by Teow Lim Goh
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Teow writing on the edge...[/caption]
A week after I returned from the mountains to the plains, I keep thinking about the book talk on Jake Adam York’s Murder Ballads. I regret not having known Jake when he was around, and even before I knew that we would be talking about his first book at Grand Lake, I had begun to delve into his short but astounding oeuvre. In Murder Ballads we see the beginnings of what would become his project: remembering the martyrs of the Civil Rights movement.
His is a poetry of witness. Many of the stories he tells are little remembered, and in writing about them, he brings them back to light. They are uncomfortable, and as the George Zimmerman shooting of Travyon Martin and the subsequent verdict showed, we have come so far and yet so much of the work of the Civil Rights movement is unfinished. His work is political but not polemical. In writing these stories as poetry, he delves into our hearts and wrangles with the complexities within.
The question of what it means to be a writer has been on my mind for some time before I returned to Grand Lake. At the book talk, Chris Ransick and Mike Henry told of Jake’s civic participation, which extends beyond the subjects he grapples in his poetry. He gave talks at the Mixed Taste lectures at MCA Denver, which I now regret to have missed. He read his poems at a barbecue convention. He was a public figure, engaged with the world within and around him.
After the talk, after most of us had left the chapel overlooking the lake, Susan Cable asked, “Are there organizations that are working to preserve his work?”
His death came too soon, but it is up to us to keep his work alive: by talking about it, by writing about it, by putting his books into others’ hands.
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It might look like a high school yearbook picture, but that's because Teow's really young and she was in front of an almost fake looking (but oh so real) backdrop.[/caption]
Jo Harkins, who has been my roommate at Grand Lake for the last two years, calls the week long retreat Writers Camp. This year I quickly fell into a schedule: a short walk on the trails before breakfast, a morning workshop (Chris Ransick obviously designed his workshops with me in mind), some writing in the afternoon, another walk or a nap in the late afternoon, readings after dinner, and lots of scotch. For me, the retreat was less about getting work done than to step back from the bustle of everyday life, hang out with other writers, and gain perspective both on my work and the writing life.
The readings are the highlight of Grand Lake. All day we wrestle with our most private selves and strive to put down our thoughts on paper. At night we read these thoughts aloud to others and listen to what others have to say. Some stories are heartbreaking, some are funny, and J. Diego Frey’s poems ended up in a chandelier. But when I think back to the readings, the word that comes to mind is vulnerable. We are putting our most intimate thoughts out there. The things we find difficult to say even to our loved ones.
At Grand Lake, at Lighthouse, we have a community that holds us, supports us, and cheers us on as we do this work.
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I have nothing against social media and other forms of online interaction. But we – or at least I – spend so much time in front of a screen that it can be isolating.
On the first day at Grand Lake, on Bill Henderson’s Hike and Write on the North Inlet Trail, I spent more time listening to the birds, watching the river simper around a bend, and looking at the clouds blow across the peaks than writing. I wanted to stay in the sensuality of the natural world, in this realm beyond thought.
Likewise, at Grand Lake, and Lighthouse for that matter, we get to interact with the community in person, something that seems to be dwindling in our increasingly busy and mediated lives. I don’t remember all the conversations I had, whether fueled by the lack of oxygen at altitude or the varieties of scotch, but there is something to be said about just hanging out, just connecting, just being.
I like to think that we carry this community with us as we venture back into our daily lives.
I like to think of this community as a ground on which we stand as we engage with the world.
This is cross-posted.
