Laird Hunt TRT 53:03 [MUSIC] Hello, and welcome to Mindful U at Naropa. A podcast presented by Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. I’m your host, David Devine. And it’s a pleasure to welcome you. Joining the best of Eastern and Western educational traditions — Naropa is the birthplace of the modern mindfulness movement. [MUSIC] David Devine: Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Mindful U podcast. Today, we have a guest joining us in the studio today, Laird Hunt. Laird was born in Singapore to American parents. He is the author of nine novels. Hunt’s reviews and essays have been published in many major publications. His fiction and translations have appeared in many literary journals in the United States and abroad. A former United Nations press officer who was largely raised in rural Indiana, currently, he is in Boulder teaching at the summer writing program at Naropa University this week. He now lives in Providence, where he teaches in Brown’s University literary arts program and spends his days with his wife, the poet Eleni Sikelianos, their daughter Eva and two cats. So welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today? Laird Hunt: Doing really well. It’s great to be with you. David Devine: So I just wanted to say you had me when you had two cats, just saying, I love cats. Laird Hunt: It’s actually now been upgraded to three cats because our daughter, Eva has brought a cat into the household, so now it’s three. David Devine: Oh and the two cats are totally fine with that. Laird Hunt: Oh yeah, they love it. David Devine: Yeah, amazing. Okay, so what’s interesting too, is I actually used to work SWP, like, a long time ago. I was telling you this before we started the podcast, and you’ve been like, going there for a while. So it’s really awesome to, like, kind of have this little full circle of seeing you on stage as a teacher and someone that, like, I would just hear your readings, and now you’re in the studio doing the podcast with me. So it’s really cool to have you here. And so over the journey and time you’ve been creating and developing your writing style, you’ve had to find your voice. And what I’m wondering, could you give the audience a little understanding of your educational upbringing and what was your experience like in higher education, and how has it helped you pursue writing as an author, you know, because you’re teaching at Brown, but where did you go to school and what was inspiring you to want to write? Laird Hunt: Sure, absolutely, yeah, I had a kind of interesting trajectory, because, as you mentioned, I was born in Singapore, and I actually lived abroad for a number of years with my — with my parents, but at a certain point I was sent to live in rural Indiana with my grandmother. Actually graduated high school in rural Indiana and went to Indiana University. Then still had some of that travel desire in me, so I went and taught English in Japan for a year after graduating from college, I did some graduate work in France at the Sorbonne for a couple of years. And then I found my way to Naropa, and that was complete, wonderful, cosmic happenstance. I was in the market to learn more about writing. I was interested in writing, my travels, my reading, my experience at Indiana University had all seemed to add up to doing something creative. To my father’s slight chagrin. I think he was hoping I would do something else, but I was a wandering individual, and I actually applied to and got into the University of Nebraska’s creative writing program. And when I went to visit the campus, instantly I thought, I just cannot do this. It was nothing — I grew up — surrounded by corn fields, but the campus, you know, was — was cornfield surrounded. I saw football players immediately. I just thought, you know, this is not going to be it. And so I went on a journey, drove around the country, visiting MFA programs without much luck, and nothing too inspiring. No one was very interested in talking to me. Go figure. But my sister was living in Boulder, Lorna Hunt, and so I came to visit her, and I had heard something about Naropa, and it was the end of the summer writing program in 1991, summer of 1991, and I just I went over. And what was curious was it was — it was a hectic day. People were turning in final portfolios. Teachers were exhausted after the month long program, but everyone I talked to found time to just have a word with me, and I was really taken by that. And they were interested in what I was reading, you know, who I aspired to write, like that sort of thing and -- and so that was what made me think, you know what, I’m gonna apply here and give it a shot. David Devine: Okay, so you actually were, like, trying to find other places. You have, like, such a worldly thing to you, which is awesome. Like, do you speak any other languages? Laird Hunt: You know, curiously, I was born in Singapore and lived in Holland for four years. But what I came out with of that experience was, was pretty solid French, and that was more from having a couple of Francophile parents. So we, you know, I went there when