Rapping Nightly; Interview with Robert Francis on His Autobiography

Ladies and Gentlemen good evening and welcome to wrapping nightly. And I'm going to be speaking with the Amherst poet Robert Francis about his new autobiography called The Trouble With Francis published by the University of Massachusetts press. And today May twenty one thousand nine hundred one is the date of publication of The Trouble with Francis. My guest has written a number of other books both poetry and prose in the prose category. He's written the satirical rogue on poetry. We fly away and books of poetry include come out into the sun the orb weaver the face against the glass the sound I listened for Valhalla and stand stand with me here. His works have appeared in The Harvard alumni bulletin and common weale the Massachusetts review the New York Times the transatlantic review the Virginia Quarterly Review and The New Yorker magazine. And also he received the Shelley Memorial Award in 1038 and held the Golden Rose of The New England poetry club from one thousand forty two to nine thousand nine hundred

three. And during one thousand fifty seven in one thousand fifty eight he lived in Rome on a fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and during 967 in 1968 he visited Italy in England on a needle poetry traveling scholarship. I want to thank you very much for coming by Mr. Francis on the date of publication of The Trouble with Francis. The book is somewhat interesting. First thing I notice about it in looking through the table of contents is that you begin telling the story in about the middle of your life. Come up to the present and then when one is well engrossed in your life in the middle of the book then you start with your birth and your early years and come up to the present or come up rather to the middle and meet halfway and then conclude the book with some notes getting up to the present. How is this as a way to approach an autobiography What prompted you to do it in that way. Well first let me say Mr. Mills that I'm very much relieved that you didn't ask me as your first

question. Well the trouble with Francis really is we may get to that yet but as for beginning. An autobiography in the middle of things. Perhaps I was influenced by the short story we are accustomed to start right in the middle of a story and then have a throwback. And as I tried to say in the book itself I also had the thought that there might be some people conceivably interested in knowing something about me as I am or was I was in the recent past who would necessarily care to know about my birth and childhood so it was a gesture in their behalf I think that led me to start in the in the middle. And then I liked the fifth. The thought that it's a different way of doing I don't happen to know of any other autobiography that begins in the middle but I have to do. I can't recall I want to while I am interested in why you did it. I don't think I'll follow the pattern by joining your life in the middle I'm

interested to begin with something of your your early years and I'm taking I'm reading from a paragraph on page 156 which says No need to say that I was not good at any sport. A boy who shrank from the rough and tumble of recess would not be one to take football take to football. Baseball was a little better but only if the pitcher was not too speedy. I lacked courage toughness or plus energy but I also lacked interest interest that could have made me a fan if not a player. I never learned a single big league players batting average once father took me to a big league game in Boston. But my chief impression was the grossest of the free for all urinating under the stands between innings. I swam in the sense that I kept above water. I never learned to dive from any height bothered by weak ankles. I could never stand on skates without wobbling. I did not even know how to ride a bicycle. I never owned one as a boy I never apparently asked for one. Walking was really my best sport though not thought of as a sport.

There was also reference to one in one point of the book about your having difficulty somersaulting as a young child being a very small child and being upset and frustrated by the fact that your. Well I'm wondering how you felt as a young boy growing up or did you feel out of place at all because you had some difficulty in doing these competitive sports or even a simple thing like somersaulting. Well I finally managed to take a somersault. I got over that but I never became a sportsman. And this brings us to the puzzle as to why I should have written some sports poems which have proved to be the most popular poems I've written they are most frequently reprinted in anthologies. But as for the theme My feeling about my inadequacy Well I guess I was inadequate in other ways and that was just one of them. And after all I didn't have. Well I just I.

It's kind of nice though to have come out as I have been to enjoy sports at least through poetry. After that on promising to getting out of the palms I believe you wrote about a sport isn't titled skeer. It is from come out into the sun a fairly recent collection of poems New and Selected and if you would I would like very much to have you read skeer. Scare. He swings down like the flourish of a pen signing a signature or in white and white in the silence of his skiis reciprocates the silence of the world around him. When it is his one competitor in the cool winding and unwinding down on him can Desson feet he falls falling trailing white foam white fire.

