A Poet; August Derleth [18a and 18b]

I. Call it not thing they do not her who say that when a poet dies. Nature mourns her worshippers and celebrates his absent ways. So Walter Scott this program is dedicated to a man and his poetry. August Derleth. A memorial. Your host. August Derleth the dean of Wisconsin poets born February 24th 19 0 9 died July 4th 1971. We're going to talk about the man. August Derleth and the poet. And we're going to hear some of his poetry. August Derleth was a regional poet and in a poem written after his death Edomite had this to say

about him deceased canceled reservations say as strangers fill our places for tetralogy. Your journal sealed the opera's ring at and for dear gods in common twilight friend with me to talk about the poetry and the man. August Derleth is Mr. George who cared much George what was your relation to August. Their life. Essentially that of a. Pupil to teacher. And I like to think friend a friend. Was it over a large number of views since the early 1950s. I studied under Augie at the University of Wisconsin. We took. A creative. Writing class. And that was my first. Meeting with

him. And subsequently. Over the years. I would see him place of hawks. Along the river trestle. He would see me in town. He sort of had to. The friendship thing going. From your reflections and your observations of him with other people. Was he an easy man to get to know. I would say part of him. Was relatively easy to know the public. Augie dearly. But Auggie like a great many fine artists had considerable ego. And I don't think that Auggie. Ever let himself. Be known by others because I think all he did not want to be in a subordinate position. I think you quickly got the idea if you know I'll get all that.

He called the shots. He was always in the superior position. It was either Auggie as teacher use pupil. Augie as. More experienced. Than you less experienced. And I'm told that this held true even when he encountered for the personalities of Frank Lloyd Wright. Augie was Auggie. And I think because he had this ego. He was very difficult to know in a private kind of way. The public portion of him I think was very easy to know because he was very outgoing very affable. But the private. Quiet of solitude I think. Not many people got to know. And yet for one who wrote very sensitive poetry One would almost guess that he would have to have. A certain intimacy to a number of people to be able to reflect that in his poetry.

I think this is true. And I think that he did have. Intimacy with with a great many people. I don't think this was true when he caught a class I don't think he was at intimate with 25 or 30 people. At a crack. I also believe that because he was a man of parts not just the court. But because it was published writer teacher. Because he had a great many things going for him. He wore a great many. Masks. And. Some of them required that. He act a certain way when he functioned as editor. Again he was superior. You release a period. And this was not a private kind of. Person. I think that. The beauty of Auggie was that he was so many things.

In one man. It was very easy to dismiss him as well there he is a non-conformist wearing the sweat shirt to a very formal occasion. But I think the fact remains that August August early it's a very very complex man. When you talk about the ego and how it came out in various situations are you saying that this happened or that this was noticeable once he became famous or well-known or is it something with a creative person that has to almost preceded the first published poem. My feeling is that every creative artist. Has to have a great deal of ego. I feel that it's the ego that sustains a creative artist when really nothing else will. In other words a man and a boy he says are a young woman says I am going to be that artist. I am going to sell what I will create and people will

pay good money for that and I will be famous. Well when you say this. Out of the blue not having sold a darn thing to your family or to your friends or to your spouse. It sounds sort of foolish. It's very presumptuous to say that I am going to compete with Shakespeare or Hemmingway a guy whatever. So. Because you can't rely on people around you for support. Not real solid underpinning. You rely on yourself and your ego. The difficulty is that some artists let the ego show. And when this shows other people don't tend to regard them as maybe poorish are bordering on the borders. But I think every artist even. The ones whose public demeanor is relatively humble. Every artist has to have a great deal of confidence quiet confidence in himself a.

Great deal of people. There's no other way around it without the ego. Without the confidence in yourself. You don't create. As most of them very difficult for their life. However living in a small town the way he did where at least one looking from the outside would suggest that people's ideas would be more provincial and they would be more ready to censure someone who did have an evident ego or was a non-conformist of types than if he would have gone to the big city any big city. Well there's a saying that the fire born are cold and fire. And I think Augie. Did not mind controversy did not mind being on the firing line. I did not mind being criticised by. The church in a couple of instances and sock city. It could function that way. A great many artists a great many people function best when they're under pressure. When their chests are bare and the stuff is flying as they say. Ugh. I think thoroughly enjoyed a good fight.

