UMaine to Host International Poetry Conference
Contact: Joe Carr at (207) 581-3571
ORONO — University of Maine English Professor Burt Hatlen jokingly calls the 2004 poetry conference of the National Poetry Foundation on June 23-27 “a gathering of the poetry clan, and all the sub-clans.”
But, in fact, this conference, the 12th poetry conference hosted by the National Poetry Foundation since it was established in 1972 by the late UMaine English professor Carroll Terrell, will be a gathering of some world-renowned poets and scholars devoted to the creation and the study of poetry.
As many as 250 poets and scholars are traveling from Italy, Poland, Germany, Turkey, Spain, England, Canada, Korea, Singapore and from some of the best universities in the United States to the UMaine campus to read their poetry, listen to others read, present papers and build academic networks to carry on after the five-day conference ends.
Titled “Poetries of the 1940s, American and International,” the conference may be the largest of its kind in the world, according to Hatlen, himself a poet and specialist whose field includes 19th and 20th American poetry, and who also has served as director of the National Poetry Foundation since 1991.
The conference “is significant, and it’s fun, I should also emphasize,” says Hatlen.
Though a conference of enormous value for scholars, many of whom will present unpublished papers before audiences of their academic peers, conference organizers also invite members of the public who would like to hear poetry by some of the finest American poets whose work was shaped by the 1940s, or discussions of the poetry of the 1940s by some of the most respected literary scholars writing today.
All conference events are open to Maine residents at no cost.
The conference is divided into lectures, readings and panel discussions, identified in the 32-page program, which is available at the conference.
“The focus is the 1940s,” Hatlen says, “a period of radical change in American life. The United States emerged from the war as the richest and most powerful nation on earth, but many poets felt deeply uneasy about the new role they saw America as playing in the postwar period, especially the increasing influence of the military on American society.”
Not only were the 1940s a period of often very experimental and adventurous musical and literary subcultures, but the period, particularly in the aftermath of World War II, helped crystallize American values. The seeds of the 1950s beat generation and the 1960s counterculture were planted in the 1940s, Hatlen says, and the tension and turmoil of the times is captured in the poetry, not only in American poetry, but in the work of poets from around the world.
“Ezra Pound, who was alive and writing at this time, said ‘Artists are the antennae of the race.’ I think there’s validity in that,” he says. “The tension and conflict in American life are reflected in the poetry of the 1940s. But also, these poets were dealing with a whole new world, so different from what they were dealing with in the 1930s, when Americans worried mostly about their own country, not about running the world.”
Among more than seventy other panels, the conference program will include two panel discussions of poetry written by Americans in camps for conscientious objectors and poetry by Japanese Americans interned in camps during World War II.
Among the participants at the conference is Robert Creeley, an internationally respected major American poet, who began his career in the 1940s and was an instructor at the famous Black Mountain College in North Carolina, as much a retreat for poets and writers as a formal college. He’ll begin the conference with a poetry reading on Wednesday, June 23, at 7 p.m. in Minsky Auditorium in the Class of 1944 Hall.
Other poets of international acclaim include:
Harvey Shapiro, a World War II veteran who has written poetry about the war and who recently published an anthology of World War II poetry; Jackson Mac Low, a Wallace Stevens Award winner, prolific writer, poet, composer, painter and multi-media performance artist born in 1922; Lyn Hejinian, a professor at University of California at Berkeley and “one of the most highly regarded poets writing today, world-renowned,” adds Hatlen; and Margaret Avison, who at age 85 has become one of the most admired and respected poets in Canada. Avison has received the two most prestigious Canadian poetry prizes, the Governor General’s Award and the Griffin Prize.
Previous National Poetry Foundation conferences at UMaine have looked at other influential periods — the 1930s in the 1993 conference, the 1950s in the 1996 conference and the 1960s in the 2000 conference.
Hatlen says that, even though the 1940s has long been seen as an important period in America’s evolution, it became more symbolic after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
“Around 9/11, the 40s rhetoric was invoked over and over again,” he says. “Pearl Harbor all over again.”
The 1940s “is the beginning of globalization, if you like,” he says. “The U.S. gets its power through military means worldwide and many poets were very uneasy about those changes.”
The conference is being held in a variety of buildings on campus, including Neville Hall, the Doris Twitchell Allen Community Center and the Class of 1944 Hall.
In addition to the National Poetry Foundation website, more information can be obtained by calling 581-3813.