In celebration of Anne Barngrover's '08 first book of poems, Yell Hound Blues, we asked her and retiring English professor Dennis Read to spend a few moments interviewing each other about the writing life, Denison, teaching, and their friendship. Both Anne and Dennis are staples in the Jonathan R. Reynolds Writing Workshop that takes place on campus each summer.
Anne will be reading from her first book of poems in the Beck Series next Thursday, March 26th at 4:30 p.m. in the Barney Davis Board Room. On Friday, March 27th, author Ted Conover will read at 4:30 p.m. in the Barney Davis Board Room. Following the reading a celebration of Dennis Read will then take place in the Welsh Hills Room with alumni and faculty celebrating his 36 years at Denison.
Anne’s Questions for Dennis
When did you first feel “called” to become a writer? Do you feel like this calling has remained the same throughout your life or has it changed?
As I was growing up, I always imagined that I would become an engineer, like my father and like his father. I read a lot and wrote a fair amount, but I really didn’t take those activities seriously. What I thought was important was building things, producing things, transforming raw materials into finished products. I started college as an engineering student and suffered through nearly three years of it. I was a mediocre student at best and found no joy in any of my courses. At age twenty, I dropped out but stayed on campus, writing ads for a local radio station and pulling books off the university library shelves to read for my own sheer pleasure. And I started writing stories. Over the course of that year I came to realize that writing had become paramount to me, that I felt most fulfilled when I was working to express something in words. When I returned to college, I majored in English, contributed to the college literary magazine, became editor of the newspaper, and thrived on it all. Writing has been central to my life ever since.
What is the biggest joy of writing for you? Does this change depending on the genre you're working in or the project you are working on? And what is the biggest challenge? Does this also change depending on the genre and project?
Whenever I hear someone claim that he or she loves to write, I think immediately that the person doesn’t really know what writing is about. I have written a book and close to three hundred other publications, and I still find writing to be as difficult and agonizing as it was when I started out. In fact, before I begin any new writing project I have a moment of panic. I think, This time it won’t happen. This time I won’t get the piece to come together. It isn’t until I get a page or two of draft down that I start to recover my confidence and start moving the piece to something worthwhile. The process of writing is a process of discovery—of finding insights and connections you never before realized and of advancing your thinking in surprising ways. It’s amazing what can come out of the discipline of writing: out of concentrating intensely and revising constantly and, as Beckett says, failing better. That’s the joy I find in writing. Not the process, but the final result of the process. Not everything I’ve written is memorable. But I feel enlarged from doing it.
What are some of your most vivid memories of teaching at Denison?
Probably the course I’ve enjoyed teaching most at Denison is an introductory class in nonfiction, The Literature of Travel. I was invited to create it early in my Denison career, and I’ve taught it once a year ever since. I have to admit that it’s an easy course to teach because it lends itself to pretty much everything we call literature. I think John Gardner stated that all literature can be reduced to two stories: a person goes on a journey and a stranger comes to town. And of course those two stories are actually the same story just told from different points of view. I have many warm memories about teaching that course, and most of them have to do with students letting me know years afterwards that they continue to read travel narratives and that they have made their own travels to fascinating places—and that the desire for both pursuits began in my class.
What do you find particular about Denison—about its faculty, its students, its location, etc.—that sets it apart from other universities?
Denison has become better and better over the years that I’ve been here—or maybe over the years I’ve come to realize how good it is. The faculty members are stronger and more engaged in their disciplines and in teaching; the students are committed to learning and are open to possibility through personal involvement; the campus is a wonderful mix of tradition and progress. The hardest thing about my leaving Denison now is that I’m enjoying everything Denison has to offer more than ever.
What brought you back to Reynolds year after year?
I love the non-stop intensity of the Reynolds Workshop. To have thirty teenagers devoted to writing convene on campus for a week and throw themselves headlong into our program is thrilling. The passion and energy of these young writers is truly inspiring. Some wind up at Denison, giving me the opportunity to continue to watch them grow as students and writers. But wherever they wind up, it’s great to follow their progress and to take pride in the small part that Reynolds has played in it.
What are your plans now? What are you most looking forward to about retirement?
I am excited to be moving to Ashland, a small town in southern Oregon, where I plan to write on deferred and new projects. I will have no excuses for leaving them incomplete. Ashland is the home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, so I will get to a number of its productions. I will also take advantage of Ashland’s hiking and biking trails, vineyards, and bookstores. And I will travel. First trip: Goa, India in September to attend the wedding of two Denison graduates.
Dennis’ Questions for Anne
When did you know you wanted to devote yourself to writing? What during your Denison experience sharpened that notion?
Writing—storytelling, playing with language, painting images with words—has always been a central part of my identity. Even as a very small child, I used to run around making up rhymes. Before my hand could shape letters, my parents would staple printer paper together for me and I would draw out the stories in my head and narrate the words for them to write down. Some of the stories are pretty creepy! There’s one that has a line like, “‘What if spring never comes and all the animals die?’ cried Mr. Puddleduck.” I was a very serious little kid.
