Wildacres Writers Workshop

View from the top of Mt. Mitchell

It occurs to me that, though I have posted many photographs, I haven’t really said much about my workshop experience at Wildacres.

Truth is, I’m not sure where to begin.

Maybe with the director, Judi Hill. From the very beginning, her self-parodying humor set the tone, let us all know that, though we might do serious work, we were not going to be allowed to take ourselves too seriously. There is much laughter at Wildacres. And more than a little theater, signalled by the two bullwhips with which Judi, who may stand 5′2″, threatened to keep us all in line. And perhaps by the black bra printed with dozens of huge red lips that hung from the lectern for several days, a gift from grateful alums. Judi’s only complaint: it was a 32B.

Theater continued with the Fourth of July party, when a reading of the Bill of Rights reminded us of what our country is all about, the costume party, the Gong Show. And of course faculty readings and student readings.

What a theater it is, a stone-paved patio at 3,300 feet, looking out over the Blue Ridge toward Mt. Mtichell, the tallest peak in the Appalachians (6,684 feet). The patio is flanked by two lodges, both with a second storey gallery that makes a perfect balcony for rocking and looking.

Then there was our workshop leader, John Lane, a man with a salt-and-pepper beard and laughing brown eyes, who had a line of talk about poetry almost as good as James Baker Hall’s. Our conversation ranged from Robert Pogue Harrison’s Forests to Leo Marx’s The Machine in the Garden, with stops along the way to discuss poets as different as Frank O’Hara, Hadyn Carruth, and James Dickey. (Lane has written a book entitled Chattooga: Descending into the Myth of Deliverance River that I am very curious to look into.) And always circling back to metaphor, to the basic American metaphor. Needless to say, this was all meat and potatoes to one like me who is writing a collection about the beginnings of the westward expansion.

Lane is a poet (read the Mad Kayaker poems), a naturalist, an activist, well versed in the literature of Wendell Berry. He said, and I think I have this just about right, that Kentucky has never been able to get past the metaphor of the frontier.

And then there were my companions in workshop: a chemist, a biologist, an archeologist (Egyptology), a physicist/astronomer, a middle school teacher, a retired University administrator, a plantation owner/tree farmer, and me. We ranged in age from forty-something to seventy-something. The combination made for some free-ranging discussion on subjects like a poet’s obligation to the “facts.”

John Lane's poetry workshop

Oh yes, and there’s the place. No traffic noises, always someone picking a guitar or a mandolin somewhere in the background, the meals are family style and good, the air is clean. And the views are fantastic.

I was on scholarship this year, the Katherine Osborne Scholarship, so I was given this wonderful experience for the investment of 2 ½ tanks of gas. My life, my writing, have been much enriched and I am deeply grateful.

I’ve been posting all those pictures to show you a bit of what I saw, and I’ll post more over the next few days at my poor neglected Flickr account. I’ll add links below as I post.

Flickr set: Blue Ridge Parkway
Flickr set: Crabtree Falls

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