Remembering May

Last night I read here at Utah State to very receptive, warm audience; it was just a total pleasure. The reading was part of the May Swenson Reading Series, so named because Swenson was a Logan native, and Utah State University Press has been a champion and advocate of her work. To my delight, about eight of Swenson's relatives appeared at the reading. She was born into a characteristically large Mormon family, and grew up just a little down the hill from the campus, and though she took off for Greenwich Village as a young woman to pursue the adventure of her life, she kept a connection to this place and to her big Swedish clan.

After the reading, and after I signed books for a lot of enthusiastic young readers, there was a reception at a house a few blocks away. The Swensons all came, a very distinctive presence among the crowd of students with their slightly alternative look and the forty-something faculty in their sportcoats and nice dresses. The Swensons ranged from Paul, May's youngest brother, who's 70, to Roy, the oldest surviving one, who was born right after May, and who's now 94. Both write poetry, and both belong to a writing group that's also attended by some of the young writers who were in the room.

Turns out the Swenson's childhood home was right next door. It had been given to the University, after they'd all grown up and moved on, and the school bulldozed it to build a parking lot. (So much for preserving writers' homes...) There was something very moving about these lively people remembering their childhoods eighty and ninety years ago next door. And after we'd been talking for a while, I looked up, and all the young people had left. The Swensons closed down the party.

Stealing the Angel's Trump

I'm flying to Utah in the morning for a reading in Logan, May Swenson's hometown. Swenson took off for Greenwich Village as soon as she was old enough to leave home on her own, but Utah State is a loyal publisher and advocate for her work -- which is sprightly, formally inventive, wild, and under-read. I know that there will be a warm and receptive audience there, and lots of thoughtful and interesting people at the school, but I have to say just at the moment I am not looking forward to stepping off the plane in Salt Lake and seeing, in the distance, the white towers of the temple, where the golden angel Moroni perches on top, holding out his golden trumpet. Just now I would like to get ahold of that horn and blast out a message on homophobia, imposing your values on others, using fear and distortion to promote legislation you approve of, and using a busload of church money to influence public policy. Would someone please take those people's tax-exempt status away now? Jon Stewart notes that the LDS has such a long history of defining marriage as between one man and one woman! Is that why they're so anxious about my marriage?

But speaking of May Swenson, here's a delightful and startlingly contemporary stanza from her poem, The Key to Everything, which appeared in her book ANOTHER ANIMAL in the mid-fifties:

Is there anything I can do
or has everything been done
or do
you prefer somebody else to do
it or don't
you trust me to do
it right or is it hopeless and no one can do
a thing or do
you suppose I don't
really want to do
it and am just saying that or don't
you hear me at all or what?