SLF Album: An Informal History of Notre Dame's Sophomore Literary Festival 1967-1996 0268014817, 9780268014810

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Slf

© 1997 by the University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana 46556 All Rights Reserved

Book design by Wendy McMillen Set in 11 / 14 Perpetua by Books International

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data DeCicco, Linda. SLF album : an informal history of Notre Dame's Sophomore Literary Festival, 1967-1996 I Linda DeCicco. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-268-01481-7 (alk. paper) 2. Literature­ 1. University of Notre Dame. Sophomore Literary Festival. Anecdotes. 3. Authors-Anecdotes. I. Title. PN33.D43 1996 96 27137 8w.9'005-dc20 CIP

The author and publisher are grateful to the following for permission to reproduce copyright material: Diane Wakoski, from the poem "I Have Learned to Live W ith My Face." John Hollander, for excerpts from Reflections in Espionage,© 1976 by John Hollander. Reprinted by permission. Samuel Hazo, from the poem "Breakfasting with Sophomores," The Holy Surprise efRight Now (University of Arkansas Press, 1996).

Ernest Sandeen, from the poem "The Game and the Word," Collected Poems, 1953-1977 (University of Notre Dame Press, 1977). Jon Silkin, from the poem "Adam." University of Pittsburgh Press, for Haiku "Eastern guard tower" and Haiku "Morning sun slants cell," from The Essential Etheridge Knight by Etheridge Knight,© 1986. Reprinted by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press. The South Bend Tribune, for permission to reproduce photographs. The Archives of the University of Notre Dame, for permission to repro­ duce photographs and other documentary material. oo The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI z39.48-1984

Contents

Preface

vii

Awards Won by Sophomore Literary Festival W riters

IX

Foreword: Forward to the Past, by W illiam O'Rourke I.

1967

Planting the Seed

XIII

2.

1968

That Was the Week That Was

3.

1969

A Tough Act to Follow

4.

1970

5.

4 IO

15

A Woman at the Podium

19

Run by Sophomores: The Babysitters

6.

1971

The Play's the Thing

7.

1972

Right On

8.

1973

An Excuse for Discourse

9. IO.

1974 1975

31 Back to the Garden High Drama and Swimming Pools

II

1976

Giant among Giants

13.

1977

A Toast to Our Lady

14.

1978

Amazing Grace

15.

1979

Homer et al.

16.

1980

A Mystery Masquerading as a Banality

17.

1981

A Whetstone for the Mind

18.

1982

Nice Guys Finish Last

61

Benevolent Calamities

64

12.

On the Menu

19.

22

25 28 36

39

42 49

45

52

20.

1983

These Harsh Badlands

21.

1984

Homeward Bound

58

67 70

55

Contents

vi

22.

1985

In the Flesh

23.

1986

Sailing the Sea of Literature

73

24.

1987

A Fine Resource

25.

1988

From a Prison Cell Pen Pals

26. 27.

77

So 82

85

1989

Going through Hoops

89

28.

1990

What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been

29.

1991

Southern Hospitality

30.

1992

Haunted by the Holy Ghost

31.

97

Straight from the Horse's Mouth

32.

1993

A Patchwork Quilt

33.

1994

Lifeblood of Literature

34.

1995

With a Lot of Luck

35.

1996

A Family Affair

113

SLF Chairmen

119

SLF Writers

91

94

104 ro7 109

121

Illustrations following page s 4

100

In 1969, as a high school student in South Bend, I met my first author. My En­ glish teacher at Marian High School, Ed Kelly, rounded up his class of juniors and took us to hear John Knowles at Notre Dame's Sophomore Literary Fes­ tival. We had just read

and we were about to look its author

straight in the eye. The experience changed my life. Like others quoted here, I too was amazed to discover that real people write books. Extraordinary books are written by people who may appear to be quite ordinary. Every student, and even some professors, recalled that same awe at being in the presence of such talent. Through the years, I came back again and again. Long before I covered the festival for the

I regularly attended. Each SLF schedule was

duly tacked onto my refrigerator door. I went to see writers I had read-Ken Kesey, Susan Sontag, John Barth-and writers I hadn't-Lucille Clifton, Larry Brown, Harold Brodkey, C. K. Williams, Diane Wakoski. In researching this book, I was amazed at how open and gracious the writ­ ers were-and how detailed their memories of their visits here. Most of them regularly make the rounds from campus to campus, yet many talked about how their readings at the University of Notre Dame were special. The reason doesn't lie simply in visiting this charming Catholic university smack dab in the heartland. What sets the Sophomore Literary Festival apart from the others is the sophomores themselves. Again and again, authors at­ tributed the success of their visits to the young students who ran the festival­ the students who made out their wish lists of writers, sent the invitations, scraped together the cash, picked them up at the airport, fed them, feted them. The enthusiasm of these sophomores did not end when they graduated from Notre Dame. These students have taken their can-do attitude into the uni­ versities where they teach, the corporations they run, the communities where they live.

X

Awards

BOL LINGEN PRIZE IN POET RY Karl Shapiro (1969) DavidIgnatow (1977) Howard Nemerov (1981) Anthony Hecht (1983) John Hollander (1983) John Ashbery (1985) Stanley Kunitz (1987) NEW YOR K DR AMA CRITICS' CIR CLE AWARDS Tennessee Williams (1944-45, 1954-55, 1961-62) Edward Albee (1962-63) Tom Stoppard (1967-68, 1975-76, 1983-84) Jason Miller (1971-72) David Hare (1982-83) NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS' CIR CLE AWARD John Ashbery (1975) Stanley Elkin (1982) Sharon Olds (1984) R obert Hass (1984) L ouise Gluck (1985) Joseph Brodsky (1986) C. K.Williams (1987) Donald Hall (1988) PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION N. Scott Momaday (1969) Alison L urie (1985) L arry McMurtry (1986) PULITZER PRIZE FOR DR AMA Tennessee Williams (1948, 1955) Arthur Miller (1949) Edward Albee (1967, 1975, 1994) Charles G ordone (1970) Jason Miller (1973)

Foreword

(Library Journal

Foreword

xvii

down, VCRs up? Books out, cassettes in?" The Age of Reagan and the spirit that had initiated the SLF were at odds, and the period of spontaneous combustion throughout the literary world was now flaming out. The teaching of creative writing (especially at the graduate level) changed, too, over the years. When I attended Columbia University in 1968, the genera­ tion of writers who taught me were still functioning in the older "writer­ in-residence" model. Even the pleasant odor of the title, "writer-in-residence," bespoke the lack of emphasis on classroom teaching and the desirability of learn­ ing more through bodily osmosis, personal contact, simple talk. The newer generation of creative writing teacher has a different work ethic-the irony is that writers employed today are functioning as old-style new critics with their students, poring over their manuscripts, rather than offering primarily the sub­ lime conversational generalizations of those who had taught them. At the SLF in 1983 Richard Brautigan became symbolic of the era going­ going-gone when he gave what turned out to be his last major reading before his suicide in 1984. He was subdued, melancholy, and seemingly disheartened; in the question-and-answer period following his reading, he seemed put out at the as­ sumption embedded in a student question that he was a "commercial" writer. He wanted to be seen as an authentic Hippie, one who did nothing for money. He didn't "sell out," as his generation would have it. Fortune had come his way. He was lucky. Though his luck, it appeared, was running thin. The distinction between "serious" and "commercial" was being used more often in the early eighties, separating writers on the basis of audience size and, hence, income. That tension was always at play during the eighties and beyond, the sophomores always looking for "big names," dreaming often of inviting Stephen King, among other such luminaries. And now, since King has published in The New Yorker ( yes, The New Yorker) and has had the same story reprinted in the 0. Henry Awards volume for 1996, he is certainly certified as "serious." Those changes mark the end of another literary era, when distinctions such as serious and commercial have begun to fade. In 1984 two African-American writers were at the Festival. For a decade the Festival had been a very white and mostly male entertainment. Here, too, the times were finally catching up. Ralph Ellison had come in 1968 and the Festival

a

became, through coincidence, tiny footnote in the history of American race re­ lations, insofar as Martin Luther King was murdered while the Festival was on. From all accounts (including Linda DeCicco's), it was a moving week, marked by

Foreword

long

The Runaway Soul

1967 ffiarch �-8 1.

Plantin� the �eed

• ]. Richard Rossie, chairman •

William Faulkner, who died in 196 2, inspired the founding of the Sophomore Literary Festival. As a senior in high school, J. Richard Rossie attended a Faulk­

ner symposium at the University of Mississippi, sixty miles from Rossie's home in Clarksdale, Mississippi. "I went to a portion of this festival and was very impressed with it," said Rossie, who began reading Faulkner in high school. "This was a time of my coming of age during the Civil Rights movement, and I was struggling with the whole race issue," he continued. Living in Mississippi, Rossie followed the activities of James W. Silver, the only white professor at Ole Miss who befriended James Meredith when he integrated the University of Mis­ sissippi in 1963. "I followed Dr. Silver's involvement with a keen interest because I greatly admired his heroism." Forced out of the state of Mississippi because of his pro­ integration stance, Silver was recruited by Rev. Theodore Hcsburgh to teach history at Notre Dame in 1964. Although Rossie says his decision to enroll at Notre Dame in 1965 had noth­ ing to do with Silver, the two met on campus. And when Rossie set out to create a literary festival at Notre Dame, he turned to his mentor. James Silver and his wife, Dutch, had known Faulkner personally and remained friends with William Faulkner's family.

1968 ffiarch 31-April 6 2.

That Was the Week that Was • John Mroz, chairman •

Granville Hicks Wright Morris Norman Mailer Joseph Heller Ralph Ellison William F. Buckley Jr. Kurt Vonnegut

If 1967 laid the groundwork for the Sophomore Literary Festival, 1968 rolled out the red carpet. With searchlights scanning the skies over Stepan Center, Norman Mailer and his entourage of actors screened Mailer's "Beyond the Law," Notre Dame's first world premiere since "Knute Rockne, All-American" in 1940. The sophomores rented a red carpet. As exhilarating as the April 2 gala was, Mailer had given the festival his best stuff the night before. His film-an amateurish cop caper-paled against his reading from Armies

ef the Night (then titled The Battle ef the Pentagon), his soon­

to-be published account of an anti-war march at the Pentagon. "All I remember about those days [at Notre Dame] were that they passed in a glow . . . It was one of the better times in my life," said Mailer in the spring of 1995. Mailer's reading was the second night of a festival kicked off by critic Granville Hicks, who titled his speech "A Bad Time." The senior contribut­ ing editor and literary editor of the Saturday Review magazine presented a dour "state of the union" address, touching on pollution, atomic holocaust, crime, and juvenile delinquency.

That Was the Week That Was

5

Hicks suggested in his keynote address that the week's writers may have some answers. "Writers are important in our time because imagination is important," said Hicks. "I think we can learn from them the quality of the mind." As these literary lions-Joseph Heller, Wright Morris, Ralph Ellison, William F. BuckleyJr., Kurt Vonnegut, Hicks, and Mailer-roared their way through the week, the nation played out its own drama. And just as history intruded on the writers that week, the writers themselves found way s to make their imprint on history through their political statements. Heller, who arrived at South Bend's airport the same time as Senator Robert F. Kennedy, wore a McCarthy button. Vonnegut joined Heller later that week at a press conference, where the two writers announced plans to campaign for Senator Eugene McCarthy. Buckley railed against Robert F. Kennedy. As Hicks delivered his somber "state of the union" address on Sunday, March 31, President Ly ndonJohnson announced his decision not to run for a second term. The following afternoon, Wright Morris lectured on "Literature and Life," followed by Mailer's anti-war reading Monday night. Tuesday night's movie premiere was followed Wednesday by William F. Buckley 's call for the United States to step up the Vietnam War and his rampage against anti-war riots. On Thursday, Robert F. Kennedy was welcomed by cheering mobs on the Notre Dame campus as he stumped for the Democratic presidential nomina­ tion. Later that day, the mood dramatically shifted when Martin Luther King's assassination was reported. "We hadJoseph Heller in for dinner when a student came in and said Martin Luther King had been killed. His [Heller's) first reaction was that he couldn't possibly read," remembers Notre Dame professorJohn Matthias. "Then he de­ cided to read all the dark and brooding passages of

Catch-22 ."