I — when I was a kid, I hadn’t lived there. But then when I was under my own steam, I did a year abroad when I was at Indiana University in Strasbourg, France, and then I went back afterwards and — and did those couple of years of grad work. And so French is really the language I speak. I have sort of get around the street Greek, get around the street Japanese from my time there, and then a tiny bit of German, but French is the only one I can really say, yeah, I can talk to. David Devine: Je m’appelle David. Laird Hunt: Je m’appelle Laird. David Devine: That’s all — that’s all I know. Laird Hunt: Excellent. David Devine: All right. So what I’m curious is, how did you get into writing? What was it like coming up in the writing world, and what were you learning and developing while in school and crafting your skills. So it’s like, you know, there’s so many different types of writing. You could be like a publication. You could be writing for a magazine. You could be you — could be teaching. You could be writing poetry as like what they do at the summer writing program. What was your initial interest and how did you pursue that? Laird Hunt: Yeah, so I think many eventual fiction writers, I fell in love with poetry. And in fact, I was just telling someone yesterday that my first writing accepted for publication was a haiku in English, and I kept the — I think it was a $3 check that I received. Never cashed it and put it on the wall. And I think it was last time I was paid for something like 15 years for my writing. So it was a journey. But anyway, so I loved reading poetry, thinking about poetry, trying to write poetry, but my mind was really geared for narrative I think, for storytelling. And coming to Naropa was in many ways, very useful in helping me understand that I could be a fiction writer who was in love with poetry and who was inspired by poetry because my mentors at Naropa, like Bobby Louise Hawkins, who’s since left us, but was a very important teacher for me, was someone who had lived around the poets as it were, been married to a poet, Robert Creeley, etc, written poetry herself, and yet here she was writing this really interesting prose, and it was prose that paid attention to language. And I thought, yeah, this — you know, this sounds good to me. So, you know, she never took a sentence for granted. And I sort of internalized that, right? They’re not sentences aren’t just devices to describe the world that they are part of the world. David Devine: I like that. Laird Hunt: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, and she was just absolutely, you know, full of amazing advice and — and also, I studied with Ansin Hollow, Andrew Schelling as well, certainly Anne Waldman. And, you know, during the summer writing program, just an amazing series of writers would come through — legendary people. I was Michael Ondaatje literary assistant one summer, for example. Many people who, like Michael Ondaatje, have remained friends all these, you know, decades later. And so my experience at Naropa was really transformative. I came out of it having made very close lifelong friends. I met, you know, ultimately met my partner through Naropa, Eleni Sikelianos, and it was just a really rich, nurturing environment that sort of got me ready to be a writer on my own terms, and it did not prepare me professionally as it were, I wasn’t — I never taught a class as an MFA student. There was no teaching that I came out with, no teaching experience. I hadn’t been told how to find an agent. I hadn’t been told how, you know, how you get a book deal, all of that stuff, which was great. It was perfect for me, because it was all — the focus was entirely on, can you write? What do you write? How do you write? How can you make it better and read more interesting things, those kinds of transmissions. And that really served me well. I felt very nourished by it. And, you know, because not everybody needs to immediately, you know, with their MFA in hand, go out and get a book deal right? Write a good book, you know, figure out what you’re going to say, how you’re going to say it. And so for the years afterwards, I was living in New York with Eleni, I was working at the United Nations, and in my free time, I was — I was trying to write a novel. Took me a while, but it was the amount of time it needed. David Devine: Yeah, I mean, I’ve never really been a person to write, write like, write a novel, so I couldn’t even imagine what it’s like to just have something pop into your head and, you know, like, excavate all the content within that. You know, it’s like you’re zooming in. It’s like a constant zoom in of like, how can I not take every sentence for granted and go with it? So through your career, you’ve written, like many books, many stories. And what I’m wondering is, being a writer is one thing, but being a teacher is another. And I’m wondering, you know, you sort of talked about the differences, if you can tell us about the differences between being a student and a practitioner of writing, and also while being an educator of writing. How does that show up? Because