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Northwest Passages: Elyse Fenton
When Elyse Fenton was in second grade, a writer came to her classroom with seashells.
I don't know what I was expecting. Everyone was clinking seashells around their desks and I thought, this is poetry?
It was an invitation, she realizes now, to observe and process. "That is poetry," Fenton says.
Fenton's observations of war as a soldier's wife left behind in Eugene won Cleveland State University's First Book Prize and led to the publication of her first book, Clamor. Last month Clamor won the Dylan Thomas Prize, awarded to a writer under 30 by the University of Wales. Fenton is the first poet and first American to take home the relatively new prize's nearly $50,000 purse.
Clamor reflects the fragmented communication she had with her husband, who deployed in 2005 to serve as a medic based in Baghdad's Green Zone . They spoke on the phone occasionally, but "talked" through instant messaging almost daily. Fenton told NPR those messages infused her writing.
The last thing I looked at before I wrote was the screen with our sort of fractured and distant communication. And so, that text was what I focused on, what I was navigating when I began to write, was thinking about all of this distance and these attempts at articulation and then also just seeing all the white space on the page.
Her husband shies away from the attention brought to his time in Iraq through Fenton's poetry. She says he calls his experience "mundane and boring." She, in turn, is careful to clarify that her writing captures her own experience, not his.
Part of Fenton's poem "After the Blast" is excepted here:
It happened again just now. One word
snagging like fabric on a barbed fence
Concertina wire. You said: I didn't see the body
hung on concertina wire. This was after the blast.
After you stood in the divot, both feet
in the dust's new mouth and found no one alive.
Just out of the shower, I imagine
a flake of soap crusting your dark jaw, the phone
a cradle for your bare cheek.
I should say: love. I should say: go on.
But I'm stuck on concertina –
What would you like to ask Elyse Fenton? What writings about the war in Iraq, or other wars, have stuck with you?
Tagged as: books · iraq · northwest passages · poetry · war
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... and I meant to add, but was waiting to chat on the air, that it seems almost radical for a British prize to be awarded to an American connected to the war in Iraq, especially given the overwhelming criticism of British involvement in that war right now. I wonder if Elyse has had any difficult interviews or angry commentary about that?
And the discussion of the way one decides her story is important enough to tell was a weighty one; I too have struggled with the way military culture underplays the importance of one's experience, and disparages those that do not include a very high level of both risk and actual combat experience. My husband works for the Joint Visitor's Bureau in Kuwait; although he does drive important visitors to and from the airport, it's a largely administrative job and always outside combat areas. the military culture seems to ask, is this job worthy of accolade? Is any job outside the front lines something to take pride in? And most of the answers are "no," and even those on the front lines, those who do act valiantly in the defense of their fellow soldiers, minimize its significance.
Like Elyse, I believe in the power of story, and see all these stories as threads in the tapestry of war; whatever else we do, we must understand -- or at least recognize and bear witness to -- its staggering impact.
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Thanks for sharing. I am ordering Clamor right now.
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Have you ever read "The War Prayer" by Mark Twain and have you given any thought to the women in Iraq, the sisters, wives, and mothers who experienced and still experience the invasion and occupation of Iraq? Any empathy or even sympathy for them, as the victims of the American invasion?
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Did you get to hear people speak in the Welsh language?
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Hi Emily, This is Barbara Dills, Executive Director at Fishtrap out in the Wallowas. Cold fog here this morning... I wanted to ask Elyse if she likes to teach? We would love to have her at Fishtrap sometime -- please let her know. Her work is incredible, evocative, moving. Thanks for having her on the show.
Barbara
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I enjoyed listening to your wonderful poems. They echo some of the feelings I had while my husband was away in Iraq. I grew up on a military base with others who shared my experience when my father was away. I am now a wife of a reservist and live in the community without that shared common experience. My experience of my husbands absence, the daily felling of anxiety, I haven’t thought about for some time. Thank you, I am happy to remember it, now that my husband is home and safe.
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I heard about the topic of your show this morning as I drove into work and I look forward to listening in on the discussion this evening. I recall you requested suggestions for amazing books related to war, and I'd like to share my passion for "Fools Rush In" by Bill Carter. I first read this book five years ago and devoured it in nearly one sitting. It's one of the most inspiring books I've read - and I currently work for his publisher to help promote it. Here's a little synopsis:
"When Bill Carter’s fiancé was killed in a tragic automobile accident, grief guided him on a listless journey across the world and into the heart of Bosnia’s capital city of Sarajevo during the height of the Bosnian War.
Fools Rush In, published by Schaffner Press, is Carter's memoir about his experience working through loss, dodging bullets and bombs, and delivering aid to desperate citizens cut off from the rest of the world by the longest military siege of a European capital in modern history. Fools Rush In is a startling portrait of life in a war zone and demonstrates the extraordinary ability of humans to adapt to even the worst imaginable circumstances."Thank you for letting me share!
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Fools Rush In, published by Schaffner mcse 2003 Press, is Carter's memoir about his experience working through loss, dodging bullets and bombs, and delivering aid to desperate testking mcdst
citizens cut off from the rest of the world by the longest military siege of a European capital in modern history. Fools Rush In is a startling portrait of life in a war zone icnd and demonstrates the extraordinary ability of humans to adapt to even the worst ccnp imaginable circumstances." -
Elyse Fenton's experience with a writer in second grade, coupled with her publishing success and being the first poet and first American to win the Dylan Thomas Prize, is a meaningful story to repeat to our students in Harney County, Oregon as we embark on the fifth year of our writer-in-residence program. She is an inspiration, especially to our young writers. Thank you for this program.
Kate Marsh
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I'm also a military wife and writer in Portland, and have listened to Elyse on BBC America and enjoyed her writing greatly. I've written a few long essays about the concept of being a 'waiting wife' in this age of technology, so I am finding Elyse's discussion fascinating.
I published a piece last fall in the Oregon Humanities magazine, http://www.oregonhumanities.org/magazine/section/writing/sarah-gilbert-on-penelope-and-being-an-army-wife/, and have submitted another long piece on heroes and heroines, based on this on my blog, http://www.cafemama.com/2010/nov/11_veterans_day.html