Thank you. And did you have any experience skiing I don't recall. In the autobiography I know that poem like the other sports poems is a poem of the observer who has seen something in the scale that catches his imagination and wants to capture it in words. It's not a scale or a poem from the point of your participation. It's seeing almost the idealize the same thing could be said of the base stealer pitcher swimmer and the other sports poems. How do you feel about the experience of writing an autobiography. It seems that most people are more likely to look forward in their lives to what pleasures may lie ahead or at least deal with the present and try and take care of today's tribulations. What is it like to take a great deal of time and energy in looking back. Do you think you've had an experience that well.

Yes I found it a very good experience. And maybe that's the basic reason I wanted to do it. I should I should recommend that experience to other people. And not to be bothered by that thought. Do I deserve to write I know important enough to write an autobiography I ought to have known better than ever to have asked that question myself. Because if there's one book that any person would be justified in at least trying to write is the story of his life. So having got by that hurdle it can be a very very good experience. Were there times when it was difficult to try and really look objectively at things that happened or events in the past people you may have magic something of a struggle to be completely candid for one thing. But once I had got the structure of the book once I had the thought that I'm going to begin in the middle in coming up to the prose to the present which was then 1970 and then

go back to my birth and come up to the point that I started out with a few extra chapters. I felt ready to go ahead and particularly having the title the title I took from a sentence in a review of one of my books of poems. The trouble with Francis this reviewer said in this particular sentence is not that he's too happy as that is happiness seems to lack weight. Now nothing that's ever been said about me has given me more pleasure and stimulation than that. Why is that. Oh I think I know what the man meant. But it was just a I decided the trouble with Francis will be the title of my autobiography. And if along the way while I was working on it I ever faltered I have or wondered whether I should go out ahead only to think of that title and I had a new lift.

It's interesting that some writers can have that kind of an experience while they're working on it on a piece of work. I heard of a writer who had the sound of a bell in mind a recollection it was very vivid in his mind and as he wrote whenever he felt that he might be falling off or just was didn't have the enthusiasm the lift of the words just weren't coming out in the right order. He would think of that bell and it served as an inspiration. Those words were my bell. Do you feel that in looking back events that may have been very difficult for you to get through in early years. The hardness of that period of time may have been softened by time. Well I have assumed that I think that's true of my experience but it might not be true of other people. You know looking back might be very painful for something that does happen doesn't happen to be for me. There is a section here. This is after your very early years and you went on to Harvard in the first couple of

paragraphs. You have some description of your your Harvard years or at least some conclusions about it so I think you know share as well. Why don't I read this paragraph a touch other than Chapter 15. And so I come to Harvard. What did I do there and what did Harvard do for me. Was it a great experience. Everything previous mere prelude did I blossom Did I really begin to live. Was the High Point High School lastic achievement in the Coombe loudy a 5 beta kappa. Or was I too engrossed in one subject to care about other grades and other subjects that I let the courses take care of themselves and devote myself to reading like I discover a Cortez about Bella. Was there a great teacher in my life. Was it friendship though not an athlete was I a fan that I fall in love. Did I explore sex or was the great thing the long solitary walks away from Cambridge. How did I fulfil myself at Harvard. The answer can only be that I did not fulfill myself in any way. Nothing about college gave me pleasure or satisfaction. I never felt at home there. During

my four years as an undergraduate I can't recall a single incident that made me feel good. College life was something I didn't have. Did you have. Difficulty making friends in that period of your lifes. Yes. Perhaps I'm unfair to Harvard I should have added that it was all MY fault of course that I didn't fulfill myself. That would I couldn't explain that but. I think it I think it was a good thing I went to Harvard and possessed it and got a couple of degrees. But it was not as it was not what college means to most young people. You went back later on. However this thread I measure I had to after I had taught in high school one year I went back and got a master's degree in education. And as I indicate in the book I that was a very good experience I made friends I did well in my studies at that time the Harvard Graduate School of Education

was located in one small brick old fashioned building that helped a great deal to make it a friendly experience. There was an item which struck me as something you wrote about in the book. Which later on a bell rang as I was reading through come out into the sun and I saw a poem which I thought may have been the result of an experience you had in the book and I was kind of thrilled at being able to. To locate the period of time or the incident. In a man's life which later prompted him to write something about that experience frequently when we read things you you have to speculate on what the writer may have or may have been inspired by. This is from the book. It says For two summers one thousand fifty one thousand nine hundred fifty two. I kept such close tabs on the Mantid suborn on my place or having travelled to it that I was able to observe all their biological processes. Once I was present at the