it’s — it’s not like you went to writing school and they taught you about agents and they taught you about, like, book tours and all this stuff. And, you know, it’s like, now you’re a teacher, you know how to write, but like, teaching might be a little different avenue to take. So what were some of the things that you learned while doing that? Laird Hunt: Well, you know, I remember one of the things that was said, I forget where this originally came from. Maybe it’s a William Carlos Williams idea that only someone who has done something significant in — in an art should think about teaching it, right? David Devine: I can really get into that, yeah. Like, you got to know the craft, right? Laird Hunt: It’s, again, it’s not that diploma. It’s something else, you know, if you’re gonna, if you’re talking the arts context, right, it seems to me. And I really -- I embraced that, I was not ready. I would not have been ready to start teaching right after my MFA experience. I needed to feel like I had something to offer. And to be quite honest with you, I wasn’t sure at all that I was going to get into teaching, and I should correct the record just slightly, I did have a little bit of teaching experience in Naropa, in that I led some BA discussion group. So I think it’s — I should say that. I had had some experience leading a conversation with students and — and I had that in the back of my mind. And as my writing, living in New York, working at the United Nations, I was starting to publish a little bit here and there, and I was invited to teach in the summer writing program. And I accepted it, you know, I’d had some publications done a few things. I thought, okay, this makes sense. And so then I had the summer writing program teaching experience, which was very, very useful, being in that — in the classroom. And I also had a transformative experience at the summer writing program before my first novel was published because I read from the manuscript that I had been working on while I was living in New York, working at the United Nations and the summer writing program in PAC, I read from a manuscript from a novel I called the, Impossibly, and the crowd, you know, it was a nice reception. There was laughter, there was engagement. And afterwards, the publisher of Coffee House Press had happened to be in the room, and he said, I hear you have a novel manuscript. And I said, absolutely, you know, I’d love to — love to — love to give it to you. And so just to say that Naropa was a place where, for me, there was all kinds of magic. Suddenly, my first book came into being because of being in PAC, reading to this audience, and having been invited there, and having been brought up there. David Devine: And just — just to let everyone know, when he says PAC, he means Performing Arts Center at Naropa. Laird Hunt: Yes, sorry. David Devine: Like we’ve just — we’ve just, like, been there so much that it’s just PAC or SWP, you know? That’s awesome, by the way. It’s like, there’s this, uh, development and — and I love the idea of magic, you know, it’s like, how did I end up here? And then all of a sudden, it’s like, I have a book deal. Laird Hunt: Yeah, yeah. And a book — and a book deal, I should make sure to say that was with the publisher that had published many of my mentors, including Bobby Louise Hawkins and Ansome Hollow and Anne Waldman. So to me, that was the dream to be published where your teachers were. And so just, you know, thinking about that, how that leads into teaching. It was a few years later that Naropa was looking for someone to teach, and they actually hired me and Eleni to come. We were feeling a little worn out from New York. September 11 had happened. We’d been at mid Manhattan during that period, and we were thinking, you know, let’s take a little break. And Naropa, this possibility came out. So we came out to share a job as core faculty for — and we did that for three years, and then we found two full — full time jobs at the University of Denver. So with some regret, we left Naropa and did that, but our — we stayed summer writing program regulars for something like 15 years afterwards. And so it was a kind of organic moving into teaching through publication, through thinking about reading, thinking about being in conversation with writers we loved, and trying to think, okay, yeah, we can — we can bring this to — to students ourselves now in a full time way. David Devine: Yeah, and I love that idea of how you have some mentors and you’re being brought up in this world, and you’re really like, into what they do and who they work with, and then all of a sudden, you’re being asked by the publication, company that they work for. You’re just like, whoa, this is it. Am I doing it? Laird Hunt: It was, yeah, pinch me. Am I dreaming, for sure, yeah. David Devine: That’s awesome. Okay, so not only were you a teacher at Naropa, but you’ve also been like a student at Naropa as well, which — which is an interesting, like thing to do, because I think some teachers, they — they just come to Naropa, they don’t necessarily know the vibe. And then there’s other