After Long Busyness: Interviews with Eight Heartland Poets

By Eric Lochridge

After Long Busyness: Interviews with Eight Heartland Poets compiles a series of interviews with poets who have a connection to South Dakota.

Originally conducted for poet and editor Eric Lochridge's After Long Busyness: A Poetry Blog, the interviews reveal a surprisingly robust community of poets in the state, ranging from poet laureate David Allan Evans to prairie haiku master Chad Lee Robinson and the only non-South Dakotan in the series, Wayne Miller, who appeared at the South Dakota Festival of Books and shared his outsider's perspective.
The book also features conversations with
Patrick Hicks, who writes with an international point of view rooted in the cities of the prairie, and Jim Reese, whose rural confessionalism shatters preconceived ideas of what “heartland” poetry can be.

Likewise, Andy Thorstenson frees landscape poetry from easy cliché and trite description, writing instead with a perspective sensitive to the marvels of the wildlands we inhabit. Adrian M. Forrette provides the essential political voice of the social critic. Christine Stewart-Nuñez presents us with observations that continually reach for a deeper emotional core, whether she’s writing about her travels in Turkey or tweaking the image of a supermodel.

Taken as a whole, the book crystallizes the unexpected diversity of the poetry community in the land of infinite variety.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eric Lochridge
• Release date: Mar 23, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476003023

Eric Lochridge

Eric Lochridge (he/him) is a poet, editor, and former journalist living in western Washington between the mountains and the sea. His first full-length poetry collection is My Breath Floats Away From Me (FutureCycle Press in 2022). He also is the author of three chapbooks: Born-Again Death Wish, Real Boy Blues, and Father’s Curse. His poems have appeared in DIAGRAM, UCity Review, Okay Donkey, and Kissing Dynamite. Find him on Twitter @ericedits and at ericedits.wordpress.com.

Book preview

After Long Busyness: Interviews with Eight Heartland Poets

Edited by Eric Lochridge

Copyright 2012 by Eric Lochridge

Smashwords Edition

Cover image and design by Emilie Hagny Downs

Author photo by Jan Lochridge-Long

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Table of Contents

Preface

David Allan Evans: ‘Tons of Dirt for Every Nugget’

Andy Thorstenson: ‘The Astonished Chronicler’

Chad Lee Robinson: ‘Show Them the Cow’s Lips’

Patrick Hicks: ‘I’m here. I’m breathing. I’m alive.’

Jim Reese: ‘These Voices are Going to Outlive You and I’

Adrian M. Forrette: ‘In This Soup Together’

Wayne Miller: ‘Stumbling Around in the Dark’

Christine Stewart-Nuñez: ‘Convergence of the Right Environmental Elements’

About the Editor

PREFACE

After Long Busyness: A Poetry Blog began in 2007 as a way to illuminate poetry in South Dakota — the poets, the poems and any other manifestations. The original intent was to provide a forum that covered as many aspects of poetry in South Dakota as possible, from the poets who make their homes here to those who simply visit for readings or write poems about their experiences here (Thank you, Mr. Kleinzahler).

Starting in October 2007, After Long Busyness — named for the Robert Bly poem of the same name — initiated a series of interviews with poets who have some connection to South Dakota. The first eight interviews in the series are compiled here and reveal an unexpected and robust diversity of voices from in and around the state. Poet laureate David Allan Evans serves as the bedrock voice of experience. Patrick Hicks pushes an international perspective rooted in the cities of the prairie and his inborn sense of optimism. Jim Reese’s big-hearted rural confessionalism tears down expectations of what heartland poetry should be. Chad Lee Robinson brings the haiku back from the throwaway caricature it often has become, imbuing it instead with a confidence that demands a new respect for the form. Likewise, Andy Thorstenson frees landscape poetry from easy cliché and trite description. Instead he writes from the point of view of someone utterly sensitive to the marvels of the wildlands we inhabit. Adrian M. Forrette provides the essential political voice of the social critic, following the ghost of Walt Whitman wherever it leads him. Christine Stewart-Nuñez’s poetic observations continually reach for a deeper emotional core, whether she’s writing about her travels in Turkey or tweaking the image of a supermodel. Wayne Miller, as the only poet in the series who doesn’t live in South Dakota, occupies a slightly different place. He makes his home in Kansas City but appeared at the South Dakota Festival of Books and generously shared his poems from outside the South Dakota experience.

Since their interviews, most of the poets have published new poems, collections and other works. I thank each of them again for agreeing to participate in both the original interviews and this book. Editing their answers has showed me that I missed some opportunities to ask questions that would have enriched the final interviews. Eventually, maybe I will follow up to get the answers I did not think