A Conversation With Joan E. Bauer

CR: Ruth Ella Hendricks

Joan E. Bauer was born in Los Angeles, and for some years, taught English and journalism in public and independent schools. With Judith Robinson and Sankar Roy, she co-edited Only the Sea Keeps: Poetry of the Tsunami (Bayeux Arts, 2005). In 2007, she won the Earle Birney Poetry Prize from Prism International, and her chapbook, Another Country, was published by Pudding House Publications. Her poetry has appeared in The Comstock Review, 5 AM, Voices in Italian Americana, The New Renaissance, Poet Lore, Quarterly West, and several anthologies, including For New Orleans and Other Poems, edited by Ashis Gupta (Bayeux Arts, 2007). She divides her time between Laguna Beach, California and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Almost Sound of Drowning was published in 2008 by Main Street Rag.

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The Almost Sound of Drowning contains references to the Ninth Ward, Kabul, Rwanda, Darfur and Vietnam, among other locations. Are you often inspired by historic or current events? Would you consider yourself a political poet?

I grew up reading history and biography. I was reading Time magazine when I was maybe eleven; in college, I was reading Foreign Affairs, and majoring in history and English. In the early ’70s, I was involved in the Vietnam-era anti-war movement, and then lived for some years in Berkeley and Washington D.C. I taught high school journalism for twelve years. Eight years ago, when I stumbled into writing poetry again, it was probably inevitable that some of my poems would involve history and contemporary issues.

Also by Bauer, Bangkok Days

I don’t think of myself as a “political poet.” Some of my poems have a political charge to them, but they are not intended to be partisan.

ISBN: 978-1-59948-152-4

W.H. Auden wrote, “Poetry makes nothing happen: it survives/ In the valley of its saying.” And I agree. Some idealize and make rather vaulted claims for poetry; I have too high a regard for playwrights, novelists, essayists, historians and journalists to do that. I think we’re all just part of the same fabric. I also have too high a regard for all those whose generosity, courage, commitment and service improve the world in ways that have little to do with poetry.

As Adrienne Rich has pointed out, poetry is not a blue print, or an instruction manual, or a billboard. I am not a big fan of poetry that is written from atop a soapbox. When I write a poem with some political content, I try to find some way to suggest that the speaker of the poem herself is, in some way, “implicated” in the injustices of the world, that she is not blameless.

Among the poets whose more politically-charged poems I especially admire are W.H. Auden, Charles Simic, Adrienne Rich, Heather McHugh, and Adam Zagajewski.

Living in Laguna Beach and Pittsburgh, do you notice differences in your writing and in the literary scenes when you’re in one city vs. another? Place seems to play an important role…

When I’m in California, I have more time to work on longer poems. And I’m often inspired by my surroundings. “Canyon Wren” and “The Masochist’s Beach House” were written in California, and yes, “Bird’s Landing, Monongahela” and “Mill Town on the River” were written in Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh has an exceptionally strong and nurturing poetry community. I have had great teachers in Pittsburgh, among them, Jan Beatty. If a friend wants to work at becoming a poet, I often suggest moving to Pittsburgh! Laguna Beach has a smaller poetry community, but there too I have good friends who are gifted poets. I’m not as familiar with the LA poetry scene. In the years I lived there, most of the time I wasn’t writing poetry.

A sense of place is important in my work. To be honest, some of my poems are set in places I’ve never been. I’ve never been to Bangkok. My poem, “Bangkok Days,” reflects more a state of mind than an actual locale. I have been to Vietnam, France, China and Kenya; in the case of poems set in those countries—or nearby—the poems were inspired by memories and notes from my travels.

How do you balance the “truth” of a poem with the autobiographical?

Many poems in this book do come out of my experience. I like to tell a story, and the stories I’ve observed or experienced sometimes seem worth sharing. When I catch myself casting a too-rosy glow over some experience, I do try to burn through that glow. The poem often proves more “truthful” than the memory.

Also by Bauer, Imaginary Jew

What has the path towards becoming a writer been like for you?

