{"id":15891,"date":"2023-02-28T07:34:00","date_gmt":"2023-02-28T12:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=15891"},"modified":"2023-02-28T07:34:03","modified_gmt":"2023-02-28T12:34:03","slug":"episode-528-willard-spiegelman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-528-willard-spiegelman","title":{"rendered":"Episode 528 – Willard Spiegelman"},"content":{"rendered":"

Virtual Memories Show 528:
\nWillard Spiegelman<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/secure\/virtualmemories\/Episode_528_-_Willard_Spiegelman.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div>

Podcast: Play in new window<\/a> | Download<\/a><\/p>

Subscribe: Spotify<\/a> | TuneIn<\/a> | RSS<\/a> | More<\/a><\/p>\n

“Anyone whose primary allegiance is to libraries, encyclopedias, museums, reading is going to have a life that is best reflected or best measured by what she reads and how she reads, and what she does with her reading, and how the reading weaves itself into the fabric of her art.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>Author, critic, professor and now biographer Willard Spiegelman<\/a> rejoins the show to talk about his amazing new book, NOTHING STAYS PUT: The Life and Poetry of Amy Clampitt<\/a> (Knopf). We get into his winding history with Amy Clampitt<\/a>, why he thought a biography of her would be impossible and why he decided to write it anyway, what made her poems<\/a> so special, and what it was like to have such a late-blooming career (she first published at 58). We talk about the learning curve of writing his first (and only) biography, why he thinks Clampitt stubbornly stuck with prose instead of poetry for decades (and why she stuck with a terrible play about the Wordsworth circle in her last few years), how coastal Maine helped her write about her home prairies of Iowa, and why Willard choose to use the poems to expand on phases of her life from decades earlier. Plus we discuss Clampitt’s resonances with Emily Dickinson, the epiphany she had at the Cloisters that started her on the path to poetry, her spiritual and political engagement and how she felt about being a “female poet”, and her enthusiasm for enthusiasm. Plus, Willard looks back at the 10 years since we first recorded! Give it a listen!<\/a> And go read NOTHING STAYS PUT<\/a>!<\/p>\n

(And listen to my 2013<\/a>, 2016<\/a>, and 2018<\/a> conversations with Willard!)<\/em><\/p>\n

“You could say the launch of her career was fast work, but it was fast work that took 40 years.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n