people that have, like, actually been a student there, and then they teach there. There’s like, this kind of like, way we involve ourselves in the classroom, with our students, with our — with our knowledge and the things we’re teaching. And what I’m curious is, could you share your experience with our audience, like, what was it like attending and graduating from the JKS, which is the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, and how has that time at Naropa helped you prepare for a career in writing in the world? Also, you basically say you’re a novelist. So I’m like, disembodied. novelist? Laird Hunt: Well, you know what’s funny, Kerouac was a novelist, right? David Devine: Yeah. Laird Hunt: That was always encouraging to me. And when I was a student at Naropa, Bobby Louise Hawkins, Keith Abbott and others were teaching fiction classes, fiction workshops. And it was a very robust part of the program that continued for quite a few years. But again, you know, as I was saying earlier, always, you know, with — with poetry, not bracketed off, as you know, if you go to the Iowa Writers Workshop, the poets and the fiction writers is very different groups of students, sometimes with not that much interaction. But at Naropa, when I was a student, we were, you know, we all hung out together. We all went to each other’s readings. David Devine: The community there is tight. Laird Hunt: The community is super tight. David Devine: Like even, like someone in the somatic department, like doing dance therapy is like, oh, I’m gonna come see your reading. Laird Hunt: Yeah, no, you feel that. You feel a kind of a sense of shared endeavor. We were publishing each other. We — a number of us, started magazines, you know, we got a long arm stapler and a bone folder and — and we would have collate parties, that kind of thing. I was involved actually, in bringing the original pieces of the… Yantra. Wait, is it the print shop? David Devine: I know a print shop you are talking about. Laird Hunt: Yeah, yeah. It’s…Yantra. David Devine: They like caught on fire a couple years ago. Laird Hunt: Yeah, so, so tragically. But a classmate and I drove out to San Francisco and picked up two letter press printers and a print shop and brought that back with us in the U-haul from California. David Devine: Those things are heavy. Laird Hunt: And so, yeah — and so just to say that that kind of thing was — we just thought that’s what you did. You made work, you shared work, you wrote letters to your heroes, you invited them to be in your magazine. And all of our teachers had done things like that, and so you know that experience of a kind of do it yourself, in community, in company, has been part of my sense of the way you do things ever since. And I’ve always felt like just like, say Ansom Hollow, who wrote his own poetry, but was also translating and thinking about other writers all the time, that’s felt very important to me as well. So I have a translation practice, and I was the editor of the Denver Quarterly for five years. Again, thinking one needs to give back a bit as well. David Devine: What do you translate? Laird Hunt: So I’ve translated two novels from the French. One of them that springs to mind, is particularly interesting. The Lebanese writer Oliver (last name?) wrote a novel about who grew up during the civil war in Beirut, and wrote a short, dark, intense novel about that experience. And so that was a project that was really interesting. I had a great collaboration with Oliver. And then lately, it’s been smaller things, but I try to keep my hand in with that. So just to say that for me, it’s always felt like it’s not just my novel, my novel I want to get published. I want to get famous. That was never the message that we got. You’re in it for the long haul, you’re in it for the community, you’re in it for the company. And that’s always seems so much better than just you know prize hunting and that sort of thing. David Devine: So do you feel like that’s a thing that happens with people who are inspiring writers, where their — their whole agenda is to show up with, like, a book idea that they haven’t written, and I’m gonna do it, like, just — just invest in me, other than just, like doing the work and like, maybe writing three books, and then no one really knows that until you do a writing or a reading and someone’s like, hey, like, that sounded amazing. And you’re like, oh, I have, like, 100 pages of that. Laird Hunt: Exactly you kind of — you kind of have to lay the groundwork for luck to be effective in a way. David Devine: Oh, I like that. Laird Hunt: Yeah, you know, it really — it really felt like that, like a lot of things had been put in place for that particular moment, exciting moment, because I did have the manuscript, and so I could say, yeah, absolutely here, you know, I’ll send it right over. David Devine: That’s impressive, too. When they’re just like, you got anything, you’re like, oh, yeah. Laird Hunt: Yeah, as a matter of fact. And that was a relationship that lasted with Coffee House for five — five books, and it was an amazing experience. And