Two hours after the announcement of King's death, Heller told a somber audience in Washington Hall, "I don't know what to say. I' m stunned." Heller went on to read those sober selections. F riday afternoon, Kurt Vonnegut,

a la Mark Twain, injected some comic

relief ("English departments don't produce writers, because they teach taste too soon"), much as the pallor of the funeral parlor is broken by a joke-cracking wiseguy (often the person most seared by the death). That night, Ralph Ellison arrived to a standing ovation and addressed the dis­ crepancy between America's professed ideals and the condition of blacks. "We

Catch-22

dents find the reclusive Ellison in New York City. ("People told us we'd never get Ellison to come," said Mroz.) When the students traveled to California for Wright Morris, he agreed to come but only if he didn't have to fly. (He came by train and bus.) Buckley had been scheduled by Notre Dame's Student Union Academic Commission,which invited the SLF committee to co-sponsor the event. "One guy we could not get to was

D. Salinger," said Mroz."And we tried

every thing." Even sophomore chutzpah and ingenuity couldn't move the reclu­ sive writer of

(Mroz should take heart; no one since has

managed to budge the hermit.) Finding Vonnegut was simple for Mroz, whose family had a house just down the road on Cape Cod. "We knocked on the door ...and spent a couple hours talking to him," said Mroz.Vonnegut agreed to come and invited the suit-and-tic sophomores to dinner the next day. "They [the authors] found it amazing," said Mroz."Here we were in coats and ties.We wanted to show them respect." Years later,Mailer expressed a reciprocal respect: "It was highly unusual and courteous that they came to my house," Mailer said."I was pleased to be invited." "I had alway s been curious about Notre Dame when I was growing up in Brooklyn ...Why is it everyone in New York is a Notre Dame fan?" he said, laughing. Mailer attributed much of the success of the week to Mroz: "He was a terrific kid ...He had the kind of spirit that made it work." Mroz and Mailer repeated their "dune walks " through the summer of 1967. Mailer's idea to premiere his movie was actually an afterthought."It [the movie] came up during one of the walks," said Mroz. Looking back, Mroz agreed with most critics (and most of the audience ): "The movie itself was awful." "We had our film on one reel and our sound on another.It went in and out of synch," said Mailer."The sound was terrible.I don't know if anyone ever heard a word ...but the kids loved it any way." "As an event,it was a blast," Mroz added.Over four thousand people crowded Stepan Center that night."But it was not a good flick.It was a camp night.Every­ body had a good time."

1969 ffiarch 23-29

3. A Tou�h Act to follmu • James E. Metzger, chairman • LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) Sidney Carrio George Plimpton Peter De Vries John Knowles John Barth

"We did it.We showed it could be done. And I think it showed everyone that this literary festival is here to stay," said Chairman James Metzger of the Sopho­ more Literary Festival that followed 1968's extravaganza. After the 1969 festival, Metzger received a letter of congratulations from his classmate Pat Doody: "I would like to congratulate you on a job well done on your Sophomore Literary Festival ...I think a lot of people thought that ... it could only happen once in a thousand years. I don't think a lot of people had a lot of trust or hope for a festival this year . . . You had a tough act to follow." John Mroz and the 1968 sophomores had little money left over from their extravaganza to pass along to the '69 crew. "I don't remember that there was any money left," said Metzger. "We asked for student government to help and we got some money from them, but we knew that would not be nearly enough.We decided to do some fund-raising through a film festival." Metzger estimates they raised about S6,ooo to S8,ooo on the film series. A month before the festival, Metzger sent out letters addressed to "faculty and friends," asking for patrons at S5.

A Tough Act to Follow

,,

12

SLF ALBUM

"Frankly,had I known how it was going to turn out,I would have skipped the whole thing," said Metzger.The northeast was hit that night by one of the worst snowstorms of the season."This bus ride was one of the most arduous and took almost twice as long as it should have." When Metzger called Barth from the bus station,the author was none too welcoming. "Barth is not particularly anxious to see me at that point.It's getting kind of late and he is going to take his wife to the hairdresser. "This is the story I get as I'm freezing cold at the bus station,glad to be alive after this lousy bus trip.And he says,'Hey,can you hurry over here?I've got something else to do."' When Metzger finally arrived, Barth was cordial as they talked in his study. "I think the long trip that I had made ...was like the key turning the lock. Finally,he said,'Look,we'll come for your fee,' which I think was about half of the$800 or$ 1 ,ooothat he wanted,'But don't burden me with too much else to do ...I don't want any cocktail parties ...Don't introduce me."' "He's the only person that we didn't introduce to his audience," Metzger said, laughing. Barth said he had his routine down,he'd read for ninety minutes.And that's exactly what he did, cracking up the crowd with "Menelaiad," an Odyssean spoof from Lost in the Funhouse. Holding up two-foot by four-foot "flashcards " with quotation marks,Barth flashed various cards as he went deeper and deeper into the story. He filled Washington Hall that night,the festival's concluding reading,and "put on an extraordinary show," said Metzger. Instead of reading from his works,Knowles discussed the craft of writing."I write books to learn what I think," he told the audience. When asked during a question-and-answer period about literary criticism, he responded,"I don't like to over-examine my work because I took so much trouble putting it together.Why should I take it apart?" George Plimpton had perhaps the "most notoriety of anyone we brought," said Metzger."He got a lot of attention." "A couple of curious things happened " with Plimpton that year,the former chairman added.

1970

April 12-16

4. A Woman at the Podium •

Robert M. Hall, chairman

•

Nathaniel Tarn Tom Wolfe Mar9aret Atwood Gary Snyder Allen Planz Ken Smith Anselm Hollo Michael Anania Lee Harwood Ishmael Reed

"Notre Dame was still pretty much a male bastion then," said 1969's SLF chair­ man James Metzger. "We were just beginning to find some ways to convince the administration 'Let's get some women in here. If nothing else, let's get Saint Mary's involved on a more substantive or meaningful level."' W hat the 1969 organizers set out to do-bring women into the festival-the 1970 organizers did. Robert Hall, the 1970 chairman, told the student newspaper, The Observer: "We would like some girls from Saint Mary's to join in. We plan to have a com­ mittee made up of Saint Mary's girls, and we are now looking for girls to staff it." The "girls" not only had a hand in that year's SLF, they had a voice as well. Margaret Atwood, the Canadian novelist fresh from the release of The Edible Woman, was the first woman to read at the Sophomore Literary Festival.

Atwood was wedged into a "podium of poets." "This was a time when poetry was the answer to people's problems," said Michael Anania, poetry editor of Swallow Press. "It was the middle of the revo­ lution. There was the notion that poetry was the medium through which people could find the truth. It was quite a magical occasion." "We brought in a ton of poets," said Rick Fitzgerald, Hall's co-chairman.

18

SLF ALBUM

detours from his speech, with digressions on contemporary life ("drive-in restaurants ...operate on the moth principle" ...drawing people in with colors like "hospital fruit-basket orange or wild pink") and television newscasters ("They faithfully read AP or UPI wire copy every night after putting on their make-up"). "Today's heroes are just like the heroes of the old-time cowboy movies except they all have skinny shoulders," Wolfe told the standing-room-only crowd at Washington Hall. "Dustin Hoffman and Ario Guthrie do the same things that the old-time cowboys did.They are out against the system; instead of Indians they are out after people over thirty and instead of the bad guys they have the Chicago police force." Richard Bizot, then a professor at Notre Dame, remembers Ishmael Reed reading from his 1967 novel, Free-lance Pallbearers. "It was zany, off the wall," said Bizot."The students for the most part were baffled." Readings and parties and lectures are all part of the Sophomore Literary Fes­ tival. Notre Dame certainly was not alone in hosting such events, but again and again, authors emphasize that it may offer the best. "I went to another few such events after the Notre Dame one but never really recaptured that first experience of people being genuinely interested in what I was doing," Tarn concludes.

Sophomore Literary Festival

1971

ffiarch 28-Hpril 4

6. The Play\ the Thin� •

Kevin O'Connor, chairman

•

Richard Gilman John Hawkes Leonard Michaels Tony Bill Tom Stoppard Israel Horovitz Charles Cordone

Czech-born British playwright Tom Stoppard was a major talent by the time he spoke at Notre Dame. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, first produced in 1966, had sealed the young pl aywright's reputation. So what could possibly impress such a success? "The [Notre Dame) football team's quarterback babysat my two young chil­ dren," writes Stoppard, recalling his SLF visit. "They were too young to be impressed by that but I was." Stoppard himself made quite an impression on campus. Victor DeVincenzo, a graduate student teaching Freshman English, brought Stoppard in to talk to the students about the Stoppard play DeVincenzo had assigned. "A majority of those questions were insulting," remembers DeVincenzo. "They said things like 'I don't think it [the pl ay ] developed well.' "Stoppard was very gracious," said DeVincenzo, who apologized afterward. "Stoppard laughed it off, but I was angry," he continued. When the class next met, DeVincenzo said he "reamed them out." The moral of the story, DeVincenzo added: "A little knowledge is a danger­ ous thing."

No Place to be Somebody.

Goin9 Places.

City Boys Sec­

ond Skin,

1972

April 16-21

7. Ri�ht On • Ray Funk, chairman • Jerzy Kosinski Diane Wakoski Robert Coover Robert Duncan William H. Gass Allen Ginsberg Charles Newman

The Polish-born Jerzy Kosinski, who killed himself in 1991, stayed foremost in the minds of those at the 1972 literary festival. Notre Dame professor Richard Bizot remembers meeting Kosinski, with whom he kept in contact long after. When Bizot went to the University of North Florida the following year, he put that correspondence to use by setting up a phone interview between Kosinski and Bizot's students, who were study­ ing Kosinski's 1968 novel Steps. Beyond the walls of Notre Dame, students were reaping the benefits of the Sophomore Literary Festival. "Kosinski was fas­ cinating," says Bizot. "Of course, you never knew if he was telling the truth or not." That distinction between "truth" and "fiction" figures in poet Diane Wakoski's memory of Kosinski's reading. During the question-and-answer period, a student asked Kosinski, "Were you really the little boy in The Painted Bird?" "If you have to ask me that question," said Kosinski, "then you have no respect for my work. If the only reason that you believe something is that you can docu­ ment it, or someone will tell you that it actually happened, then you can't appreciate art. You should believe in the fictive reality, not what is behind the story."

Motorcycle Betrayal)

1973 April 1-6

8. Hn [xcuw for Di�courw • Frank Barrett, chairman • Gwendolyn Brooks Chaim Patak John Ashbery Kenneth Rexroth Stanley Elkin Jerome Rothenberg Arthur Miller

The Sophomore Literary Festival was at times as much political as literary.What these visiting writers called up in the students set off an explosion of ideas. Chairman Frank Barrett established the tone for the 1973 festival with these words: "Our committee is dedicating the Festival to all literary artists every­ where who are victims of political oppression because of their beliefs.The great number of poets, novelists, and journalists imprisoned because they risked expressing their convictions in literary form is a repugnant effrontery to hu­ manity ...We hope too that the boldness of those condemned to punishment because they did not fear to speak out will enhearten the timorous or intimidated among us." This may seem to be mighty sober stuff for a sophomore. But Barrett, who was majoring in Soviet studies, was thinking about such issues."I was a fan of Solzhenitsy n.And Joseph Brodsky was just kicked out of the country." Barrett,who now teaches at Naval Post Graduate School in Monterey, Cali­ fornia,says much of his work is writing."I need to publish articles," said Barrett. "What it [the SLF] did was humanize the published world ...Books didn't seem so out of reach ...just another human being trying to reach out to me.