complete performance of hatching and once I stood by with magnifying glass watch pencil and notebook while a mantis multitude with profound slowness into the adult state the wings unfolding like crumpled ferns after the insect had extricated itself from its former casing. Many times I witnessed their long drawn out mating and many times I saw them catch and devour their prey and on one memorable November afternoon I studied a mantis during her exhausting active egg laying on a big rosemary plant in a sunny window. And I at least it's my speculation that the experiences of such close observation of those madrasas resulted in the poem emergence from the quite right side. And here it is. If you have watched unknown ting mantis with exquisite precision and no less exquisite patience extricate itself leaf green and like a green leaf

clinging little my little leg by leg out of its kite and Shell. You likewise know how one day coaxes itself out of another. Slowly slowly by imperceptible degrees of gray. And having slowly emerged pauses to dry its wings. Thank you again. You mentioned in the in the book at one point you were trying to write some prose and were having difficulty. You felt your imagination wasn't too fertile but you but you felt obligated that what you created should come from totally from the imagination. Later Ron in writing prose you a lot of it was actually experiences that you had had with some alterations here and there. Do you feel that the writer or writer does best when he writes about what he knows what he has lived with

some changes in. Well I think what you are saying pertains particularly to my attempts to write fiction. The first and completely on its successful attempts. The UN says the lack of success was due partly to this faulty notion that everything should be created out of nothing at all. And when I finally did manage to write a little work of fiction I'd gone to the other extreme and was writing only what I had experienced. And it was only when I was able to make my characters do and say things that I hadn't remembered their doing and yet they sounded as authentic that I was really freed to complete the little book. Clearly I'm not a fiction writer. I haven't been thus far anyway. Do you think you'll attempt some fiction in future on knows I sort of toyed with the idea. There's something I would like to

delve into a little bit it's the way you live your life style. It's a certainly very central part of the book and of your life. And someone someone listening in who may not be familiar with you would not would not necessarily know that at all. You don't have a telephone through your television nor television to tell Ace to tell his the two American teles. For many years you didn't have an automobile. You've done a great deal of walking I guess in the in this Amherst area. One thing I particularly enjoyed was a description you made of Amherst in the fall of one thousand twenty six. And you first came out here to teach at Amherst High School. And it was particularly important to me because my father was a freshman at Mass and he came in the fall of one thousand twenty five. And so the description of the Amherst that he knew and roamed and enjoyed was very very important for me. And I was struck by the thought when I read that section of

how you have reacted to the way Amherst has developed. Have you been pleased you were here for you've been here for many years and have seen a lot of Amherst. Well I try to take a balanced view. I think one might say. And how does the balance lean in anyway doesn't want to reckon on the other. I think I feel like most of the honest people that have been here for some time do you know they did try to take a balanced view. You appreciate what that means. I am just speculating at the moment whether I'm going to be able to see the new library from Fort Juniper. Oh I'll be just as pleased if I can't. But it's possible if it keeps on going up. Hartwell I want to explain that fort Juniper is your home and has been for for many years up on Market Hill Road in Amherst. The new library is on the university campus I guess it's going to be about 28 stories Tom something like that.

And I guess from your from your stand from your viewpoint there may well be. Can you see any of the buildings at all that I haven't done so far I used to have them up to last year. A roof deck. Well my little house is only one story high with a gable roof and I had a deck up there for sunbathing. It sorta disintegrated but. Up until last year I could do before the leaves came out on the trees I could see 3 counties from my place of course hamesha county in which I live. And. I could see I hills to the west that I assumed were in Berkshire County and then one distant hill toward the south. Farther away than Mount Tom which I think it must be in hand-and county so I had a three or three county view up on the Mohawk Trail they have a three state view. You know I have nothing like that but I haven't yet to seen any of the Tall. Should one say tall or high rise I think you. It's it's I think our guitar of all

time high rise buildings thus far. Well one of your great Amherst experiences was of course meeting Robert Frost. And you have mentioned several times throughout the autobiography there are two sort of descriptions which I'd like to contrast a little bit here. First one reads if I ask myself what it was in frost that impressed attracted and fascinated me the most in the years before I met him as well as in the years afterwards. The answer is power. He was a poet and he had power. The combination was striking. According to popular notion at least a poet however good he may be his poetry is otherwise generally ineffectual and inadequate. But here was a poet to whom the stock jokes couldn't be applied. He was a match for any man he ran into in the street and usually more than a match he could speak to any man in that man's language and on that man's terms be he banker or merchant farmer Senator college president or U.S. president.

