he was returning from a swim.

"Vermont had been for me a retreat from the rest of America; that day I felt its sanctuary was destroyed," Kinnell said in a 1969 interview.

The war came up in Kinnell's poetry too. He wrote of it in "The Book of Nightmares." But his activism went beyond writing: He toured with other poets to give anti-war readings.

Hall said he felt the same as Kinnell about the war.

"I didn't know any poets who were in favor in of that war," Hall said.

Kinnell also was involved in the Civil Rights movement.

Levine said that Kinnell never discussed his time as a field worker for the Congress of Racial Equality or the experience of his arrest during a workplace integration in Louisiana.

"He wouldn't do anything that would ever sound like boasting," Levine said. "He's a real American in a way. He's the kind of person that this country created and hopefully still creates. People from nowhere somehow invent themselves. They say, 'I'm gonna be a poet, and I'm gonna be a good person.'"

Contact Emilie Stigliani at (802) 660-1997 or estigliani@freepressmedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/EmilieStigliani