Thank you guys so very much.
We have a few minutes for questions.
And, I'm going to hand these people the mic.
Yes?
How did you feel when you got your first book of poems
published?
Oh, I asked somebody to put a rock on my head
because I was jumping so high.
[LAUGHTER]
I felt really, really, good, and really scared at the same time,
to tell you the truth, because I was afraid
that people wouldn't like it.
Do you feel that way sometimes?
You're just so happy and then--
But, it was so beautiful.
It was like having a new baby in my hand.
I have a related question for Jonathan.
Your book came out in 2009.
So, just recently.
And, I like that because I'm a little bit of a late bloomer.
Or actually, maybe I'm just a pending bloomer.
[LAUGHTER]
And, I just wondered if you would share your story of how
your book got published.
Briefly--
I probably-- speaking of late bloomer,
I probably started writing poetry seven years ago.
And, wrote, and wrote, and wrote, and collected,
and collected, and collected, and sent-off, and sent-off,
and sent-off, and upon occasion would get somebody
to acknowledge something.
But, in any event, I was told about a local publisher,
Charles Alexander.
And, I took my stuff to him, and-- not really
with a sense of publishing it, but more
of a sense of, will you look at this, will
you give me feedback-- help me with it?
And, we went through that for probably a year.
And, at some point I talked to him about publishing and--
actually he's an interesting guy because what he does
is not what we do because we're more narrative,
and he's kind of a language poet.
And, so he was hesitant.
And, we just worked and worked and worked.
And, finally one day, he said, I've
shown this to enough people and I
think it's something we can do.
And, I was-- that's fantastic.
And, so I owe him a lot.
And, it just gives you a sense of accomplishment-- an answer
to your question, it's just a sense
of putting something all together
and really feeling good about it.
Thank you.
I loved your, pending bloomer.
Any other questions?
There's one.
I'll ask Jonathan--
Oh god.
[INAUDIBLE] about you were an attorney--
an attorney, and a community activist, and a poet.
And, I know you through the-- not through the latter
role until this morning, or until I saw your book
a couple of months ago.
I just have to ask you how these parts of you live.
And, are they are they compartment--
I mean obviously you, and so you're you wherever you are,
but I'm just curious if you could talk a little bit
about whether there are sort of compartments
where you put parts of your persona and your soul.
Yeah, they definitely live separately.
[LAUGHTER]
But, an answer to a different question, which is, where you--
or how you would find the poetry part of it.
I mean, it obviously can happen at any time
of the day, or any place, or anything you see,
or an expression that comes into your head.
But, you do have to find some time separate
and apart from everything, and be away from everything
to focus on it and put it together.
So, yeah-- to that extent, I don't
stop in the middle of the day, that's for sure.
How old were you when you--
this is for both of you.
How old were you when you wanted to become a poet
and get your stuff published?
12
[LAUGHTER]
I remember writing--
I've always written, and I've always sketched.
I love art.
I always carry around a sketchbook and a writing pad.
But, when I was 12 I wrote a poem that was probably
a pretty awful poem.
And, I brought it home.
And I got an A on it.
It was like, whoa, I got an A on a poem.
And I brought it home, and my dad,
who was a factory worker and not educated in those
kinds of ways and literature, read that poem
and he said, if I could if I could make anything like this,
I'd be proud of myself.
And I thought, this is what I want to do.
Mine was probably a little later, but actually not that
much.
18, 19, 20, when I went to college
and started being exposed to poetry
and thought it would be a neat thing to do.
And actually, wrote a little poetry in college
and was published in a college--
the college journals.
And then, after I got out of college
I thought maybe I would do something like that.
And then, I drifted away from it and I really always wanted
to come back to it.
So, I was able to.
Yeah, I think writing is a compulsive activity.
Definitely helps to be obsessive compulsive because it's
something that becomes part of your soul
and you can't not do it then.
Pam you lived in a lot of different places.