1974 feb.10-16

9. Back to the Garden • Gary Zebrun, chairman • Stephen Spender John Hollander Robert Creeley Samuel Haza Michael McClure Bruce Jay Friedman Jason Miller Joyce Carol Oates Isaac Bashevis Singer

"Ours was more than an academic conference. It was a festival, like Wood­ stock." Gary Zebrun, the 1974 chairman, remains proud of the SLF he organized. "We wanted the writers to know they weren't here just to be speakers, but we invited them here as a tribute to their craft." This "tribute" included a dedication to W H. (Wystan Hugh) Auden, who agreed to read at the festival only days before his death in the fall of 1973. In Auden's place came Stephen Spender and John Hollander. "Spender was Auden's friend from college," said Hollander of the two British-born writers who were part of the Oxford Group of poets. "I came because I had known him [Auden] the last ten years of his life in this country." Spender and Hollander, considered chief intellectuals in the poetry world after the Pound era, opened the festival Sunday afternoon with each reading from his own poetry. Later that night, they celebrated Auden in an evening titled "In Memory of W H. Auden." They packed the house for each reading. "Spender, [who] had been one of his oldest friends, and I, as a younger and more recent one, were both saddened by the need for us to fill in, as well as we

32

SLF ALBUM

could, for him," said Hollander. "I do recall the joint reading we gave to a very large audience, and how well we were treated." Hollander, born and raised in New York City, included his recollections of that trip to snowed-in South Bend in the poem "Reflections on Espionage," published in a collection by the same name (New York: Atheneum, 1976). "Tallman" in the poem is Spender. Last night, Tallman and I met in a vast and Nearly empty part

ef a new aerodrome

And were strandedfor hours therefor hours at the edge Of the city ...The snow drifts Seem to get visibly higher outside and The wind whines hopelessly as if trying To reach a clearfrequency it might speak on.

Aside from his poem, Hollander has another reminder of his visit-a Notre Dame mug that he brought home to his daughter, now in her thirties. Another poet penned some lines about that year's festival experience. Samuel Hazo, a Notre Dame alumnus, wrote "Breakfasting with Sophomores" twenty­ five years later (The Holy Surprise

ef Right Now

[University of Arkansas Press,

19961). The poem begins: When I was what you are, the world was every place I'd yet to go. Nothing near, now or here meant more than something anywhere tomorrow. Today, the ratio's reversed. Backfrom anywhere, I watch the Indiana earth I walked measure Indiana's level weathers and remember ... Where did twenty�five Decembers go?

Hazo, like many of the SLF writers, remembers more than "breakfasting with sophomores." It was more like breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

1975 ffiarch 2-8 10.

Hi�h Drama and �UJimmin� Pooh •

Chris Mahon, chairman

•

Joseph Brodsky James Purdy James T. Farrell John Logan Michael Ryan Tillie Olsen Robert Bly Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Joseph Brodsky, who had been "invited " to leave Russia in 1972, opened the 1975 festival with a stunning reading in his native language. "Brodsky recited his poetry from memory in Russian and Ernie [Professor Ernest Sandeen] read the English translation," said chairman Chris Mahon. "It was quite a display of two styles-Ernie (read] very sensitively and quietly and then Brodsky just tore into them." Mahon was awed by the experiences of the Russian poet: "To see someone who had been in labor camps for 10 years ... and had a completely different view of God ...it was just an amazing kind of thing." The drama of this festival opener was followed by a series of "performance " arts: Lawrence Ferlinghetti reciting poetry atop a pile of pillows, Robert Bly donning colorful masks,and John Logan and son in a show of music and poetry. Robert Bly "shocked everybody," said Mahon. "Bly was one of the most flamboyant. He was flying into South Bend and a winter storm sent him to Chicago ...We didn't know where he was. "Here we were in the auditorium and the place was packed and about twenty minutes after he was scheduled to speak he sort of strolls in the back door." After his detour into Chicago,Bly came by bus to South Bend.

Yonnondio,

1976 feb.14-19

11.

Giant amon� Giant�

• Michelle Qyinn, chairman • Jorge Luis Borges May Sarton Louis Simpson Robert Hass John Gardner Stanle y Kunitz Galway Kinnell

Jorge Luis Borges opened seven nights of literature in 1976. It is fitting that one of the strongest festival programs started with the Argentine poet, essayist, and short-story writer. "He recited an essay on Walt Whitman one night and discussed Beowulf the following morning," said Notre Dame professor Ernest Sandeen. "From Whitman to Beowulf-now that's a spread ." Borges was feted at a party the night of his reading at the home of Notre Dame professor Albert LcMay. John Gardner, who was to read the following night, also attended. LeMay says more than a hundred people were there. "It was shoulder-to-shoulder," said LeMay. "The house was filled with Spanish-speaking people. Everyone wanted to sit on the sofa with Borges." LeMay remembers a rather forlorn Gardner sitting on the landing to the stairs in the midst of this flurry of activity. "Gardner was sitting on the stairs and he was a little disappointed because everyone was paying attention to Borges," said LeMay. "He said to me, 'I' m a writer too. '"

Although Borges was fed compliments, the blind poet was not fed all he wanted."I hear people saying how good everything is," Borges told his host."I wondered if I could have a bite of food." LeMay jumped up from his place beside Borges to bring him some of the hors d' oeuvres. LeMay and his guests were so excited about having Borges in their circle that they overlooked such details as sustenance. "Food was going around but nobody thought of feeding the poor man," said LeMay. Calling Borges "a giant among giants," LeM ay emphasized how easy Borges

was to talk to:

"He was so accessible. He was a cosmic figure and entertained questions­ great questions and stupid questions ('How many short stories have you writ­ ten?').He was a warm person. "We not only met the writer, we met the man, Borges the man." The following night,John Gardner read a chapter from his latest novel, which won a National Book Critics Circle Award later that year.The students presented Gardner with a new pipe, which he puffed away on during his reception. Robert Hass read next,followed by Louis Simpson. After May Sarton's reading the next night, Notre Dame professor Sonia Gernes hosted a party for her. "She was lovely and gracious," said Gernes."She invited me up to her house in Maine and I took her up on it. She had a big,beautiful house on a bay overlooking the Atlantic ...I got to see all these things that were scenes in her books." Sarton stayed at Notre Dame for almost a week."She was excited to give of herself to the students," said Gernes. As part of her stay, Sarton joined a seminar on the role of the poet. Her co­ panelists were Hass,Stanley Kunitz,and Galway Kinnell. "Poems would be easy if our heads were not full of the day's clatter," said Kunitz, who was next on the SLF schedule. "'Our task is to get to the other side,to the connectors with the stars and the tides. "I am convinced that it is a universal human attribute to want to play with words, to beat out rhythms, to fashion images, to tell a story, to construct forms," said Kunitz. On the seventh night, Kinnell closed the festival with selections from and

Giant Amona Giants

41

The 1976 festival was funded primarily with$11 ,ooo from the Cultural Arts Commission. Chairman Michelle Quinn, the first woman to head the Sopho­ more Literary Festival, said at the time, "My only worry is that nothing in my life will ever match this."

12.

On the ffienu

Some years it was potato chips and M&Ms in the library lounge. But for the most part it was elaborate dinners with faculty and students. While the writers fed the mind, the Notre Dame community fed the writers. "The most important events were dinners and parties afterward," said Frank Barrett, chairman for 1973. "We'd stay up till two or three in the morning." Barrett remembers planning the dinner party for Jewish novelist Chaim Potok at the home of Donald and Christine Costello. "I was going over the schedule with him and Potok said, 'Does Mrs. Costello know I don't eat meat?' So I said, 'Could you excuse me for a minute please?"' and Barrett raced to the phone. "I called her and was frantic. 'What are we going to do? Chaim Potok doesn't eat meat.' Mrs. Costello was really cool," said Barrett. "She said, 'I'll go out to the market and get some fish."' But it wasn't as simple as all that. "I fixed a separate Jewish menu," said Costello. "Eileen [Sandeen] brought blintzes. "And he [Potok] didn't eat any of it. He just sipped on a glass of whiskey through dinner." Christine Costello made Beef Bourguignon for Peter DeVries when the comic novelist came in 1969. "I remember going out and buying a big pot, a

only

1977 feb.13-19

13. •

A Toa�t to Our Lad� John Santos, chairman

•

Ken Kesey David lgnatow William StcifJord William Goyen William Burroughs Michael Benedikt Tennessee Williams Denise Levertov Sam Hamad Naomi Shihab Nye

Ken Kesey read from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. William S. Burroughs read from Naked Lunch. Tennessee Willams, sitting on the stage of Washington Hall sipping wine out of a bottle, raised the jug and drank a toast to "Our Lady" and the gay community at Notre Dame. "He [Williams] enjoy ed the theatrical moment," said Notre Dame professor Donald Costello. T heatrical moments followed one after the other at the 1977 Sophomore Lit­ erary Festival. Ken Kesey, fresh from a legal victory over One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, opened the week. "Kesey was in full glory," said Costello. "He had sued Milos Forman over the screenplay and won a S 1 .5 or S 2 million lawsuit." Another night Burroughs read in a very dour, very sober voice from Cities

ef

the Red Night, a novel published in 19 8 1 .

Tennessee Williams arrived for Burroughs' reading wearing a full-length fur coat. "I think it was leopard skin," said festival chairman John Santos. "Williams was sitting in the very first row and was hugging a jug of red wine

Cat on a Hot

1978 feb.12-18

14. •

Amazin� �rnce

Theresa Rebeck, chairman •

Edward Albee Karl Shapiro George MacBeth Elizabeth Sewell Pete Seeger Howard Nemerov Harlan Ellison Jerry DeFuccio Michael Sparough Ann Beattie

Songwriter Pete Seeger rocked Washington Hall with his folk music. "I was just a song leader after the first line of 'If I Had a Hammer,"' said Seeger. Eileen Sandeen, who hosted countless literary festival parties with her hus­ band, Notre Dame professor Ernest Sandeen, says Seeger was her favorite of all the SLF guests. She particularly remembers when he led the audience in singing "Amazing Grace." "He took the house down," said Sandeen. No one at that year's festival could forget the drama created by Seeger on stage. But what does that humble folkie remember best about his visit? "I was happy to meet Elizabeth Sewell," said Seeger. "I had written a song with lyrics from one of her poems. I had seen it in the newspaper and didn't know how to reach her." So at Notre Dame, the two writers first met. "It [the song] was a surprise to her," he said. This chain of writers continues, with Sewell meeting fellow poet Howard Nemerov, with whom she corresponded until his death in 1991. "It was there [at Notre Dame] that I first met Howard Nemerov," wrote Sewell, "and he and I embarked on a friendship which lasted till his death."

1979 ffiarch 4-10 1�.

Homer et al.

• Larry Siems, chairman • Allen Ginsberg Hilda Morley William Gaddis Donald Hall Larry McMurtry Ishmael Reed Robert Fitzgerald

This y ear's festival, perhaps more eclectic than most, ran the gamut from group meditation to readings of Homer. Allen Ginsberg opened the week with politics and poetry and a five-minute mantra. Robert Fitzgerald closed the festival five day s later with a dramatic reading from his translations of Homer's The Jlliad and The Odyssey. In between, one of the writers, Larry McMurtry, treated the audience to a movie. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author started out by explaining the difference between filmmaking and writing. "Movie making involves a large complex industry, elaborate technology, and interesting people," McMurtry said. "Novel writing does not incorporate this," he quipped. He told anecdotes about the movie "Hud," which was taken from his 1961 book Horseman, Pass By. "At a cost of $90,000 a day, the studio took two day s filming a couple of buz­ zards fly ing off a limb."

