The Fields On Fire: Northwest Poets On Wildfires
Among the three firefighters who lost their lives last month fighting the wildfires in Okanogon was one with a connection to poetry. Tom Zbyszewski, 20, grew up in the Methow Valley.
That got KUOW's literary producer and Washington state poet laureate Elizabeth Austen thinking about how Pacific Northwest poets have responded to wildfires. She talked with Marcie Sillman about poems by Kevin Goodan and Nance Van Winckel.
Kevin Goodan, an Idaho-based poet, spent 10 seasons fighting fires for the U.S. Forest Service. He reads an excerpt from his poem sequence Let That Fire Catch Me Now, a collaboration with photographer Adam Ottavi. Read the sequence of poems and see the photographs that inspired them at terrain.org.
Nance Van Winckel is a poet and novelist who lives in Spokane. She wrote the poem "The Field on Fire" in response to a first-hand experience in the early 1990s, when the Spokane area was threatened with multiple fires.
The Field on Fire
But it’s so far, we can’t be sure.
We pull on rubber-soled boots—
still in their partial melt-down
from the last blaze. From
that pre-dawn, smoked-out
moonlit walk across the embers
of our neighbor’s pig farm. Tree stumps
glowing like Chinese lanterns.
The oinkless quiet and the great stench.
We pace the ridge. Shovels
on our shoulders. Then here’s
a wind to rile the flames.
Dangling from helicopters,
huge buckets hover above the pond,
then dip down. Teacups poured
on the rising inferno. Ah, so we
see now: the tail of the past
loops around and falls smack into
the dropped-jowled mouths
of the wide-eyed watchers,
as Miss Lone Survivor Pig
from the last apocalypse hurtles out
from the crackling trees.
The question mark of her tail
against the blazing backdrop.
And the hellbent rush of her coming
at us, like the final page of a story
we’ve read a dozen times, each time
hoping it wouldn’t end like this.
– Nance Van Winckel
Kevin Goodan is the author of the poetry collections "Upper Level Disturbances" (Center for Literary Publishing, 2012), "Winter Tenor" (Alice James Books, 2009) and "In the Ghost-House Acquainted" (Alice James Books, 2004). He teaches at Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston, Idaho.
Nance Van Winckel has published five books of fiction and six collections of poetry. Her latest volume, "Pacific Walkers" (University of Washington Press, 2013), was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award in poetry. She is professor emerita at Eastern Washington University and teaches in the Vermont College for Fine Arts' MFA in writing program.
Elizabeth Austen is posting Pacific Northwest poets' responses to fire at wapoetlaureate.org, with a new poem every other day until the end of fire season.
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Elizabeth Austen
Producer
Former Washington State Poet Laureate Elizabeth Austen has been interviewing poets and producing poetry segments for KUOW since 2001. She began as an intern while in graduate school for an MFA in creative writing (poetry) at Antioch University, Los Angeles. Once she discovered the joy of blending her early background as an actor and director (Book–It Repertory Theatre, Seattle Shakespeare Festival) with her passion for poetry as a spoken art form, she was hooked. She's been producing poetry for radio audiences ever since. Her collection, "Every Dress a Decision" (Blue Begonia Press, 2011), was a finalist for the 2012 Washington State Book Award in poetry. She is also the author of two poetry chapbooks, "The Girl Who Goes Alone" (Floating Bridge Press, 2010) and "Where Currents Meet," winner of the Toadlily Press Chapbook Award and part of the quartet "Sightline," published in 2010. Elizabeth's poems have been featured on Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac and online at Verse Daily, the Bellingham Review and DMQ Review. You'll find Elizabeth's poems in anthologies including "What to Read in the Rain" and "Poets Against the War" and in literary journals. She's performed at venues including Poets House in New York City, The Loft in Minneapolis, the Austin ArtSpark Festival, and locally at the Richard Hugo House Literary Series, Bumbershoot, and the Seattle and Skagit River Poetry Festivals. An audio CD, "skin prayers," featuring 26 original poems recorded with a live audience in the KUOW studios, is available on her website, www.elizabethausten.org. Elizabeth was the 2007 Roadshow poet, bringing poetry to underserved rural communities in Washington state under the auspices of the Washington State Arts Commission, Humanities Washington, and the Washington Poets Association. She is committed to fostering a broader understanding and appreciation of the literary arts in general and poetry in particular. She teaches frequently at Richard Hugo House, a literary arts center in Seattle, and she has been a visiting artist for western Washington school districts and colleges.
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