Poet B.H. Fairchild doesn?t think he sees the world differently. He does, however, see language differently.
?I think there?s something that happens for both writers and obsessive readers,? he said. ?It?s a kind of romance wherein you fall in love with language. They are the sort of people who will find themselves reading the same sentence over and over even though they understand the meaning.?
Fairchild visited campus April 2 and 3 to share his writing with students and faculty alike. He read from his poetry on Tuesday night and gave a lecture titled ?Coming into Poetry? on Wednesday night.
Fairchild is a professor at the University of North Texas. He has lived all over the lower Midwest, growing up in small towns in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. He has written and published six books of poetry.
?His poems are about average people living average lives and his discovering in those lives of husbands and wives and laborers the stuff of serious art,? John Somerville, professor of English and director the visiting writers program, said.
Somerville first heard about Fairchild while reading a book by Dennis Donahue called ?Speaking of Beauty.?
?Early in the book he refers to a poem by B.H. Fairchild called ?Beauty,?? Somerville said. ?I went to find the poem. It had originally appeared in the Southern Review. I went to the basement in Mossey where they keep the back copies and found ?Beauty.? I love that poem.?
In addition to poetry, Fairchild has written a book, ?Such Holy Song,? exploring the relationship between William Blake?s poetry and music.
?He composed melodies to ?The Song?s of Innocence and Experience? and would perform them,? Fairchild said. ?He was also influenced by oratorio.?
Fairchild has a colorful employment history prior to post-graduate work at the Claremont Graduate University, Texas Christian University, and the University of North Texas. Fairchild described working as a movie usher, a technical writer for a nitroglycerin plant, and an English tutor for the Kansas Basketball team.
?I was paid 45 cents an hour for ushering, and 75 cents an hour for changing the marquee,? he said.
Fairchild also said he thinks this experience, in addition to general life experience, contributed to his profession as a writer.
?I don?t think poetry is solely an act of the imagination,? he said.
?There?s a fair amount of poetry to me that leans too far to the abstract,? Somerville said. ?And certainly he writes about ideas, but they are embodied in a world that?s recognizable to the average person.?
Somerville pointed to Fairchild?s poem about the crucifixion, ?The Deposition,? as an example.
?It?s not average, but it is so incarnate, it?s all in the flesh?a real figure hanging on a cross,? he said.
Fairchild said he thinks the crucifixion is not often thought about in it?s total reality and he wanted to show the event as it would probably be?sweaty, smelly, and filthy.
?If you are going to finally write a poem about the crucifixion you owe it to yourself to be as true and real as you possibly can,? he said.
Twice in ?The Deposition? Fairchild describes the eyes of Christ?once as open, once as being shut by the narrator. Each instance is followed by the phrase ?I know who you are.?
?The finite mind can never truly know itself,? Fairchild explained. ?Only an infinite mind can truly comprehend your mind.?
Fairchild read other selected poems Tuesday night, including ?Beauty? and ?The Left-Fielder?s Sestina,? a poem he published online.
?I?ve written two sestina?s in my life,? he said. ?The one I wrote in one day. I?ve been working on ?The Left-Fielder?s Sestina? on and off for almost six years.?
For Fairchild, the writing process is a thing of quiet, concentration and time.
?I have written in the midst of commotion, but I really prefer to be completely in solitude,? he said. ?I have to have long periods of concentration.?
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Source: http://www.hillsdalecollegian.com/2013/04/fairchild-visits-campus-shares-poetry/
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