3 On a more serious note, McMurtry bemoaned Holly wood's obsession with "blockbusters." "This terrible phenomenon mitigates against smaller achieve­ ment and prevents many young artists from developing their skills," he said. McMurtry then talked about the filming of "The Last Picture Show," based on his book of the same name, and concluded his lecture with a screening of that 1971 Academy Award winner. Novelist William Gaddis, known for his weighty tomes, told a string of jokes at his reading. He also gave out some rather surprising advice. "Part of writing is drudgery, sheer drudgery," he said. "If one is capable of doing something other than writing, they should do it. There arc no pension plans, no medical plans, no dental plans and no fringe benefits." Gaddis, who values his anonymity, told students that speaking in front of an audience was a "virgin experience" for him. "The idea of the separation of the writer and his work is something I still cling to," he explained. "When a book is written, it comes out and should stand on its own. "When one writes, there has to be some problem which one wants to solve-some central obsession." Poet Donald Hall clearly understands that obsession. Hall, who read in Washington Hall, described coming up with the idea for his poem "Man in the Dead Machine" as a "flash" in his head, requiring him to stop on a heavily traveled highway to write it down. He noted that such an action generally is limited by law to vehicular emer­ gencies. "For a poet, an image like this is an emergency," Hall said. Hall went on to read thirteen other poems, including "Horse," "Black-Faced Sheep," "Wolf Knife," ("the nastiest poem I have ever written"), "To a Water­ fowl," and "O Cheese." In all but one of the SLF readings in 1979, the only thing asked of the audi­ ence was to listen. Allen Ginsberg made one further request. He asked the audience to sit forward and erect with ey es open and relaxed because "we're not going to another world, we're here in this world. The point is not to get anywhere, we're here where we are already." Ginsberg then sang "Tiger, Tiger," his own musical rendition of William Blake's poem, as the people in the audience watched their "breath exhaust from

54

SLF ALBUM

their nostrils and dissolve slowly into space." He accompanied himself on the harmonium, and Notre Dame student Steven Podry joined him on guitar. Gins­ berg also read from Mind Breaths. For the "second half" of his performance, he read "Plutonium Ode," written at the time of his arrest at the Colorado Rocky Flats Nuclear Bomb Facility. He opened this segment with a five-minute mantra. At least one person in the audience was not amused. "In the midst of this, someone in the way back yelled out, 'I can't believe we're paying you money for this shit,"' remembers Notre Dame professor Sonia Gernes. "It was definitely hostile and contained at least one four-letter word," she said of the student's outburst. Ginsberg responded by calmly ringing a bell to break the silence of the audi­ ence's meditation and said, "It's just another thought form." "I had seen him [Ginsberg) in grad school, sitting on a platform in lotus posi­ tion in front of the student union," said Gernes of her introduction to the Beat guru at the University of Washington in Seattle. "So when I came to the [SLF) program and this little man in a gray suit was going up and down to the stage fiddling with things, I thought it was some kind of flunky. "Then I realized it was Allen Ginsberg sort of re-inventing himself."

Norman Mailer reads from Armies of the Ni9ht in 1968. (South Bend Tribune)

1969 Sophomore Lite rary Festival chairman James

Metzge r, left, talks

to George Plimpton, who reads at Stepan Center.

(S0111h Bend Tr,bune)

Ja on Miller reads

from That Champion­

ship Season, his Pulitzer Prize­

win n in g play, in

Washington Hall in 1974.

(Archives, The Dome)

Joyce Carol Oates chats with Bruee Jay Friedman in 1974. (Archives, The Dome)

ANTHONY BURGESS

Piazza Padella,

Bracciano,

Roma,

Italy

R E P L Y

M E S S A G E Mr. Chris Mahon, Sophomore Literary Festival Ccl. 232 Howard, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana 46556, USA

TO

DATE

DATE

Sepe. 14

1974

Dear Chris, the trouble is, as you must know, The getting over there, the getting in: Into the States, I mean. They probe past sin, The immigration hounds of heaven, go Probing and prising, peering high and low For evidence of redness, pinkness. Win? O ne cannot win, even, indeed, begin To win against those engines. Even so, As I am likely to be there next March, In the U.S., I mean, doing a little Lecturing (they dessicate, they parch, Those lectures, make the bones grow thin and brittle), I'll try to march beneath N.D. 's proud arch and dole out something, just a jot or tittle.

Regards �

25u._M

SIGNED

"Sonnet" by Anthony Burgess in response to an invitation to the 1975 festival (he did not attend). (Archi,·es)

Tillie Olsen takes of her shoes during 1975 reading. (Archives, The Dome)

Robert Bly does a performance piece integrating masks into his reading in I 975. (Archives, The Dome)

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

plays the autoharp with his p oetry in I 97 S. (Archi,-cs, The Dome)

Jorge Luis Borges recites

essay on Walt W hitman

in 1976. (Archives,

Stanley Kunitz tells students in

1976, "Poems would be easy if our

heads were not full of the day's

clatter. Our task is to get to the other side ..."

(Archives,

The Dome)

The Dome)

May Sarto n signs autograph after her reading in 1976. (Archi,·cs, The Dome)

Galway Kinncll, who has been an SLF guest twice, talks to students at his first

reading in 1976.

(Archives, The Dome)

Ken Kesey talks to students after his 1977 reading of a passage from One Flew

Q,,er 1 he Cuckoo's t\'esr. (Archi1cs, The Dome)

Tennessee Williams

made a surprising toa t before his 1977 reading.

(Archil'cs, The Dome)

Tennessee Williams

sketched this

drawing of Max

Westler in 1977 at a

party after Williams'

reading.

(Courtesy Max llesrler)

David Ignatow and .D. professor

Ernest Sandeen chat

in 1977.

(Archives, The Dome)

Howard

emero,·, left, Pete eeger, and Elizabeth Sewell lead a panel

discussion in 1978. (Archi1cs, The Dome)

William Gaddis gave

students some gritty

advice in 1979: "Part

of writing is drudgery, sheer drudgery...if

one is capable of doing something other than writing , they should do it."

(Archives, The Dome)

Ishmael Reed read poetry from the African-American experience in 1979. (Archives, The Dome)

Larry McMurtry

showed "The Last

Picture Show" in 1979 after giving

background about the making of the film. (Archives, The Dome)

John Cage played

one piece that

consisted of four and a half minutes of

silence in his 1980

performance of avant

garde music.

(Archives, The Dome)

John Powers tapped into his particular brand of Catholic humor in 1981. (Archives, The Dome)

Richard Brautigan waits in the wings before his 1983 reading. (Archives, The Dome)

Susan Sontag reads from her story "Baby" in 1983. (Archives, The Dome)

tozake Shange tells

students in 1984, "I am compelled to write because it's in my

genes."

(Archives, The Dome)

Chaim Potok stresses the creative aspect of writing in 1984. (Archives, The Dome)

Poet Carolyn Forchc talks

about her writings on Central

America i n 1987. (Archives,

Poet Etheridge

Knight began his

1988 readi ng wi th a

song, "Willow Weep for Me."

(Archi,·cs,

The Dome)

The Dome)

Ken Kesey read a

short story for

children (and adults) at O'Laughlin

Auditorium for the

1990 SLF.

(South Bend Tribune)

Harold Brodkey, who had read from Runaway Soul the night before, conducts a

workshop in the Library Lounge in 1992. He fielded questions like a cat playing with a mouse. (South Bend J;;bune)

"Slam" poet Bob Holman from

NewYork City opened the

1996 SLF with a performance piec e. He read with fellow poet Miguel Algarin. (S0111 h Bend Tribune)

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks, who came in 1973, returned to the SLF for a 1996 reading. (Sou r/, Bend Tribune).

1980 ffiarch 9-15

16.

H my�tery ma�querndin� a� a banality

• Doug Kreitsberg, chairman • John Barth John Auerbach David Hare Jayne Anne Phillips John Cage Roy Fisher Louise Gliick Charles Simic Scott Spencer

Novelist Scott Spencer was impressed by the home where he was feted after his reading. It told him much about Notre Dame. "The house was modest, a tract home really, in a neighborhood of similar houses. But once inside, I was amazed by the richness and beauty of the furni­ ture and the packed floor-to-ceiling bookcases that filled every room," writes Spencer. "That house seemed to say a lot to me about Notre Dame: the humble exte­ rior, the cultured interior. A mystery masquerading as a banality." The Jewish fiction writer closed the 1980 festival with a reading from his controversial novel Endless Love. "I was impressed that I had been invited to read there on the basis of my most recent novel, Endless Love-a book which was banned in several school libraries and South Africa," said Spencer. He said the book "earned me several angry letters written by 'religious' cranks, who so strenuously objected to my depictions of love-making that they couldn't wait to tell me about my place in hell.

56

SLF ALBUM

"I thought that Notre Dame was sending a message to the writing community and to the world at large by inviting an author like me, someone who not only writes about sex but also has certain leftist leanings," he continued. "The people in charge of the Festival and the school as a whole seemed to be saying: Don't judge us by your preconceptions." Spencer capped a week that blew apart any preconceptions about the cre­ ative process. How else could y ou describe the iconoclast John Cage, who performed mid­ week? One of his pieces consisted of the pianist sitting silently at his piano for four and a half minutes, allowing the sounds of the audience to create a certain "music." "Experience is the great immobilizer," Cage told the audience. John Barth, who had also read in 1969, opened the festival with a short story in honor of his daughter who was pregnant, telling the odyssey of a sperm headed for "home" ("Night-Sea Journey," from Lost in the Funhouse [Doubleday, 1968]): I have seen the best swimmers of my generation go under. Number­ less the number of the dead! Thousands drown as I think this though�, millions as I rest before returning to the swim. And scores, hundreds of millions have expired since we surged forth, brave in our innocence, upon our dreadful way. 'Love! Love!' we sang then, a quarter-billion strong, and churned the warm sea white with joy of swimming! When Jay ne Anne Phillips read her short story "Lechery," the sexually ex­ plicit passages prompted several people in the audience to walk out. Phillips also read "Home" from her collection Black Tickets. The unconventional tone of the 1980 festival continued with Louise Ghick and Charles Simic sharing the stage in a joint reading, and British poet/pianist Roy Fisher reading selections from "City," his poem about the decay of his hometown of Birmingham. Notre Dame professor John Matthias remembers Fisher and Cage at a party that week. A piano stood in the center of the room and people were wondering which of the two musicians would perform. "Eventually, Fisher played jazz piano and John Cage listened beatifically," said Matthias.

A Mysteiy Masquerading as a Banality

57

Playwright David Hare had to be talked into going to see his play Teeth 'n Smiles, performed at O'Laughlin Auditorium. He had told the students he was

reluctant to watch his own plays. Fiction writer John Auerbach, a native of Poland who lived in a Jewish kibbutz for thirty-two years, said he was not used to speaking before a pre­ dominantly Christian audience. "The name of Notre Dame was, to me, representative of the Catholic Uni­ versity," he said. "But I found everyone to be quite responsive and interested." Auerbach talked about his craft: "It is the moral and ethical issues that are important in writing," he began. "My influences have been Cervantes and Dostoyevsky, Conrad, Faulkner, and Bellow. If you go down that checklist you find this in common-they are all moralists. W hat is more important? We are all human, aren't we?" Scott Spencer, years after his closing address, describes his reaction to the Catholic university: "As a midwesterner [from Chicago] I was, of course, raised with a mystique about Notre Dame-odd when you consider my parents were atheist and Jewish," writes Spencer. "Yet the 'Fighting Irish' were so important to my friends, when we were chil­ dren. We rooted for the Irish no matter who they were playing in football. They came from a kind of timeless zone, the world of sunny autumn afternoons, the world of our parents."

1981 ffiarch 1-7

17.

