On Thursday, a festival devoted to Jeffers' life and work will take place at USC, one of his two alma maters (he shares Occidental College with our president, Ben Affleck and my wife.) As the university's release has it: "The panels and exhibition will explore Jeffers’ relationship to the natural world, Jeffers and the art of the book, and his story as a young poet in early 20th-century Los Angeles. Jeffers manuscripts and photographs, many of which are rarely seen by the public, will be on view."
One of very few people I know whose ardor for Jeffers outstrips mine is my old friend Dana Gioia, whose essay on the poet in Can Poetry Matter? made me think about Jeffers in a new way.
Dana and I discussed the poet and his legacy here.
Robinson Jeffers seems like the most distinctly California poet
conceivable. It's really hard to imagine him coming from anywhere else, isn't it?
Jeffers was a poet who could only
have developed as he did in California and probably only in the Modernist era.
His search for a distinctly modern
voice took an entirely different course than any of his Eastern contemporaries. The still pristine landscape of California gave him a direct relationship
with nature (and a skepticism about human civilization) that would not have
been possible in New York or London.
What's the purpose of the Jeffers Festival at USC? What will it
be like?
My aim is to bring Jeffers back to
his alma mater. He is the most considerable writer ever to have attended USC, and
the university has mostly forgotten him. I want to reclaim his legacy. I am
pleased to report that everyone I have approached here has been eager to help. We
have deliberated put together a conference that is not just literary chatter. Our
speakers -- a great historian, a major sci-fi novelists/naturalist, a fine
press printer, and a biographer -- will celebrate aspects of Jeffers' work not
likely to be discussed in an English department.
What is your relationship to his work?
Jeffers has had an impact on my
imagination. He showed how powerful and original poetry could be written out of
my native landscape. His work also showed that a great Modernist could write in
ways that were both innovative and accessible.
Can you mention a poem, or a line, by Jeffers and tell us why it
resonates with you?
I love so much of Jeffers' poetry
that it is hard to pick a single poem or single line. "To the
Stone-Cutters" is only ten lines long, but it has a
huge resonance. It begins:
Stone-cutters fighting time
with marble, you foredefeated
Challengers of oblivion
Eat cynical earnings,
knowing rock splits, records fall down,
The square-limbed Roman
letters
Scale in the thaws, wear
in the rain. The poets as well
Builds his monument
mockingly....
That seems to be true of time, life,
and poetry. I love the way the free verse lines alternate long and short and
quietly echo the long lines of Latin and Greek poetry without ever making an
issue of their lineage. It's learned but light, clear but incisive.
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