The poet Robert Wrigley

A poet from Idaho (but not an Idaho poet, as he pointed out) came to my campus today, and I had the opportunity to attend his poetry reading, to go to lunch with him, and then to attend a panel discuss that he shared with three of our local creative writing faculty: Michael Sowder, Jennifer Sinor, and Charles Waugh.

Wrigley looks a little like a gray-haired Al Pacino, and the way his mouth moves made me smile a few times at the likeness. The poems he read were quite good; poems about how fragile and beautiful life is, using some excellent nature imagery and exploring human relationships with a soft touch.

After the reading, some of the other graduate students and I, along with one of our creative writing faculty went to lunch with Wrigley. At first, I felt as though he was a bit too focused on himself as he talked, laying on his opinions and insights a little thick, but after I spoke with one of my fellow graduate students, I came to the decision that, since he was being paid to be here and talk to us as the great visiting poet, he was giving us our money's worth of his wisdom and experience. That was more palatable. The lunch was interesting: there were sweet potatoes, ham, and pie, among others. The Skyroom was practicing for Christmas Dinner already.

The panel was solid, but I never really liked panels. It seems people always ask the same questions. It was interesting to hear various insights into how place and the natural world affect writing. I agree with Wrigley's assessment that speaking of writing about the "natural world" presumes that there is an "unnatural world," when really, there isn't. Cities aren't unnatural. Most animals change their environment in some way; we're merely termites building our mounds on a larger scale.

Robert Wrigley, you're not Naomi Nye, but I won't hold that against you. Thanks for visiting. I look forward to seeing your poem in The New Yorker.