H Whet�tone for the ffiind

• Jane Anne Barber, chairman • Seamus Heaney John Powers Edward Dorn Robert Kelly Romulus Linney Herbert Gold Anthony Hecht Margaret Atwood Sally Fitzg erald

Doug Kreitzberg,chairman of the 1980 Sophomore Literary Festival,enjoyed his role in the 1981 festival-as a member of the audience. "Looking back on the whole process,I feel that chairing the Festival is,to put it bluntly,a pain in the ass," Krcitzbcrg wrote in the Scholastic. "I am glad I was a part of it,but am glad I do not have to go through it again ...the diplomatic tact required to play off of the egos of professors,grad students, and the au­ thors is tiring for even the healthiest constitutions." Kreitzberg believes the success of the 1968 festival overshadows the rest. "This [1968] was the FESTIVAL,and its rags-to-riches tale,how one obstinate sophomore brought the most impressive cast of authors to this campus,lives on in the hearts of those who witnessed it.Even those who were not there look at the list of Festivals in the program and point to the first one,exclaiming,'Boy, that was a Festival! I wish I saw that one!' ...However,each y ear has its own vivacity,its own interests,its own pursuits." In 1981,the vivacity was there right from the start with the Irish poet Seamus Heaney."Each person begins with his own blueprint of poetry," Heaney told the students on opening night.

on

1982

Feb. 21-27

18.

nice Guy� fini�h La�t

• Sally Carlin, chairman • Czeslaw Milosz Marge Piercy

Robert Hass Robert Pinsky Megan Terry David Wagoner Susan Fromberg Schaeffer Robert Creeley

The adage holds true for the 1982 Sophomore Literary Festival, which closed with Robert Creeley. "Creeley was the nicest poet," said Saint Mary's professor Max Westler. "He was astonishingly easygoing. With everyone who came up to talk to him, he was totally unpretentious." Author Jaimy Gordon, who comes regularly to the SLF readings from her teaching post at Western Michigan University, and who later read at the 1991 SLF, also has strong memories of Creeley. "I remember when Robert Creeley read, he was utterly fun. He got right in with the students," said Gordon. Creeley closed the festival with poems from The Collected Poems

ef Robert

Creeley, 1945-1975, which was released that year. His reading included "Self Por­

trait," "Time," "Mother's Voice," and "Circles." Creeley was remembered as much for his good nature as his good poetry. "He was liked in a personal way by everyone who met him," said Gordon. "He just drank and was relaxed and funny�without reservations, the way that grown-ups rarely are."

Nice Guys Finish Last

63

Marge Piercy, who was also featured at the 1993 SLF, read what she calls "or­ dinary poems," including "Right Wing Mag" and "Doors in the Wind and the Water." "A lot of very ordinary people read my books," said Piercy. "They are for or­ dinary people, not an elite group." Humorist David Wagoner treated the SLF audience with a poem he had writ­ ten only three days earlier, "Medusa's Love." Wagoner, who grew up in Whiting, Indiana, opened with a sampling of his "religious" poetry, "Boy Jesus" and "Jeremiad." He also read "My Father's Ghost," "Winter Wren," and "Kingfisher." Susan Fromberg Schaeffer read from her book of poetry Alphabet for the Lost Years on the evening before Creeley's closing reading. The 1982 festival received about$ 15 ,ooo from the Contemporary Arts Com­ mission of the Student Union Board.

19.

Benevolent Calamitie�

Power lines are Down, airports snowed in, the whole city asleep This morning beneath bright snow, wildly gleaming In a bare hour

ef sun . . .

The snow dr!fts Seem to get visibly higher outside and The wind shines hopelessly as if trying to reach a clearfrequency it might speak on.

John Hollander's poem "Reflections on Espionage" ( 1976) includes this pas­ sage written during his stay at the 1974 literary festival. "If I remember correctly, (Stephen] Spender and I had run into some can­ celled flights resulting from bad weather, and my memory of travelling out to South Bend with him is quite well preserved in part of a long poem of mine ('Reflections' ]," Hollander writes. Hollander is one of several writers whose memories of Notre Dame include recollections of snow and cold. Hollander did not get the full effect of South Bend's cold shoulder. When he was here in 1974, temperatures never dipped below 2 o and only 3 . 5 inches of snow fell that week.

1983

feb. 20-26

20.

The�e Hanh Badland�

• Brian Ulicny, chairman • Susan Sontag Richard Brautigan Tony Harrison Edward Abbey Bany Lopez Jim Carroll Larry Woiwode

Susan Sontag opened the festival by reading "Baby," a short story written in the first person plural,about parents visiting a psy chiatrist. At a workshop the next day, Sontag said, "Writing really is like putting a message in a bottle. You don't know what career it will have. You know y ou want it to have a career ...but 99 percent of what is acclaimed is rapidly for­ gotten. "My principal responsibility when I'm writing is to ask myself if it's true," said Sontag,a former professor of philosophy."I've gone deep into an essay and scrapped it because I didn't believe it was true." Richard Brautigan,best known for his 1967 novel Trout Fishing in America, had just returned from Japan and he read several poems that came out of that ex­ perience. "There was something a little nineteenth-century about him," said Professor William O'Rourke,"not so much an adventurer as a traveler going off to exotic cultures." Brautigan's poems that night also included "Romance," from June 20th,

20th June

and "On the Elevator."

In a poem about Jesse James, the high school dropout said, "My teachers could have worked for Jesse James,for all the time they stole from me."

Winter Court

Basketball Diaries

Book

Nods,

1984

feb. 27-ffiarch 2 21.

Homeward Bound

• Heather O'Shea, chairman • Ntozake Shange Joel Oppenheimer Chaim Patak John Engels Mary Howard

Leon Forrest

Student Readings: Carla Johnson, Dan Osborn, Mike Barrett, and David Germano

John Engels,a 1952 graduate of Notre Dame and son of longtime Notre Dame professor Norbert Engels,enjoyed a homecoming in 1984. "It was quite an emotional experience," said Engels."It was the first time I'd been home since my mother's death.I wanted to wander the place I grew up.I knew every nook and cranny.It really shook me up." Engels,who read again in 1988,brought with him many poems "tailored to coming home again." And he took away with him the seeds for several more. "My 1984 reading resulted in a number of poems.I have a batch of new poems ...dealing with South Bend and my mother's death in 1965 ," said Engels.He also read his poem "Winter Flight " in memory of his father,who died in 1983. "These experiences are very seminal.Things bubble up for years." Although he called his homecoming "a high point of my life," the visit was not without disappointments.

1985

feb. 25-ffiarch 2 22.

In the fle�h

• Greg Miller, chairman • Hortense Calisher Joanna Glass John Irving Mary Gordon George Hunt Michael Anania Jon Silkin Howard Nemerov

Great writers don't have to be dead. Hortense Calisher came to that realization after she left school. And because of that, she secs the value of literary festivals such as Notre Dame's. "T he 'in the flesh' experience can be exciting in any field," Calishcr writes of her 1985 reading. "To see the person who did it, as it were. (And I myself didn't fully realize, until I left school, that all great writers didn't have to be dead.)" Calisher opened the festival week with a reading from "Gargantua," a short story about a girl who listens to the sounds of a carnival beast as she visits her hospitalized mother. "I do recall that the students were attentive and responsive," writes Calisher. "And it is probable that some had read me. Part of that, of course, would be be­ cause the festival was their project, important to them, and not foisted on them by faculty, as so many such visits often are." John Irving, widely regarded as the "star" that y ear, "remembers his outing at Notre Dame fondly," but unfortunately took home with him at least one un­ pleasant memory (as well as an armload of Notre Dame sweatshirts for his sons). A letter written by Irving's assistant, Lewis Robinson, describes this dis­ appointing encounter:

"There was the usual question-and-answer period following a reading and/ or lecture Mr.Irving gave,and the students asked (as usual) straightforward and sincere questions,and then (from the audience) there came a barbed,deceitful, uninformed question, a nasty question but more important a question from someone who clearly had not read Mr.Irving's current book in question nor any other of his books ...and it was a journalist,not a Notre Dame student,just a journalist of a typical sleazy order,and (sadly) that is what Mr.Irving recalls most vividly from Notre Dame: that he was pleased by the intelligence of the students and faculty,but that in their midst intruded a journalist,poaching (so to speak),and the journalist was (as usual) uninformed and awful and unworthy of the assembly in general.'A good lesson for all,' Mr. Irving says." Michael Anania,a fellow guest author that year,was in the audience at the Library Auditorium when the incident occurred.Irving had just finished read­ ing a passage from

( 1985),which includes explicit abortion

scenes. "The question from the audience that was rude to Irving began some­ thing like this,'As a morally corrupt individual,how do you feel about ... ?' People were ready to kill this guy [the journalist] because he broke the spell," said Anania."But Irving finessed it well. "Irving for being the star handled himself well," he continued."The students treated him as a celebrity." Irving's books

( 1978) and

(1981) were popular with the campus crowd. At the time,Irving,a former varsity wrestler,was into body-building."One of the conditions of his visit was that he spend mornings in the gym," said Anania."We'd have breakfast together,and then he'd excuse himself and go over to the gym and clang iron." Anania also remembers a running joke about Nastassja Kinski and the infa­ mous "snake " photo.A gossip magazine had reported that one of Irving's sons was dating Kinski.At the party for Irving,a poster of Kinski with a boa con­ strictor wrapped around her naked body was hanging prominently in the host's home."But he [Irving] didn't even mention it," said Anania. Anania, also featured at the 1970 SLF, read from his first novel, a story about growing up in the shadow of the Bomb. He also read poems,including "The Sky at Ashland,""Variations for a Summer Evening," and

"On the Conditions of Place." He remembers fondly the three days he was on campus with Irving and British poet Jon Silkin. "I found 'your' festival enjoyable and full of energy," writes Silkin. "To say it's enjoyable is saying a great deal from a contributor." Silkin read "Strike," his fictional narrative of an abandoned lead mine and a nineteenth-century miners' walkout. He followed with the companion piece, "Spade," in which a woman goes back to the mine to retrieve her dead man's clothes. Silkin struck a deeply personal note in his poem "Adam," written about the death of his one-year-old mentally retarded son:

The week included a theater production as well as readings. A student troupe put on

a one-act play by Joanna Glass.

"I remember a full and very receptive auditorium," writes Glass of her reading the previous night from her novel

"I had been alerted,

however, that while I was there I would be invited to a student performance of my one-act play,

It is about a fifteen year old girl who becomes

pregnant by a Saskatchewan Indian and is forced, by her father, to have an abor­ tion. Later, in extreme anger, the Indian boy throws a can of lye at the father, and blinds him. "This play has been done hundreds of times, and I have seen it perhaps twenty times�always in a professional theatre. In that circumstance you only know that your audience is an amorphous mass; you don't know what has been 'bred in the bone.' But, as I walked the campus, and gazed at the famous dome, I felt an extremely 'Catholic' aura about my surroundings. On the day of the performance this feeling had become so dense that I was a nervous wreck. Pro­ life, pro-choice was a hot topic then, as now. Before the performance I was additionally undone by the numbers of faculty, priests, parents and friends of the cast in attendance." Her fears were unfounded. "I thought the students did a very fine job but I kept wondering how the message of the play would 'sit,' finally, at Notre Dame.

1986 ffiarch 1-7

23. �AILifiG THE �EA Of LITERATURE • Ann Peters, chairman • Allen Ginsberg N. Scott Momaday Alan Dugan Mary Oliver Lore Segal Ronald Sukenick Clayton Eshelman Robert Cormier

Robert Cormier never sailed the seven seas, but that didn't stop him from writ­ ing a slew of novels. "When I grew up [in Leominster, Massachusetts] I never met a writer. I thought you had to be a genius, to have sailed the seven seas to be a writer," said the author, best known for his books for young adults. Cormier later discovered the profession's only requirement. "You just need to be a human being," he said. When Cormier was at Notre Dame, he read aloud letters from his young readers. ("You couldn't hire gag writers to write this stuff," he said.) Although he teased about some of their comments, Cormier takes teenagers very seriously. He takes some gritty messages to young folks. Several of his books, which include The Chocolate War and / Am the Cheese, are banned in some school li­ braries. "These are very conservative times," said Cormier in 1986. Writers live in that shadow. "And that's the worst kind of censorship, when it affects what people write." Cormier remembers well his stay at Notre Dame. His only regret is that he missed meeting Allen Ginsberg, who opened the festival earlier in the week.