really, really important to me. But I think that’s something that some people miss, right come to an MFA program, and, you know, everybody has their own motivations, and I don’t judge people about this, but sort of like, okay, how do I get an agent? And how do I get my — my novel published right away, without even, you know, like, is it any good? Is this work I’m turning in interesting, that sort of thing. David Devine: Like, who — who are you? What is your voice? Like, what do you have to offer to, you know, what’s going on? Laird Hunt: Yeah, what’s particular. Everyone has something particular. Have you fully found it yet? And that’s a big part of the work that I think of teaching in Brown’s MFA program. It’s like, how can we you know, you’re talented. Anyone who comes to the program, like people who come to Naropa, you’re talented. You’ve got talent. David Devine: Now what? Laird Hunt: And now, what do you have? Do you have endurance? Do you have, you know that resourcefulness to — to make it better, to make it, you know, more interesting. Maybe that’s a better way to put it. David Devine: Yeah. And also, are you able to hear feedback to help pursue the — the development of your skill? Laird Hunt: Yeah, absolutely. David Devine: That’s a big thing too. Great. So I want to offer this moment to maybe share a poem, or a writing that you have, I know that you brought, like, a little something for us, and then we can go back to some more questions. Laird Hunt: Absolutely, I’ve got a short autobiographical piece that appears in a collection of — of essay fiction works that I published last year called, This Wide Terraqueous World. This is the last piece in — David Devine: In terraqueous? Laird Hunt: Yeah, it just means water and earth. David Devine: That’s awesome. I love that word. I’m a word person. Laird Hunt: Yeah, terraqueous. So this is called Still Life with Snow and Hammer. One snowy night in my earlier days, I was out playing on the street with a large, green handled hammer. My game was to stand in the middle of the quiet street and throw the hammer up into the dark snow filled air and to let it fall with a pleasantly muffled thunk onto the ground. Before long, I was joined by another equally young individual, one I was in the habit of exchanging blows with. And after wrestling around a little by whatever mysterious alchemy of adrenaline and alliance that can still take place at that age, we took to standing at opposite ends of the street and flinging the hammer back and forth. To the peculiarly delicious pleasure to be had in launching a hard and heavy object up into the air and waiting for it to fall were consequently added the elements of targeting, trajectory and return. And it’s of the latter aspect that I think, especially these strange, grim days. This is because it wasn’t very long before, like the lovely knuckleheads we were, we took to standing directly under the point of the hammer’s projected descent and to leaping out of its way at the last second, with the idea that points were to be awarded for the nearest misses, and that the game would be over when one or the other of us was hit. A car door slammed, someone’s mother tapped meaningfully on a window. I’m not sure. My attention wavered and I got hit, smacked hard on the arm. Pride demanded that I sue for another round. He then, having been winged on the calf, said it could only be settled by going best out of three. We stood there a moment before the final exchange started sizing each other up, breathing hard, then he yelled something, and I yelled something back and threw. Minutes elapsed as the hammer flew back and forth between us, I believe it had begun to snow harder. We had both achieved the kind of high pitched frenzy that is not always, but can be accompanied by a great deal of shrieking and hopping around. So it was that at the end of the longest and final round, I stood under the looping, falling hammer, looking up into the dark, snowy air with a mixture of terror and exaltation, as well as a sense of irreality, as if it wasn’t me about to be hit on the head by a carpenter’s hammer, as if there were no snow, as if it wasn’t night. Stupid boy, poor child, my mother said, suddenly, years and years have passed. David Devine: That sounds like a young man’s game. Laird Hunt: Young — young knuckleheads. David Devine: Dang. Okay, the hammer wasn’t white was it like, Wally throwing it in the snow? Laird Hunt: It was green — it had a green handle, which helped. David Devine: Okay. Laird Hunt: Yeah. And it was, you know, so one of those things in fiction it was transformed from — I played that game with someone, a boy I was not on great terms with, one snowy night in Holland, many years ago. But it was a toy hammer. It was a much smaller, green handled hammer. But it grew in — the fiction made it grow, in some sense. David Devine: I see, yeah, that’s kind of interesting, cool. I love — I love how, like, writers can just take a moment and extract so much feeling and like what is happening, and there’s, like, this outer body experience of explanation that is able to happen and