Could you talk about how place affects your work?
I mean, you've been on the East Coast,
you've been up here, in Oracle, Montana,
and now you're living in Colorado.
So, could you just say something about that?
Yeah, I can't because, Heidi, I'm
very affected by land, and creatures, and the things
around.
One thing that struck me at a poetry reading
when I was younger was something that Gary Snyder said,
and he said, you really don't know--
you don't really know where you live unless the creatures who
are living there with you.
And, all the-- he was including plants,
and the spirits of the sky, and the rocks,
and all of that stuff.
And, what I'm taught by my students
all the time at Fort Lewis--
because we have 125 tribes represented
in our student body--
is that connection.
That connection between the Earth.
There is nothing separated between you
and the creatures in the Earth.
And so, everything around me affects me emotionally--
incredibly emotionally.
I could cry when I see a hummingbird because I know
that hummingbird is a bird, but it's also a spirit,
and it's also--
there's so many levels layering, and levels of things.
When I lived in North Carolina, I wrote about ghosts
and I wrote about slavery.
And, I don't know much about those things,
but it affected me.
The land itself affected me.
And when I lived in New York it felt
like the ground was crying--
that the ground was soaked in blood and was crying.
The West doesn't feel like that to me.
I have a question for Pam.
How did you feel when your mom died?
Oh, well you know, it was such a mix of feelings.
At first, I was so happy that we could all
be there and tell her how much we
loved her-- and we kept joking.
And, this is sort of funny.
Do you have a sister?
OK, so we were picking on my one sister.
I have three sisters.
So my sister, Val, and I were picking on my sister, Judy,
and we were remembering this embarrassing event
when she was young, and that's when my mom died.
And so, it was a really funny moment on one hand,
and it was so beautiful because she was peaceful.
And, it wasn't scary.
She was just very peaceful, and she went.
And then, afterwards, I got very sad.
My other sisters, when we brought her down
from the mountain, we went and bought all of the roses
in the Safeway store next door.
And, we put rose petals all over her, just to honor her.
And then, when they took her body away, it made me very sad.
And then, I was very sad.
We have time for one more question.
I'm just wondering if you think of an audience
when you're writing?
In particular, if that's something you consider?
Good question.
It's an audience of one, or two.
You're writing, somewhat, for the page.
So, you're writing somewhat for yourself.
At the same time, you've got to somehow envision a listener.
So, at least my method--
or what I do-- might be different for other people,
but it's putting things together.
And, when you know you have a poem is when you read it
through, and you're done-- after maybe a lot of editing--
and you go, this is it.
This is complete.
And so, at that point it's a self-satisfaction first,
and then it's a reader, and then it's an audience.
But, the audience is really third, to tell you the truth.
It's really first for self, and maybe one.
The best poems always come unbidden, and they're always--
I don't like to use-- all the inspiration is breathing in.
And, the voice that comes is the best possible part of myself,
that escapes myself, that escapes the every day petty
person that I can be.
When I'm really writing, and I'm writing well,
I don't think about audience at all.
I don't think.
I don't even try.
I just don't think.
I'm in a different, intuitive kind of space.
And then, when I'm revising--
I want my poems to be accessible enough for people
to hear and to read.
I come from a family of real storytellers.
So, storytelling is very important to me.
My grandma was Czech, my grandpa was Russian.
They're a very, very storytelling kind of culture--
and musical.
I hear music all the time.
I hear the way that words impact one another.
And so, I don't think about that either.
It's all given.
And, I feel like it's such a blessing, it's such a gift.
In my worst moments I always think,
oh it's never going to come back.
Ooh, I got lucky.
I don't think about audience, except in terms of,
why would I write unless people would understand me.
I wouldn't just want to write for
my own personal gratification.
Then, I should shoot myself.
[LAUGHTER]
OK, thank you guys so much.
Let's give them another round of applause.
[APPLAUSE]