1987 ffiarch 1-8

24. •

A Fifi[ R[�OURC[

Colleen Martin, chairman

•

Russell Banks Celia Gilbert David Black lrini Spanidou Carolyn Forche Janette Turner Hospital Bob Shacochis Walter Abish

Sandra Hayes, who teaches Freshman English at Notre Dame, says the Sopho­ more Literary Festival continues to provide students and faculty with a per­ spective not found elsewhere on campus. "For me, it's been another resource-a fine resource-for twentieth-century literature," said H ayes. In 1987, Hayes welcomed a literary houseguest. The poet Carolyn Forche was scheduled to stay in her home, because she needed special arrangements-a crib for her baby. "But, at the last minute, she didn't bring her child," said Hayes. Knowing Forche's background as an activist poet who had worked in El Sal­ vador, Hayes expected a rugged sort of "tough-looking" woman. "Instead, she was very well-dressed, well-groomed with a string of pearls," said Hayes of her guest. Russell Banks opened the week with a reading at the Athletic and Convoca­ tion Center [now Joyce Center] concourse, a location selected to accommodate the large number of students assigned to attend. The author was fresh from the success of his most popular book,

Continental Drift.

Celia Gilbert, the Boston-based poet, followed Russell Banks the next night. In her reading from her 1983 volume, Borifire, she included a poem in honor

1988

Feb. 21-27

2�. •

fROffi H PRI�on ([LL Mike Evces, chairman •

Josef Skvorecky Marilyn Krysl Peter Michelson Etheridge Knight John Engels Don Hendrie Jr. Paule Marshall

Haiku from prison flavored the festival of 1988. Etheridge Knight floored them all when he said , "I'm a neighbor of yours... from a few miles d own the road." The "few miles down the road" was the Indiana State Penitentiary in Michigan City, where Knight had done time for a narcotics-related armed robbery. Knight's haiku include: Eastern guard tower glints in sunset; convicts rest like lizards on rocks.

And ... Morning sun slants cell . Drunks stagger like crippled flies On Jailhousefloor.

Knight began his reading with a song "Willow Weep for Me," then proceeded with his poetry.

Former Notre Dame professor and poet Peter Michelson shared the bill with Knight that evening. "My memory [of the festival] is strongest of Etheridge Knight, whose com­ pany I enjoyed on the occasion,"said Michelson."Knight was a very good reader." Michelson's wife,poet Marilyn Krysl,read the following night and shared the podium with Knight later at a discussion group. "I was nervous,"said Krysl. The open-ended nature of the group presented them with the challenge of little structure."I remember wanting to do a good job,"she said."And it seemed to go fine." Krysl found the students receptive to her work: "My reading was enthusi­ astically received." She read from her fiction (title story from

as

well as her poetry,selections from It was Krysl's first time on campus. Her husband decided to give her a tour. "I remember it being very cold," said Michelson."We took a walk by the lake and the wind was wicked.Nonetheless,at the Grotto there were candles flick­ ering in the wind and people were feeding the ducks and the carp." Michelson found things at Notre Dame to be much the same as when he taught English there in the 1960s. "It was sort of like the old days,"he said."There was the same sort of energy that always did go along with those kinds of conferences." "I'm amazed they're still going on," Michelson said of the SLF."They were such a product of the '6os ...How could there not be a change,a falling off of intensity? "I've always thought and I should say almost all the writers I've talked to say the same thing ... we feel there is something different about the Notre Dame festival. "You get the feeling of a very intense focus on the writing." Michelson read poems from

and

poetry inspired by work he and Krysl did in China in 1982. "I began

when I was still at Notre Dame,"he added."The first bit of

them were published in an anthology when I was there." Another writer that week was South Bend native John Engels,a 1952 Notre Dame graduate. He read from

and

which included reminiscences about life at Notre Dame.Engels was also a speaker at the 1984 SLF.

26. P[fi PAL�

In addition to the enjoyment of feedback from students, writers mention again and again the excitement of spending time with other writers. This chain of writers is exemplified by 197 8 's introductions of Pete Seeger and Elizabeth Sewell and Howard Nemerov. Songwriter Seeger was happy to meet Sewell because he had written a song with lyrics from one of her poems, "From the Great Mercies I Have Been Returned." He had seen the poem in a newspaper and didn't know how to reach her. The song was a surprise to her, said Seeger; Sewell remembers Seeger on stage at Washington Hall giving a "grand performance." Sewell said that at that same festival she met Howard Nemerov and corre­ sponded with him until his death in 1991. "Meeting him was one of the nicest things that happened there," writes Sewell. Anthropologist/author Nathaniel Tarn writes of his 1970 SLF reading: "It was also important because this was going to be my first meeting in the flesh with Gary Snyder. And I was glad to see people again that I had already met in the past like Anselm Hollo. "I ran into Gary Snyder at the elevator after a rest. Coyote-eye cocked, he said, 'You must be Nat Tarn.' I guess he could tell from the accent and de­ meanor.

Catch-22,

1989

Feb. s-u 27. GOITTG THROUGH HOOP� • Richard McBrien, chairman • T. Coraghessan Boyle Derek Walcott Reginald Gibbons Meg Wolitzer Sue Miller Lisel Mueller Stuart Dybek

T. (Tom) Coraghessan Boyle was set to dash off to promote the film version of his novel, The Road to Wellville, when he stopped to chat in 1994 about his SLF reading a few years earlier. The Southern Californian remembers most his "chilly" reception. "Living in California, it was quite a shock to my system coming there," said Boyle of his midwinter visit. But if the weather was dispiriting, the hospitality was anything but. "I remember this one professor was really great," said Boyle of English professor William O'Rourke. "He called and asked me if I wanted to go to a basketball game and I saw some really great players. "I hadn't been to a college basketball game in years." Notre Dame treated Boyle to an athletic event and Boyle treated Notre Dame to a literary event-one he described as a "perverse, evil reading." "I read some stories including 'Modern Love,' which is about a full-body condom," he said, laughing. Boyle was pleased with the 1994 filmed version of The Road to Wellville, which starred Anthony Hopkins. "It's really fine," he said. "It's the most faithful adap­ tation of a novel in history."

90

SLF ALBUM

Another writer in 1989 was not so happy about the 1988 filming of her novel. Sue Miller said she wouldn't even see the movie version of The Good Mother. "I was afraid the experience might be too damaging to the relationships with my people," she said. "I saw clips of the film on television. Even though it was my dialogue, they didn't say it the way I had heard it in my head." The 1986 novel grew out of a short story, she told the students. Miller, who read at the SLF with New York novelist Meg Wolitzer, had words of encouragement to the women in the audience. "This is an exciting time for American women writers," said Miller. "Women are ready to write. And the world is ready to read what they are writing." Lisel Mueller, who came to the United States from Germany when she was fifteen, read from Second Lan9ua9e. The Chicago-based poet writes: "As I recall, the poetry reading was well-attended, and I encountered some talented students during the workshop next morning. I also had a pleasant breakfast with some gracious people from the poetry community." The sophomore Core course had concentrated on the West Indian poet / playwright Derek Walcott, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992. Walcott, who was born on the island of St. Lucia, read poetry that celebrated the natural beauty of the Caribbean. Also reading in 1989 were Texas poet Reginald Gibbons and Chicago short­ story writer Stuart Dybek, who closed the festival.

1990

Feb. 2�-ffiarch 3

28. WHHT H LOfiG, �TRHfiGE TRIP IT'� B££n •

Chris Malloy, chairman

•

Joseph Coulson Larry Heinemann Ken Kesey WP. Kinsella Herbert Mason Melissa Pritchard Maura Stanton

Ken Kesey strode on stage with a Notre Dame "basketball," read aloud a bed­ time story, and strode off the stage quoting the Grateful Dead. There aren't many literary events that can top that. After reading Little Tricker the Squirrel Meets Big Double the Bear, Kesey tossed into the crowd a furry, stuffed, blue and gold basketball with a microphone planted inside for the question-and-answer period. The audience at O'Laughlin Auditorium at Saint Mary's College had a ball. Audience questions inevitably shifted from his reading to Kesey 's 1962 novel, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, and its 1975 film adaptation. Disgruntled by the

Holly wood screenplay (his was rejected), Kesey said he's kept his promise never to see the film. Much of the story 's social criticism, he told the students, was lost in the translation. "I wrote an acid head script," said Kesey, "but they wanted 'Hogan's Heroes."' At a workshop the following day, Kesey gave some advice: "Writing should be an adventure. If it gets too hard, y ou might as well be writing campaign speeches for Bush."

92

SLF ALBUM

Kesey, who also read at the 1977 SLF, secs the loneliness of a writer's life as his biggest obstacle. "I' m tired of the great American individualist," he said. According to Kesey, the biggest threat to writers is not alcohol or drugs, it's "being alone." To counter that solitary endeavor, the University of Oregon professor col­ laborated with the thirteen students in his creative writing class to write

Cav­

erns. The novel, released later that y ear, was published under the pseudony m

0. U. Levon, read backwards as Novel U. 0. (University of Oregon). Kesey said much of the book was written at his home, with breaks taken to put on another pot of coffee or to open another bottle of wine. "Team player" is a role that comes naturally to Kesey, a former varsity wrestler. He looks at writing the same way. With a nod toward writers with whom he studied decades ago at Stanford University, he named Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove), Ernest Gaines (TheAuto­ bio9raphy

ef Miss Jane Pittman), and Robert Stone (Do9 Soldiers).

"We were a helluva team, like Green B ay under [Vince] Lombardi," said Kesey. "There's a binding tie about being part of a good tight team." Another writer that y ear comes out of a "sports" backdrop. W P. (Bill) Kin­ sella, author of Shoeless Joe, writes about baseball. "There's no time limit on a baseball game, and on a true baseball field the foul lines diverge forever, eventually taking in a good part of the universe," said Kinsella. "That makes for larger-than-life characters-and for myth." Unlike Kesey, Kinsella was pleased with the screenplay of his novel. "I don't see how they could have done a better job," Kinsella said of the translation of Shoeless Joe into "F ield of Dreams."

"It caught the spirit of Shoeless Joe totally," Kinsella added. "Changing a book into a screenplay is like changing an apple into an orange-it's not the same thing when you get finished with it." Although there are a lot of Chicago teams in his stories, Kinsella said he's really a St. Louis Cardinals fan. "I used the present-day Cubs in 'The Last Pennant Before Armageddon' be­ cause they were perennial losers. But the book that story appeared in (The Thrill

ef the Grass] came out in '84, the y ear the Cubs won their division and had to play

San Diego for the pennant, so nobody ever pulled harder against the Cubs than I did. The book was still in press, so if the Cubs won the pennant, I'd have had

1991 feb. w-15

29. �OUIH[Rfi HO�PIIHLIIY • Anne Peterson, chairman • Larry Brown

Diane Wakoski Jaimy Gordon

David Huddle Barry Hannah

Gre9 Delanty

The land of Faulkner, whose works inspired the first Sophomore Literary Festi­ val, sent us two of its contemporary writers in 1991. Mississippians Barry Hannah and Larry Brown brought thick, down-South accents to their readings, rich in Southern themes as well as dialect. Hannah's Never Die, which was published later that year (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991), opens with these lines: Back during the Civil War Kyle Nitburg was just twelve years old. The war was going badly around New Orleans, where he and his poor but beautiful mother lived. His father had gone off to fight in Virginia, near Richmond, they thought, but there was no communication and barely any chicken and peas. There might as well have been no father and barely any world. In an even thicker drawl than Hannah's, Brown read a passage from his novel, Joe.

The SLF audience leaned forward to catch every word of this lyrical fiction

writer.

