The first time I’d heard about Dan Beachy-Quick’s poem was in the office of my graduate school professor, Kathy Fagan. I came into the office and a fellow student, Adam Cole, was raving about his discovery of this new poet, and of course I had to check it out. At this point, it would have been one of his first two books, North True South Bright or Spell, and I was very intrigued. Not a poet I was writing anything like in form or style, but I was attracted to the things he was writing about, and the way he was doing it, even if I didn’t connect with it completely yet. It was a pleasure to catch up with him on the publication of his new book, Elements & Offerings, from LSU Press.
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Dan Beachy-Quick is a poet, essayist, and translator. His work has been supported by the Monfort, Lannan, and Guggenheim Foundations, and longlisted for the National Book Award in Poetry. His poetry collections include North True South Bright, Spell, Mulberry, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award for poetry, This Nest, Swift Passerine, Circle’s Apprentice, and Variations on Dawn and Dusk. He is also the author of A Whaler’s Dictionary, a collection of linked essays responding to Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, and translations from Ancient Greek, The Thinking Root and Stone-Garland. He teaches at Colorado State University, where he is a University Distinguished Teaching Scholar.
Pick up a copy of Elements & Offerings here.
Read more about Beachy-Quick here.
Some notes:
As much as I love Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poetry, I haven’t spent any time with his journals, so it was great to hear those fragments Beachy-Quick mentions. I found his journals through archive.org.
When prepping for speaking with Dan, I started reading his pair of Ancient Greek translations, at the same time as I happened to get a hold of the marvelous collection of Greek and Latin verse from Christopher Childers. Different projects, but a great way to get back into the early poetry, to surround yourself with multiple renderings of the work. And Dean Grontkowski, wherever you are in the great beyond, I’m sorry I don’t remember more of the Greek you tried to teach me!
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About your host: Jason Gray is the author of the poetry books Radiation King (Idaho Prize for Poetry) and Photographing Eden (Hollis Summers Prize), and his poems and reviews have appeared in Poetry, Kenyon Review, Southern Review, American Poetry Review, and Image. His career in publishing has brought him to the university presses of Ohio State and Wisconsin, and Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, and he now works as a freelance writer and editor. Additionally, he teaches poetry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
A note on the podcast title. I am an unabashed fan of The Simpsons, and in Season 8, Episode 9 “El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer (The Mysterious Voyage of Homer),” Marge attempts to stop Homer from going to the local chili cook-off, because, as she says, every time he does, he “get[s] drunk as a poet on payday.” And that has made me laugh for decades now.
I in no way endorse getting oneself overserved and behaving like a jackass, poetic or otherwise. And if you or anyone you know is struggling with alcohol, there are resources for you: Alcoholics Anonymous Al-Anon
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