At the time, I was revisiting Robert Lowell's Life Studies and For the Union Dead, as I do every few years. I know many great poets were born and lived in Maine, such as Edna St. Vincent Millay, Louise Bogan and, of course, Longfellow, but for some reason Lowell is the one I connect to Maine the most— although he only lived here, in Damariscotta Mills, for a short time during the 1940s. Here's the opening stanzas from "Water,"one of my favorite poems from Life Studies:
It was a Maine lobster town—
each morning boatloads of hands
pushed off for granite
quarries on the islands,
and left dozens of bleak
white frame houses stuck
like oyster shells
on a hill of rock,
and below us, the sea lapped
the raw little match-stick
mazes of a weir,
where the fish for bait were trapped.
When Lowell writes about Maine, he does it in a manner that speaks to what I appreciate most about this state, especially the landscape. Maine is a place where it's easy to be a poet because it's easy to be solitary. Along the coast, in the mountains, or walking the brick streets of Portland or Bangor, you can disappear and be comfortably alone. Especially when the fog rolls in and the salt water's deposited as a fine, chilly lace in your hair and on your windbreaker. Usually in early August this occurs. It can be a severe, introspective and melancholy place. Perfect for artists and poets who need to sit alone in stillness while their imaginations roil and conjure and quake.
So I sent the publisher a letter with my suggestion they include poetry, and my proposal to serve as editor. I was pleased when Susan Grisanti and Peter Smith invited me into the magazine's office to discuss my idea in more detail. I brought some Lowell to read. I shared my thoughts. It's easy for me to express my enthusiasm for poetry. I could talk for hour about it. They loved the idea and were on board. Poems don't have to be about Maine, we determined, but the poet must have some connection to Maine. I knew personally a few poets I could tap to publish. Betsy Sholl, our state's poet laureate, Ira Sadoff and Alison Deming, to name a few.
One nice and unexpected touch is the illustration that accompanies the poem. I'll admit, I was skeptical at first, but the staff does a wonderful job finding Maine illustrators to interpret the poems. We've also been including a brief statement by the poet—what inspired the poem or what inspires them to write, in general? This was an idea I borrowed in part from a couple of my favorite anthologies—Naked Poetry and The New Naked Poetry—edited by Stephen Berg and Robert Mezey back in the 1970s. At the end of each poet's selection of poetry, he or she wrote a personal "statement" or definition of poetry.
A year and a half into it, and the poetry page in Maine magazine has been very well received. But that's easy, since overall it's a classy, quality publication—beautifully designed and engagingly written. The photography, too, captures the natural beauty of the landscape, the mood of the seasons and the interesting personalities who inhabit our cities and towns. When people learn I'm the poetry editor for Maine magazine, they'll gush about it. "Hey, thanks," I'll say, "but my part's tiny. I'll pass your praise on to the folks who do the work."