1992 feb. 23-28

30. HAUfiI[D BY TH[ HOLY GHO�I •

Betsy Harkins, chairman

•

Lucille Clifton Linda Pastan C. K. Williams Harold Brodkey Shelby Hearon Toby Olson

"When I was a kid in Newark in the '40s, there was really only one university in America, and that was Notre Dame," poet C. K. Williams told his SLF crowd. "They must have had the Holy Ghost as a P.R. man. "Everyone laughed," writes Williams about those comments. "But it was true that it felt rather splendid to be at last at Notre Dame, after all those years of its merely mythical reality." At a party after his reading, the lanky poet towered over the roomful of guests, who milled around him and the spread of fine food. A bottle of wine was out on the table, but Williams had something else in mind. He leaned down to hostess Eileen Sandeen with a special request. "Where's the liquor?" he asked. Sandeen went directly to the liquor cabinet and poured the thirsty poet a glass of whiskey. Lucille Clifton, the 1992 festival opener, is an example for those of us wait­ ing for the kids to grow up before we write our first novel. The former poet laureate of Maryland published her first book of poetry in 1969, when all six of her children were under the age of ten. Clifton's poetry was as colorful and powerful as her appearance. The tall African-American with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair wore a rich tur-

The Runaway Soul

Haunted by the Holy Ghost

99

Brodkey told this story at a workshop the day after his reading. The New Yorker magazine writer looked very "New York artiste" in a tweed jacket and black shoes, black socks, black slacks and black turtleneck. He played with each question like a cat with a mouse. Each query became a sparring match-an intellectual game he seemed to savor and the students seemed to relish. Unfortunately, Brodkey said he had no interaction with other SLF writers during his stay. "They brought me in for one moment and then set me loose," he said several years later. According to chairman Betsy Harkins, the SLF paid authors between S500 and S2,ooo each that year. Some writers were simply out of range. (Margaret Atwood, an SLF reader in 1970 and 1981, wanted S12,000 to S14,000, and John Updike wanted S8,ooo.) The 1992 SLF received S 14,200 from the Student Activities Fund. To raise additional money, the sophomore committee sold twenty-fifth-anniversary commemorative T-shirts for S8.

31.

�TRHIGHT fROffi TH[ HOR�['� ffiOUTH

We learned a lot about writing and the creative process from the writers talk­ ing about their world," said James Metzger, chairman of the 1969 Sophomore Literary Festival. "But we learned so much more in addition to the literary aspect of having these well-known, well-traveled American figures show up on campus and spend time with us." Saint Mary's College professor Max Westler agrees. "I think it's really important that students see living writers, not writers in a book," said Westler. "Plus it's a wonderful break in the semester and the work­ shops are a lot of fun." In 1980, Westler invited Charles Simic and Louise Gliick to his class. "They couldn't say yes fast enough," Westler said of the poets' response. Rick Fitzgerald, co-chairman in 1970, said that meeting Pulitzer Prize­ winning poet Gary Snyder was a watershed for him. "Snyder had an incredible presence-an almost Buddha-like presence," said Fitzgerald. "My meeting him was one of the most influential moments of my life." Mississippi fiction writer Larry Brown, an SLF author in 1991, said the fes­ tival gives students a chance to meet people who have established themselves as writers.

Straightfrom the Horse's Mouth

101

"The students are exposed to hearing what ... words sound like coming out of the writer's mouth," said Brown. Fellow Mississippian Barry Hannah,also a 1991 SLF author,issued a caveat. "College works against the imagination. It's hard to write anything," said Hannah. "In college, you are a receiver and a writer is exactly the opposite. Writers have to risk being a fool." Hannah uses no books to teach writing. "I take fewer and fewer notes in preparation for workshops and teaching, because I get more honest the older I get. "I teach the short story whole," said Hannah."T here are only three things to be conscious of: (1) What is the author trying to say? ( 2) Is it worth saying? and (3) How well executed is it? "A good story unsettles me. I like the odd. I like dangerous fiction. Block­ busters are read because they comfort the readers.Good fiction comes up from behind you and knocks you out. ''I'm not a primitive," Hannah told the students."I don't believe you can just walk in a room and sit down and start howling ... You must adore the English language." Poet Nathaniel Tarn looks back fondly on his 1970 workshop. "In the afternoon,there was a class with people who had studied my work: it ran itself and went on for some 2 1h hours," writes Tarn."I don't believe I had ever had this kind of attention before.It was very surprising." In 1977, Notre Dame professor Donald Costello arranged a lunch at the Morris Inn with distinguished faculty, selected students, and playwright Ten­ nessee Williams. "It would also be an opportunity for me to introduce Tennessee to Father Hesburgh, who was to join our luncheon in progress," said Costello."He [Hes­ burgh] would be just off the plane from Rome or Antarctica or somewhere. "Tennessee loved to be the center of atttention and was full of anecdotes with himself as the center of attention," said Costello."In the middle of a story,Ten­ nessee was interrupted by Father Hesburgh's arrival.All attention turned to our president and to his stories of chatting yesterday with Henry Kissinger. Peeved that the heads were now turned away from him,Tennessee stood up,leaned way over the table,stuck out his hand to Father Hesburgh,and murmured,'I didn't get the name .. .' As our heads turned back to Tennessee, he continued his story."

When Kurt Vonnegut came in 1968, Richard Bizot, who was teaching at Notre Dame,had Vonnegut over for dinner. "At the time,at Notre Dame,all students had to take a theology class unless they weren't Catholic," said Bizot.To avoid theology class,many students made "deconversions." "I had a couple students who wrote down that they had converted to 'Bokonoism,"' a religion Vonnegut created in

"They got away with

it," said Bizot,laughing.So when Vonnegut was coming to dinner,Bizot invited John Grima,a student who had "converted," and introduced him to Vonnegut. "So they [Grima and Vonnegut] took off their shoes and practiced Bokonoru, a meeting of the 'soles' right in my living room." Peter Michelson,another former Notre Dame professor,has his own story about Vonnegut's visit. "[Joseph] Heller and Vonnegut were at this fund-raiser for the McCarthy campaign," remembers Michelson."Heller gave this long talk about ideals and what you should do for an election. "Then when it was Vonnegut's turn to talk,he [Vonnegut] said,'The thing to do is this,' and he pulled out a twenty-dollar bill and went over and handed it to me for a campaign contribution. "Heller slapped his head and said,'One-upped again."' In 1993, Edward Albee talked about his play In the kind of wide-ranging discussion the festival often generates,Albee also talked about the filmed version ( 1966 movie) of his play. "It was not the cast they promised me when I sold them the rights in 1962 ," said Albee."They promised Bette Davis and James Mason.It would have been an entirely different movie ...Elizabeth Taylor,for all the good she did,was twenty years too young for the role.She was only thirty-two and 'Martha' was fifty-two.Bette Davis at the time was fifty-two.It threw the balance off because he [George] was supposed to be younger than her." Michael Garvey,a 1974 Notre Dame graduate and now the university's assis­ tant director of public information,says the give-and-take of the festival only works if the students attending arc interested themselves. "I' m afraid one aspect of the old thing that has been sort of bleached out was the sort of voluntary feel of the whole thing," said Garvey."There was a won­ derful sort of celebratory feel to it that I do not see now."

1993

Feb. 21-2)

32. A PATCHWORK QUILT • Kerry McArdle, chairman • Nikki Giovanni Tim O'Brien Gloria Naylor Edward Albee Marge Piercy

"I felt a splendid, warm, generous response to my reading at Notre Dame," writes author Tim O'Brien. "People seemed to care about literature that evening. "The faculty and students were hospitable in the most open and friendly sort of way; and even a hard blizzard of Midwest snow did not detract from my visit." Indeed, the snow was so deep (eighteen inches) that classes on campus were canceled the next day. But that didn't stop folks from braving the elements to hear the author of Going l!fter Cacciato and The Things They Carried. Wearing a lightweight, short-sleeved madras shirt, baseball cap, jeans and tennis shoes, O'Brien looked dressed more for spring training than an Indiana snowstorm. He brought a bit of that "storm" inside with his story of John Wade-a Viet­ nam veteran, politician, and magician on the verge of madness. In Vietnam, "magic was everybody's hobby . . . [it] could make civilization into garbage." The tale was from his novel In the Lake

ef the Woods,

which was published

in r994. As in his earlier books, this story is about "pretending": "It was pretending, but the pretending helped," John says to himself at his father's funeral, as he imagines the two of them playing baseball together. Nikki Giovanni opened the week with a virtual "commencement address."

In her Sunday afternoon workshop and again that night, she rallied her lis­ teners in a call to action."We have to get back to the concept of community and civilization," she said."If ever there is a weapon that transcends everything, it is words." The impish poet, wearing jeans, a blue turtleneck and black loafers, and sip­ ping coffee out of a styrofoam cup, waxed philosophic on pop culture: Michael Douglas and "Basic Instinct" ("He should be hospitalized ...'Basic Instinct' is a dangerous movie for what it says about women"), Michael Jackson ("He wants to whine because his records aren't selling"), and Maya Angelou ("A big woman, she's six feet two, complaining because she can't walk through an airport with­ out being recognized. She decided to give the [Inaugural] poem and now she's complaining"). Giovanni strode on stage in the library auditorium toting a leather book bag that must have weighed as much as she does. The self-described "social poet" talked a lot about the future, calling the next century "one of the most impor­ tant imaginary lines there is." She read a handful of poems, including "Bookmaker" and "Ego Tripping," then returned to her "address." In a direct challenge, she sent the audience away with these words: ''I'm going to recommend you do something with your life ...I'm going to recom­ mend soaring." "You are not here to get a job," she told the students, "this is education for citizenship on planet earth. "And writers have to lead the way ... It has always been the writers who have said, 'Why not?"' Another African-American writer, Gloria Naylor, also had advice for the stu­ dents: "Look within yourself for a role model ... be careful looking to other people because they will break your heart." The author of of America" ) read from her latest novel,

( "my love letter to the black women A tall woman with a

deep chocolate complexion, she wore gold dangly earrings, a flowing skirt and blouse.She answered questions after the reading.At one point she talked about writer's block: "I have it with each major project.I make a lot of liquor distributors happy at that time," she said, laughing. About the United States, she said "We are not a melting pot, we are a patch-

work quilt." Poet fiction writer Marge Piercy and playwright Edward Albee rounded out

the week. Both had been featured at earlier Sophomore Literary Festivals: Piercy in 1982 and Albee in 1978.

Chairman Kerry McArdle said the students decided to cut the number of readings-to five-so they could afford better-known writers. The SLF was awarded S 15 ,coo from the Student Union Board. The sopho­ mores themselves raised another S 1 ,coo.

1994 feb.13-17

33. LIFEBLOOD OF LITERATURE •

Katie Lawler, chairman

•

Michael Harper June Jordan Alison Lurie Charles Johnson Joy Harjo

"I truly believe there is a magic to the Sophomore Literary Festival-a special set of graces given to those who return writer and reader to their natural rela­ tionship, who join word and author in the presence of a truly appreciative fan." So writes chairman Katie Lawler about her 1994 festival. Music and literature-and even a little dance-came together on campus, and "collided" in only one instance. The single collision led to a low turnout ( only about 100 people in the 350seat library auditorium) for the festival's opener, Michael Harper. He was com­ peting with country music superstar Garth Brooks, who packed the house down the road at Notre Dame's Joy ce Center. The South Bend Tribune's preview for Harper's reading even included directions on how to avoid the Juniper Road traffic for Brooks' extravaganza. But Harper, regardless of the turnout, is a star in his own right. The week before the festival, Little, Brown and Company published Every Shut Eye Ain't Asleep, a pivotal anthology of African-American poetry since 1945, which Harper

co-edited with Anthony Walton. Harper was also the poet laureate of Rhode Island. Harper's one-hour reading began and ended with poems about musicians: "Deep South" by one of Harper's students, about Billie Holiday, and "Dear John, Dear Coltrane" by Harper.

199� feb. n-16

34. WITH A LOT Of LUCK • Allyson Luck, chairman • Mark Leyner Michael Collins ]. California Cooper Sharon Olds Galway Kinnell Student Readings: Jessica Maich, Dave McMahon, Dan O'Neil, Donelle Ruwe, Sarah K. Soja, Ira M. Wade Jr., and Jason Williams

Chairman Allyson Luck set out with one main goal for the 1995 SLF. "I went last year and noticed that people weren't owning the program," said Luck. "We decided to get the students more involved." To that end, she added a student reading to the festival. Although this had been tried previously, in 1984, Luck planned to make an evening of stu­ dent readings an SLF tradition. Midway through the week, seven selected stu­ dents-Jessica Maich, Dave McMahon, Dan O'Neil, Donelle Ruwe, Sarah K. Soja, Ira M. WadeJr., andJason Williams-read for ten minutes each. The undergraduate and graduate students had auditioned before a panel of judges composed of graduate students and SLF committee members. Luck herself had "auditioned" earlier for her role, one behind the scenes. After attending the 1994 festival, Luck applied in March 1994 to be the festi­ val chairman for the following year. She was appointed soon after by the former chairman and members of the Student Union Board.