But then at another point. This was October 23rd one thousand fifty two. I guess nearly nearly twenty years after you'd initially met Robert Frost. He was visiting you I guess for Juniper. And he asked you the question what do you do when you're not actually writing. And then the copy goes on and reads that he could ask such a question made me feel helpless to answer it. But he scarcely waited for an answer. You can't just lie on your back he added. And then he spoke of something he had learned to do to fill up his time something both useful and recreational sharpening the cutter bar on the milling machine or of the milling machine. How did you react to that. A man you've known for quite some time asking you what you did besides besides your writing it would seem and certainly you would talk about these things are how you are what he said was to vividly make me aware of the contrast between Frost's life and my own.

And it's a very strange thing. Robert Frost I had with him carried around with him at all times. A wonderful sense of leisure. He never seemed to be in a hurry never had deadlines you never said I have such and such to do. It's perfectly amazing. And I was aware that that should have been true of me. I should have been the one with the leisure and he should have been the one with important things to do. But since I was completely dependent on myself for everything that happened my feeding clothing and so on I had to keep and I still had to keep pretty busy doing these hundreds of things whereas he had people around him who did these things for him and he seemed to be unaware that anybody should have to do these things if there wasn't anybody else to do them for him. Well I just felt you know it has nothing to say. But it was every day that I have such a casual question from his point of view about

such a revealing question from Lie point of view. Did you ever discuss that with him in any way or no. What could I say. Well another poet of about your age I guess and in fact I spent a year of Harvard. I must have been near the time you were there are going Nash died yesterday. I heard that over the radio just yesterday. Had you ever met. Now you know. No unfortunately there are far more contemporary poets that I haven't met than those that I have. There's another poem which which I wish you would read it's called Paper Men to air hopes and fears. And you might you might also give a bit of a description as to where you got that. Well the title is a quotation and from the New York Times if you please from the business section. Some years ago paper and then to air hopes and fear as well I seized on that expression that had to lie

just as I seized on that statement in the one sentence in the review of one of my books. The trouble with Francis is not that he is too happy. As that is happening this lacks weight. I seized on it and I was determined that I was going to do something with it and it took a long time before I came out with this. Paper Man to air our hopes and fears. The first speaker said the fear of fire. Fear furnishes incinerators. The city dump the faint scratch of match the second speaker said fear water fear drenching rain drizzle oceans Puddles are down days and the flush toilet. The third speaker said. Feel who we are and it needn't be a hurricane. Drafts open

windows electric fans. The fourth speaker said Fear not fear any sharp pain machine sheer scissors all on Mars. The fifth speaker said. Hope hope for the best. A smooth folder in a steel file. Thank you. That also is from. Come out into the sun. Published I guess a couple of years back also by the University of Massachusetts press. There was a period of time when you had some difficulty getting published some of your original wasn't. Well Michael it doesn't. You had some you had a couple of books published I guess by Macmillan and then there was a period of time where you I guess published your own.

I tried that twice the first time I did it. Strangely enough not melon that had rejected the manuscript. I took a dollar after I had published it and they did its own version. But the second time I tried to do that I was not very adroit I thought these poems should speak for themselves I didn't send out review copies and nothing much happened. That's a little book called The face against the glass. And since then I've had better luck with any reasons why you thought Were you discouraged at this did you think that maybe you know I was very much discouraged at one point. Although I don't know that discourage is quite the word. I went on with my living I enjoyed a life that I. Something was going on and the energy that a writer needs the confidence level is taken away and I separate for that for many years and then I guess you had a publication the Wesley and University Press.

Yes that was a great thrill for you yes it was. Well I want to thank you very much for coming by Robert Francis our half an hour has gone by quickly but I've enjoyed it immensely and I'm very grateful that you were able to talk about some of your experiences and read some of your poems. I've been speaking with the Amherst poet Robert Francis. We've been talking about his life and his poetry and his new autobiography called The Trouble With Francis publication date May twenty one thousand seventy one by the University of Massachusetts press. You've been listening to rapping nightly. I'm Mark Mills rapping Nightly News on Monday through Friday from 10:30 to 11 and I hope that you can be listening in. Thank you and good night.