And I think he would have been the same way had he gone to. Hollywood New York. Paris. Or Madison I think. Augie was moved by certain social issues. And if he found himself in a situation where an issue needed defending. I think he would have defended it no matter where he thought himself. Were there times in his life when you knew him that you thought he might want to move might want to leave might want to forsake regionalism as a form. Point. What expression. Never. I think. That. Auggie realized the older. He grows. And as many of us realize the older we grow. Roots are very important. And I think that Auggie. Had something. Which in the last analysis most creative writers of most creative artists

willingly abandon and that's roots the sense of belonging somewhere. It's very difficult to transplant say from any one area. To New York. To Hollywood. And do really important creative writing because you're ruthless. You can do writing of the sort but that the thing that sustains. Writing for the long haul. The thing that creates art is a sense of place a sense of time a sense of history. And I just had that. I am sure that had he gone as a young man to another area. He would have been regional also in that particular area. New York Hollywood or what not. But having grown so long. In native soil. It's very difficult to transplant. And yet in commenting about his poetry people say that while he was a regional poet his region as you said one is region was the world. Do you still think

that's true. Yes I think that there was a great deal. In what Auggie wrote. That is universal. His themes of of Love his themes of disappointment his themes of hate life and death in the final worth that's runs all through August. I don't think it's it's a question of him not being universal. I think the question is How good is he when he is universal. He himself always said that he did not regard himself as a put in the first right. I don't know. I think that some of his poetry is very very good indeed. Let's pause for a moment and her discussion and hear one of August Derleth poems evening in Wisconsin. Evenings in Wisconsin evenings in Wisconsin you sit endlessly on porches

steps on swings. You pick the dipper out of the sky sometimes Polemarchus and the rings of Saturn. Listening to cars start up somewhere in pass and the sound of laughter. And of broken voices brittle as glass. You hear the evening mail go down the sky. And think of cities. City. And the distance where they live. While the shadows lengthened down the streets. You sit out in the cool of dusk and listen for the heart beats and a vain proud speech. The hotshot last. Crying of the world.

What would you say was the philosophy behind the poetry of August Derleth. It's a difficult question but. Even so I'm. Not presuming to. To even guess what he was about creativity. I would feel that like most honest sincere. Talented pullets. He was searching for truth. And I think his particular. Path. Took him back to. Beginnings took him back to. Nature. Took him back to. The road. And I think probably. It. Was the reason his going back to beginnings to nature was the reason that he spent his entire lifetime. On the

Wisconsin River. And yet in his poetry you notice some almost anti religious sentiments at a time that's probably too strong a way of looking at it but as you said earlier he did have some problems with the church what was that all about. Well they the church the Catholic Church in in Suck City like the Catholic Church in the great many villages. Some years back was not the most liberal organization in America. And Auggie and the church clashed and and and a couple of things. Particularly the. Schools. And freedom. Of. The speech. Augie had arranged when a member of the Board of

Education. To bring in speakers to the. City the Sox's. And some of the speakers that that he brought in were assailed by the church as being. Un-American whatever. And again on the floor of the church. And his particular planes. I think. And this is just a personal observation. I think had he known that he was going to die had he had time to prepare for his death. The Church. Might not have played. The role in his funeral service. But it did place I think as a viewer as a witness to his funeral. I was struck by the fact that almost every priest in turn seemed to claim him.

For the church as sort of the prodigal returned. And I don't think AGI was like that at all. I think it Augie had time to plan for his funeral for a service that had been more through the role. Maybe more Loren Eiseley more around the frost borderless and maybe less of Rome. And yet how difficult it would be for any man. To plan for his death in that way. Yes. Many. Different civilizations had traditions were one couldn't even consider the fact of dying as the Egyptians who never went on to consider these sorts of things. I'm curious about another point though. Do you think as Derleth in his later years developed his poetry that there ever was a time when he thought of himself as having failed. Again. I would not presume. To speak for him. I

think it. Occurs to every poet every creative artist that he either has failed. Is on the verge of failure or is going to fail in the very near future. I think this is the nature of the beast and this is why one needs a tremendous ego the tremendous confidence to sustain you. I think he may have thought that he was a failure but if if so. I'm sure it was the same kind of thinking that all of us experience. And we failures. Now and we're going to be failures and we're on the verge of failure. And why. And what's the benchmark. And if. We haven't solved life I will be failures if we die I will be failures. These are very big questions and I am.