With a Lot

ef Luck

1 1 1

To a full house at the library auditorium, Collins read two short stories from an upcoming collection. The first was "The End of the World," a very Catholic story, full of sin and guilt; the second was "The Outhouse," which uses scato­ logical imagery to describe a blitzkrieg over London. At a party at William O'Rourke's following the reading, the ruddy-cheeked Irishman sipped Red Dog beer in the kitchen, surrounded by SLF staffers and former colleagues. Collins talked about his first experiences attending the SLF. Recalling readings by David Black, T. Coraghessan Boyle, John Irving, Ken Kesey and Derek Wal­ cott, he described the mystique of being in the company of such great writers. "After hearing John Irving [in 1985], I went down to the shops and looked for his books." Many of the students gathered around him in the kitchen were already famil­ iar with Collins' book of short stories. The Core course, a sophomore Arts and Letters requirement, had assigned The Man Who Dreamt of Lobsters by Collins as well as The Father by Sharon Olds. The crowd spilled into the auditorium hallway the night Olds read. The schoolmarmish poet opened with a poem of hers she had memorized, "The Missing Boy." "That poem wasn't considered 'real poetry.' It was rejected many times," she told the audience. Because it's about mothers and children, "One publisher said, 'Maybe you should try the Ladies Home Journal.' "But poetry has changed," she reassured her listeners. Poetry may have changed, but it still relies on rich traditions. In some of the poems he read, Galway Kinnell revived a seventh-century form, the ghazel, an Arabian lyric poem which begins with a rhymed couplet whose rhyme is repeated in all subsequent even lines. Ghazcls weren't all that Kinnell read. The Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, who considers Emily Dickinson his mother in poetry and Walt W hitman his father, read mostly from his latest collection, lmpeifect Thirst. Again, it was standing room only. And the poet, wearing a brown wool checkered sports jacket, recited in a deep, warm, resonant voice that sounded somewhat holy-even while reading his hilarious "Holy Shit" poem. Kinnell chose as his last poem the reverential "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" by W B. Yeats, which ends with these lines:

1996 feb.10-1�

3�. A FAffiILY AFFAIR • Andria Wisler, chairman • Bob Holman

Miguel Algarin Frances Sherwood

Tobias Wo!Jf Alistair Macleod Gwendolyn Brooks

Student Readings: Jessica Maich, Luisa Heredia, David Griffith, Kathleen McManus,Alex Macleod, Rachel Wacker, and Douglas William Metz

Alistair Macleod earned his Ph.D. at Notre Dame in 1968, the year of the SlF extravaganza. "Now, nearly all the writers of the continent have gone through there," said Macleod, recalling the festival that introduced him that year to Norman Mailer and Ralph Ellison. This year, Macleod himself joined the "writers of the continent," as the Canadian writer took his place before the SlF audience at the Hesburgh Library Auditorium. He brought with him "The Boat," a short story he wrote at Notre Dame. The story was published in the 1969 edition of The BestAmerican Short Stories. Macleod was pleased with the audience's reaction to "The Boat." "I could feel them move up toward me as the story went along," he said. A story other than his own also moved Macleod that week. His son, Alex, a graduate student in Notre Dame's Creative Writing Program, was among the student readers.

116

SLF ALBUM

1996 festival with poems inspired by her hometown, Chicago. Featured were "Old Black Woman Homeless and in the Street" and "Lincoln West." Surrounded by fans in the Library Lounge, she signed autographs until nearly midnight. At $5,ooo , Brooks was the highest paid of the readers. The other writers' fees ranged from$1 ,ooo to$2,500. "Our [Student Union Board] budget was $19,500," said Wisler. "And we raised another$6,000 on our own." The Office of Multicultural Student Affairs pitched in$2,500 for Holman and Algarin. These New York City "slam" poets entertained the SLF audience for nearly two hours, which is twice as long as most readings. Notre Dame professor William O'Rourke saw their rollicking performance, with duets as well as solos, as a return to the "Beat" poets of earlier days. "Only their poems are set to a different beat than the Beats," said O'Rourke. "Instead of Gerry Mulligan, there was salsa. "It introduced the students to the idea that poetry-literature-is supposed to be fun." In the late spring of 1995, the 1996 committee had brainstormed and come up with the names of about eighty authors. They sent out waves of invitations. "We decided to shoot for the stars," said Wisler, laughing. "Later, we actually found out that some of those people [on the list] were dead." "Garrison Keiller was the first person we heard from," she said. "He wrote saying he was too busy." William Burroughs declined the same day. John Updike was not only "too busy." He wrote the students that he had been issued SLF invitations many times through the years. "You never offered enough money to leave my desk," he wrote. The students received their first acceptance from Wolff. "He called me on a Friday afternoon," said Wisler, who also remembers well the day they sent off Wolff's invitation. "I really like Tobias Wolff, so when I sealed his I said, 'OK, everybody, let's knock on wood' and then everybody kissed it [the envelope]." Wolff was the favorite of many students, who had read This Boy's Life as part of the sophomore Core course. The award-winning memoir was made into a movie (starring Robert DeNiro), which was shown on campus as part of the week's festivities.

A Family Affair

, ,7

The students' familiarity with his writing delighted Wolff. "It makes a differ­ ence if people have read your work. The questions arc a little better informed, a little more thoughtful." Wisler, an English and German major born in Indianapolis and raised in New Hope, Pennsylvania, will miss the 1997 SLF. She will be studying in Innsbruck, Austria, the year the Sophomore Literary Festival celebrates its thirtieth an­ niversary. Exciting as her year abroad may sound, she seems wistful about leaving it behind. "I got very attached to the whole thing." Wisler and her brood of thirty spent long hours on the SLF. As each year before them, the students found ways to build on the festival's long tradition. "I really liked their innovation of having student musicians performing before each reading," said Sonia Gernes, of one addition. Wisler passed along the torch in the spring of 1996. It was time for others to try their hand. "The greatest thing is that each sophomore class gets to make its own mark on the festival," she said.

�Lf Chairmen

1967

J. Richard Rossie

1968

John Mroz

1969

James E. Metzger

1970

Robert M. Hall

1971

Kevin O'Connor

1972

Ray Funk

1973

Frank Barrett

1974

Gary Zebrun

1975

Chris Mahon

1976

Michelle Quinn

1977

John Santos

1978

Theresa Rebeck

1979

Larry Siems

1980

Doug Kreitsberg

1981 1982

Jane Anne Barber Sally Carlin

1983

Brian Ulicny

1984

Heather O'Shea

1985

Greg Miller

1986

Ann Peters

1987

Colleen Martin

1988

Mike Evces

1989

Richard McBrien

1990

Chris Malloy

1991

Anne Peterson

1992

Betsy Harkins

120

SLF Chairmen

1993

Kerry McArdle

1995

Allyson Luck

1994 1996

Katie Lawler Andria Wisler

�Lf Writen

Edward Abbey Walter Abish Edward Albee Miguel Algarin Michael Anania John Ashbery Margaret Atwood John Auerbach Russell Banks John Barth Ann Beattie Michael Benedikt Tony Bill David Black Robert Bly Jorge Luis Borges T. Coraghcssan Boyle Richard Brautigan Harold Brodkey Joseph Brodsky Gwendolyn Brooks Larry Brown William F. Buckley Jr. William Burroughs John Cage Hortense Calisher Sidney Carrio

1983 1987 1978, 1993 1996 1970, 1985 1973 1970, 198 I 1980 1987 1969, 1980 1978 1977 1971 1987 1975 1976 1989 1983 1992 1975 1973, 1996 1991 1968 1977 1980 1985 1969

122

SLF Writers

Jim Carroll

1983

Lucille Clifton

1992

Michael Collins

1995

J. California Cooper

1995

Robert Coover

1972

Robert Cormier

1986

Joseph Coulson

1990

Robert Creeley

1974, 1982

Jerry DeFuccio

1978

Greg Delanty

1991

Peter De Vries

1969

Edward Dorn

198 I

Alan Dugan

1986

Robert Duncan

1972

Stuart Dybek

1989

Stanley Elkin

1973

Harlan Ellison

1978

Ralph Ellison

1968

John Engels

1984, 1988

Clayton Eshelman

1986

James T. Farrell Lawrence Ferlinghetti

1975 1975

Roy Fisher

1980

Robert Fitzgerald

1979

Sally Fitzgerald

1981

Carolyn Forche

1987

Leon Forrest

1984

Bruce Jay Friedman

1974

William Gaddis

1979

John Gardner

1976

William H. Gass

1972

Reginald Gibbons

1989

Celia Gilbert

1987

Richard Gilman

1971

Allen Ginsberg

1972, 1979, 1986

Nikki Giovanni

1993

1985 1980 1981 1991 1985 1971 1977 1979 1977 1991 1980 1994 1994 1983 1970 1976, 1982 1971 1974 1981 1992 1981 1990 1968 1988 1968 1974 1970 1996 1971 1987 1984 1991 1985 1977 1985 1994

1 24

SLF Writers

LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka)

1969

June Jordan

1994

Robert Kelly

1981

Ken Kesey

1977, 1990

Galway Kinnell

1976, 1995

W P. Kinsella

1990

Etheridge Knight

1988

John Knowles

1969

Jerzy Kosinski

1972

Marilyn Krysl

1988

Stanley Kunitz

1976

Denise Levertov

1977

Mark Leyner

1995

Romulus Linney

1981

John Logan

1975

Barry Lopez

1983

Alison Lurie

1994

George MacBeth

1978

Alistair Macleod

1996

Norman Mailer

1968

Paule Marshall

1988

Herbert Mason

1990

Michael McClure

1974

Larry McMurtry

1979

Leonard Michaels

1971

Peter Michelson

1988

Arthur Miller

1973

Jason Miller

1974

Sue Miller

1989

Czeslaw Milosz

1982

N. Scott Momaday

1986

Hilda Morley

1979

Wright Morris

1968

Liscl Mueller

1989

Gloria Naylor

1993

Howard Nemerov

1978, 1985

SLF Writers

125

Charles Newman

1972

Naomi Shihab Nye

1977

Joyce Carol Oates

1974

Tim O'Brien

1993

Sharon Olds Mary Oliver Tillie Olsen

1995

1986

1975

Toby Olson

1992

Joel Oppenheimer

1984

Linda Pastan

1992

Jayne Anne Phillips

1980

Marge Piercy

1982, 1993

Robert Pinsky

1982

Allen Planz

1970

George Plimpton

1969

Chaim Potok

1973, 1984

John Powers

1981

Melissa Pritchard

1990

James Purdy

1975

Ishmael Reed

1970, 1979

Kenneth Rexroth

1973

Jerome Rothenberg

1973

Michael Ryan

1975

May Sarton Susan Fromberg Schaeffer

1976

Pete Seeger

1978

1982

Lore Segal

1986

Elizabeth Sewell

1978

Bob Shacochis

1987

Ntozake Shange

1984

Karl Shapiro

1978

Frances Sherwood

1996

Jon Silkin

1985

Charles Simic

1980

Louis Simpson

1976

Isaac Bashevis Singer

1974

126

SLF Writers

Josef Skvorecky

1988

Ken Smith

1970

Gary Snyder

1970

Susan Sontag

1983

Irini Spanidou

1987

Michael Sparough

1978

Scott Spencer

1980

Stephen Spender

1974

William Stafford

1977

Maura Stanton

1990

Tom Stoppard

1971

Ronald Sukenick

1986

Nathaniel Tarn

1970

Megan Terry

1982

Kurt Vonnegut

1968

David Wagoner

1982

Diane Wakoski Derek Walcott

1972, 1991 1989

C. K. Williams

1992

Tennessee Williams

1977

Larry Woiwode

1983

Tom Wolfe

1970

Tobias Wolff

1996

Meg Wolitzer

1989