like, the lexicon they’re using, you’re just like, wow, the thing you’re describing only happened like 20 seconds. But you just — you wrote, like, a whole scenic paragraph about it. Laird Hunt: You know, it’s that paying — paying attention, which is, of course, one of the things, one of the transmissions you get, if you go through the Kerouac School at Naropa is, you know, that that sort of just sense of sitting with something, paying attention, looking at it, looking at it again, thinking about it, living with it, and not judging it, observing it. So that, you know, in some ways, I suppose that’s bubbled into my work. David Devine: Okay, yeah. So we’re gonna move on to the summer writing program. So you’ve taught at Naropa’s summer Writing Program, also known as the SWP because I’m sure we’re going to say that for many moons now. You mentioned earlier that it was 15, that’s a lot, which is really awesome. So good for you. So that is a lot of years to be involved with the — this program. I’m curious about your experience. What is it like coming together for a week and doing the summer that brings all these young and inspiring poets and writers for an intensive writers’ week in Boulder? Like, what is that like — you know, because I’m sure a lot of these people are coming from places that aren’t necessarily already in Boulder, or maybe even Colorado. They’re coming from different places, and they’re just like, so amped. You’re there a week, or you get to stay the whole month, and you’re just getting slammed with trying to write as much as possible, trying to learn as much as possible. So what is that experience like for you? And the thing is, is you have a unique perspective, because you also were a student, and also now you’re teaching. So — Laird Hunt: Yeah, absolutely, I’ve seen it from — from different directions, and now I have the — it’s very true that I taught many summers. I was local, it was easy for me to just come from — from South Boulder on my bicycle, right? Yeah. But so it’s been six years, so I haven’t been back for six years, since we left for Providence to teach at Brown. So now I’ve got this nice little gap, and I can, you return, and it’s a nice — it’s been a really nice reminder about really how unique the summer writing program is, how different it is from so many other, you know summer conferences, which tend in the main to go back to — you know they’re much more commercial and market driven, types of things that have a sort of more of a premium on celebrity, what fancy writers are coming through? And Naropa — David Devine: It’s like a concert lineup. Laird Hunt: In a way, yeah, yeah, there’s a kind of hierarchy, a pecking order, that kind of thing, Naropa doesn’t have that. There are just, you know, amazing world class people who are, you know, just quietly, subtly being part of this amazing experience, not drawing attention to themselves. I mean, I was — the person sitting behind me last night was Thurston Moore, you know, who founded Sonic Youth. He’s just sitting there in the audience wanting to listen. David Devine: Yeah. Laird Hunt: Right? David Devine: And he’s probably 15 years deep too, because he’s been going for a super long time, too. Laird Hunt: He loves it. And, you know, and this — this is the, you know, Allen and Anne and Diana di Prima was in the mix — they had this vision. It’s been 50 years now, and people just want to be a part of that. And so Thurston comes, and he just wants to be a part of it. This tremendous activist, Margaret Randall, writer and activist, thinker, dreamer, poet, worker in the world. She comes and, you know, gives people the benefit of her wisdom. And then there all the amazing students who are, you know, so talented so, you know, just have that amazing — they’re drunk on poetry. They’re drunk on, you know, just learning and figuring things out and being in company, and suddenly you’re with these like minded people. And whether, you know, you have a real activist bent, there’s a lot, you know, a lot of that energy with a lot of, you know, super intense things going on in the world that’s there. Other people are there, they just, you know, they just want to talk poems. Just want to talk, you know, about whatever amazing Bernadette Mayer poem they just discovered. And, you know, that’s just in, you know, that that’s all in the mix. And for me, it’s super refreshing. I teach at Brown University. I love it. I’ve got amazing students. I’ve got great colleagues. But it’s a different kind of environment. You know? This is — this is Naropa. This is the Kerouac School. It’s — it’s very much its own thing. David Devine: What I’m hearing too, is like, when class is over at Brown people probably just go to the next class and just move on. But when classes over at SWP, people like, go hang out where they’re gonna go hang out, go to dinner. And the learning and the collectiveness doesn’t stop, you know? It’s like you’re — you’re here the whole time, and kind of feel like Naropa has that vibe you tend to be out of class, but you’re just talking about the content that you just learned or were talking