The classes and literary experiences I had years later at Denison, then, helped develop my passion for scholarship and showed me what a writing life could look like in a professional sense. I think I took fourteen English courses while I was there (twelve in literature)—I couldn’t get enough! I especially loved Critical Theory with Dr. Combe, Native American Literature with Dr. Krumholz, and a course on The Canterbury Tales with Dr. Porchedu. I’ll never forget how he had us go on our own pilgrimage one day in April (when the travelers in The Canterbury Tales started their journey) and we got to climb the Swasey bell tower. The professors I had at Denison were so brilliant and devoted to their scholarship and to their students. They showed me how to live a life where my love for literature and for writing really mattered every single day.
What connections do you find between writing and teaching?
I find that I approach both writing and teaching in drafts. In terms of both my critical and creative writing, I am a big believer in simply getting the work done, even if it’s rough. I can always go back and revise once the words are out of my mind and onto the page. Likewise, teaching occupies my brain long after the class has ended. I am constantly mulling over in my head, Did I give that student the most helpful advice for her poem? Did I lead that discussion on Uncle Tom’s Cabin in the most productive way? Did my explanation of thesis statements make any sense at all? But I find that, even if I was confusing or unhelpful the first time around, there is always a second chance. I can always revise and redefine my teaching skills for the next day, the next course, the next semester. I don’t think I will ever stop learning how to be a better writer and teacher. But to me, that is both the challenge and the fun of these professions.
Do you have to think differently when you write in different genres? Do you use different gears when you write poetry and fiction/nonfiction?
I am rather old-fashioned in that I think really the biggest—and, maybe, the only, though I don’t know if I want to go ahead and make the distinction just yet—divider between poetry (verse) and fiction/nonfiction (prose) is the line. Whether I write fiction, nonfiction, or poetry, I am most interested in imagery, language, and character. I confess that, even though my MFA was in Fiction Writing, I am pretty hopeless at devising plot. I still have big dreams of writing a novel one day, but for now, I would much rather luxuriate in the language and character description than figure out how to move anyone from Point A to Point B.
I took a nonfiction writing course both in my MFA and PhD and enjoyed the ability to actually explain certain situations or scenes that I don’t really get the chance to do in poetry, since to me poetry depends so much on the unit of the line. Here I like to think of that Lorine Niedecker poem “Poet’s work”:
Grandfather
advised me:
Learn a trade
I learned
to sit at desk
and condense
No layoff
from this
condensery
The heart of poetry is to say as much as you can with as little words as possible. The line is what shapes this “condensery” for me.
You're a Reynolds veteran of many years. Why do you keep coming back each summer?
Yes—this summer will be my eighth as a Reynolds TA. Reynolds is my favorite week of the whole year for many reasons. It centers me year after year, often just when I start to feel a little jaded and worn down at the end of another school year. There is nothing quite like the joy of witnessing a group of young writers finding each other for the first time in their lives. This is something that I definitely take for granted, seeing that I have lived in intensive writing communities since I began my English degree at Denison in 2004 and then on through my MFA, year of adjunct work, and PhD. I have gotten used to being surrounded by other writers and not having to explain certain aspects about myself. I have gotten used to having readers, supporters, fellow complainers, and inspirations. But for the most part, the Reynolds students have never experienced this kind of community. As individuals, they are the “weird” ones, the only ones in their high school class or group of friends who keep journals or write poetry, the only ones who would rather read a book on a Friday night than go to the mall. I am not saying that the writers who come to Reynolds are homogenous by any means; rather, they are surprisingly diverse in their interests, talents, and backgrounds. And yet, this is the first time that they can truly connect with a whole group of people who is obsessed with reading and writing just like they are. These kids LOVE each other. Year after year, I have never seen a group of people bond as quickly as they do. It’s a pretty amazing experience to be a part of.
I also come back to Reynolds summer after summer because my fellow TAs are some of my best friends in the world. Dan Sweatt jokes that our official Reynolds’ motto (for us TAs) should be: “Re-open. Re-cauterize.” We stay up late every night laughing, telling stories, talking, and (sometimes) crying about all the crazy, joyous, and heavy stuff going on in our lives, and no matter what is happening year after year, we are always there for each other. Just like our students, we need each other. We are family.
We started out as professor/student (although you never had the advantage of taking a course from me), and now we regard each other as colleagues. Were there adjustments that you found yourself making during this transition?
I feel that the common experience of teaching and trying to make a life out of writing has bonded you and me together, just as it has bonded me and the other faculty members at Reynolds. As I expressed earlier, teaching and writing are both life-long pursuits. I have learned a lot from you as well as from the other faculty members, but I don’t think that there is a certain point when anyone knows “it all.” The conversation is ongoing.
What do you imagine the future holds for you? What problems? What hopes?
Well, as rewarding as being a graduate student has been for both my MFA and PhD, I am ready to shed the formal identity (and salary!) of “student” pretty soon. Going on the job market is a scary prospect, but it is also an exciting one. My dream is to teach literature and creative writing at a liberal arts school like Denison. I am trusting in my professors and mentors that they will steer me in the right direction, although I still have a lot to learn. I hope to find a good home for my new book. I hope that I will never lose the drive to write. I hope that I can find a way to wear my lucky cowboy boots on an interview, though my mentors would probably advise me otherwise. I have so many hopes and fears about the future for the next couple of years that sometimes it feels very overwhelming. Yet, I know that, no matter what, my Reynolds family will be there to hear all about it this June. I am so lucky that Denison has become such a special and grounding place for me long after my four years as a student. Every summer at Reynolds, it always feels like I am coming home.