I grew up in Los Angeles, and I wrote some poetry in high school. An English professor at UCLA encouraged me to keep writing, but I got swept along with academic studies, and then with a career teaching and counseling. I didn’t write poetry for thirty years. In the year 2000, I began writing again when I moved back to Pittsburgh. I had lost my husband to cancer, and then after a time, suddenly found myself writing something that began to look like poems.

It helped that I had taught English and journalism for some years. I’d absorbed the music and language of many poems, and journalism gave me an eye for descriptive detail. When I was just starting to write poetry again, I found Donald Hall’s book, Claims for Poetry (Poets on Poetry), especially helpful. There was a lot that had happened in contemporary American poetry that I knew nothing about!

I had a friend in Pittsburgh, Leah Paransky, who in her mid-eighties was still writing poetry. I was impressed by how much I learned about her inner life from reading those poems. Sometimes, frankly, I don’t know what I’m thinking until it unfolds in a poem. Heather McHugh has written, “I write poems to wake myself up,” and I think that’s true of me too.

Early on, I was lucky to find the Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange led by Michael Wurster; he facilitates a once-a-month, open workshop on Pittsburgh’s South Side. I began to see what was working in my poems, and what wasn’t.

Over time, I was accepted into Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill Poetry Workshop. By then, I had early drafts of some longer poems that would take five years to complete. There are amazing poets in that workshop: Rosaly DeMaios Roffman, Marilyn Bates, Michael Schneider, among others, and I’ve learned a lot from all my friends in that workshop.

Later, I began studying with Jan Beatty, whose collections, Red Sugar, Mad River, and Boneshaker, are courageous and beautiful books of poetry. I’ve worked with her in independent workshops, and then as a member of her Madwomen in the Attic program at Carlow University. She is a truly gifted teacher, and she gave me invaluable guidance and support in completing my manuscript.

I should add that nearly every summer for the past seven years, I have traveled to the University of Iowa Summer Writing Festival, and have studied there with Bruce Bond, Katie Ford and Richard Jackson, among others. Katie Ford suggested the technique of writing a poem in sections that “sing to each other,” and that gave me an approach to writing “Without Ceremony,” a poem about the 2005 South Asia tsunami. My poem, “Imaginary Jew,” also uses that technique.

Was there a defining moment when it became clear you’d become a writer, or was it more gradual?

I have a strong reading voice, so I was asked to give poetry readings in Pittsburgh rather early on. My friend Michael Wurster suggested where I should send some early poems, and a few were accepted. I only began to think I might really be a writer when Ed Ochester and Judy Vollmer, the editors of 5 AM, a poetry journal I very much admire, began taking my work.

Could you speak about your influences?

Among the novelists I most revere are George Orwell and Tolstoy. The poets I read (and re-read) most often are Mark Doty, Richard Jackson, Charles Simic, Adrienne Rich, Gerald Stern, and Wislawa Szymborska. I still read biography and history, and some of my poems have been inspired by life stories of J. Robert Oppenheimer, Elena Bonner, Simone de Beauvoir, and others.

I live with the poet, Joseph Karasek, who for many years was a musician and teacher. His poetry is very different from mine, but I have been influenced by his seriousness of purpose and craft. He has some remarkable poetry online and in journals, and I encourage the reader to look him up!

One of the memorable poems in The Almost Sound of Drowning is “Hanoi, 1996”. What brought you there?

In 1996, a friend was traveling there on business for just a week, and I went along. It was rather an adventure. That was before I had begun writing poetry, but while there, I made some notes and took some photos, and my memories of that trip remain strong.

Also by Bauer, Hanoi, 1996

Photo by Joan E Bauer Hanoi, Vietnam

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Since writing “Hanoi, 1996,” I’ve read some remarkable poems about Vietnam, including Bruce Weigl’s compelling book, Song of Napalm. And I especially admire Dick Allen’s poem, “A Short History of the Vietnam War Years,” for the way it braids personal and historical narrative. I’ve learned a lot from reading that poem.

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Karen Rigby is the former Poetry Editor for Emprise Review and currently edits for Cerise Press.