Able to cope with them. The answer is probably there aren't any answers because that's one way of looking at it. I wonder if one implication of what we're talking about isn't the large number of poems that August Derleth wrote that by constantly writing and constantly working he tried to maintain himself at a certain level. Again I don't know. He once told me that. He felt he wrote too much that a lot of what he wrote would simply not survive would not stand the test of time. Referred to some of his works as as potboilers as hack work. But he was very very proud defiantly proud of certain works that he felt in a small bookshop with five or six books were as good as any produced in America by any author and would survive. And I'm reading some of these books namely

Walden West return to Wild West. My gut feeling is that August Derleth. One day. Will be held in the same kind of esteem. That the role is held today. The road to it was said to be a failure. And yet the role has been rediscovered by probably the best segment of America the young people. And at another time. Well thank you very much George who Kailash. And now let's hear another August Derleth poem a different drummer. A Different Drummer. Keeping his own pace stepping to the music that he heard now near now far in the voice of wind of bird distantly echoing the pulse of day starshine of the Seas tides and of the blood.

I came into this world not chiefly to make this a good place to live in but to live in it be it good or bad. Advancing without pause in the direction of his dreams living the life of his mind in his own seasons and out of cause he could not name but knew as intimately as he knew any self of his own flesh and bone. One with the well of the blue about of and a sea of green around rocking the tracks of his private universe. All of the familiar ground stepping to the long known light of sun and moon and stars pacing field pond Rivers sea coast

crossing past year buyers and the line separating day from night reality from Dream engagement from resignation fishing in the stream of time I drink at it. But while I drink. I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its then current slides away but eternity remains. I would drink deep of it. Rifting his way into the core of thing was searching for the richest vein mining the secrets of Leith. Blade further rock of Brook and lake a forest glade petal sand of hill and

windy air insect and bird the shape of land and the contours of the heart listening listening to the music heard now deep within. Now as distantly as the faint notes of the morning's first bird heralding the dawn however mean your life is meet it and live. If I were confined to a corner of a garret all my days like a spider. The road would be just as large. While I had my thought. Never slow to satisfy the hunger and the thirst of his soul. Following his genius knowing it would not mislead him. As boy or man. Great in the days and

the nights with joy living in each season. The cost of a thing is the amount of. Life. Required to be exchanged for it. Growing green with spring. His face turned ever sunward yellow and ripe with Autumn sublime serene at peace with all his world blown upon by all the winds keeping his own peace in solitude alone. If a man does not keep pace with his companions. Perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.

August Derleth wrote this poem to mark the passing of Henry David Thoreau. But it marked the passing of blog address as well. In the end was his beginning. Henry David Thoreau July 12 18 17 May 6th 18 62. The neighbor's children passed the House. Why don't they come to see me. He said to birdsong and the stirring of a mouse. I love them as if they were my own. He read the morning star of the sunrise the crying of a meadow lark on the brightening edge of

day. Sam Staples said never saw a man die and with so much pleasure. And peace. Time ticked on its way at Walden at Fairhaven and in the town where his steps had scarcely ceased to stir the dust. To that one who stood beside him looking down and asked Have you made your peace with God. He must make such an answer as he did. I did not know that we had quarrelled and had he thought about the other world. Light made showing his reply. One world at a time. They ought to have known him better after 40 years.

Surveyor of forest paths bridges delves and ravines inspector snow storms student of wild careers and hidden ways. Knowing where the sassafras leans against the wind. And the wild duck. Read her young. Caretaker of bean rose and the bumble bee. I regret nothing. Is words true. The tongue is the wind. In the loneliest Concord tree. The sun came. He spoke of moves and India. It's. At 9:00 that May morning quietly.

He died. None knew his end was not yet to be. Children were loose. Upon the top. Outside a robin. Cry. Way call it not they they do not her who say that when a poet dies. Nature mourns her worshipper and celebrates his absent ways. So Walter Scott one way. A.