Richard Hugo - “The Lady in Kicking Horse Reservoir”
Okay, last one. Probably. Maybe. Whatever. (previously and previously)
In this one (again from Kicking Loose the Gravel), we see Hugo leading one of his poetry classes at the University of Montana. He’s trying to help a student improve her work by understanding poetry as “the art of meaning what you say.”
I love his obsession with the sound of words — which ends up serving the verse (and the “meaning”) so much more than trying to jam a bunch of ideas into broken lines.
Also, as an example of how “monstrous” subjects can find their place without being “overliterary and inflated”, he talks about the story behind his own well-known piece, “The Lady in Kicking Horse Reservoir.” It’s followed by a reading of the poem by Hugo.
Favorite quote from critiquing the studen’t verse:
God damn it! NOW someone’s talking!
Full text of the poem below:
Degrees of Gray in Philipsburg
by Richard Hugo
This is Richard Hugo, talking with a man in a cowboy hat named, “Paul,” about writing my favorite poem — followed by a terrific reading.
Another scene from a 1976 documentary on Hugo called, Kicking Loose the Gravel. Good stuff. For a Hugo superfan, this is like realizing there’s two Beatles records you’d never heard of.
For some reason, as I’ve gotten older, really good, musical verse has started having a profound physical effect on me. As with “The Milltown Union Bar” poem/video I posted last night, I listen, and something crazy starts happening. I get really tingly and feel my blood pressure going up and I get a little dazed and emotional. Word-drunk.
Guess I’m realizing my love of poems in college was mostly intellectual. Exercises in concision and ellipsis through verbal carpentry — like building and solving little wooden puzzles.
It’s all different today. So strange. I hear a poem by Hugo, or Lowell, or Billy Collins, and it just sweeps me away.
Which I love. And am so weirdly grateful for.
Make it the town that the poem needs — then you can fib.