about, and you’re — you’re constantly growth, you know, so it’s really awesome. So over the years, teaching at the SWP, what are some notable changes and or similarities that show up with the students and the themes that are being presented while you’re teaching and writing? So you sort of talked about this, of like, how there could be, like, a political bent on some people’s writing. Some people are just like, strictly poetry. I don’t know. Maybe some people are like novelists, essay driven, you know, stories. I’m curious, do you notice, because you’ve been there for so long, a narrative and or, like, shifting of what is happening in the climate of, like, the United States, the world, the globe, because poets want to write about something, whether it’s like personal to them or an experience they had. And I’m just curious, like, what are the things that you notice with your students and or like, your colleagues? Laird Hunt: Yeah, when I was a student at Naropa, there was a — there was an interesting, productive tension between the people who were there because they wanted to, through activism, principally, affect change in the world, and their writing was kind of a side thing, right? That wasn’t their main focus. And then there were others of us who were there, and I would sort of put myself in the latter group, who were really trying to figure out what it meant to be a writer, but were also, you know, interested, you know, we’d go out and attend marches, etc, but that wasn’t the main thrust. And for others, it very much was, and poetry had no purpose except to try and, you know, take down the evils of the government and this sort of thing. So I think there was a kind of, almost like a binary energy, but it was, you know, we all — we were all hanging out, and we’re all arguing, and we were all, you know, it worked very well. David Devine: They kind of work with each other too. Laird Hunt: Worked — yeah, absolutely, very complimentary and I think that that — David Devine: What is it — Laird Hunt: Synergy. David Devine: Synergy — synergy with each other. Laird Hunt: Yeah. And people, you know, because when I was a student, Allen Ginsberg was still around, and here’s someone who, obviously is — is very much putting his body into the world in terms of activism and also writing political, quote, unquote, political poetry. But all of it sung, all of it was real. All of it was, you know, it was amazing poetry first, and then it was doing, you know, saying things about the world. And I think Anne Waldman is the same, you know, same kind of writer that set a tone. Right, if you’re going to do it, do political poetry, make it good. Just, you know, it always has to — always has to sing. I’ve sort of tracked that in different permutations over the years. That kind of productive tension between those — those modes, and, you know, one of them you asked about change, so I think that that’s been a kind of, you know, even, you know, to this week at Naropa, that’s — that’s still, you can feel that sort of, you know, interesting tension conversation. Something that has changed is that Naropa is — the Kerouac School that has much less emphasis on fiction than it did in my day when I was a student and even when I was core faculty. You know that for whatever reason, it’s just evolved back to its roots, which is kind of beautiful in a way, right? It started as a poetry school, even though they’re, you know, evoking Jack Kerouac, great fiction writer who also wrote poetry, it must be said, and — and song lyrics. But it has kind of gone back to its roots, and to the extent that there’s an assumption that everybody who’s there is a poet, right? And it’s, you know, people address each other as poets, and so, which is great. I’d love to be part of that group. I’ve just never been able to write a poem. So, you know — David Devine: I don’t believe you, well, I’m sure you’ve tried. Laird Hunt: Well, I added myself as someone — David Devine: As someone who did the book? Laird Hunt: I did try at the beginning, right? I have published Haiku. David Devine: Yeah. Laird Hunt: No, I have too much respect for poets and poetry, and the poetry I love and the poets I love to insert myself. David Devine: You’re being modest. Laird Hunt: Yeah, right. David Devine: I mean, I guess it to have, like, a great political message, it might behoove you to be a really good poet, because then the political points and or the things you want to talk about, culture and environment hit harder. You know, if you have some, like, very eloquent words to say about it. Laird Hunt: Yeah, absolutely. David Devine: You kind of, you kind of like, break past a paradigm, or like a wall somebody might have, and you can really speak to their heart, because that’s kind of like where poetry comes from, for me, Laird Hunt: Absolutely, yeah, yeah. Then that’s — that’s always, yeah, been the case. So when — when Allen would — would sing his, don’t smoke, don’t smoke, it’s a ten billion joke, you know, it was just — it was really sharp, it really popped, it really worked. And then he, you know, he was playing his harmonium, etc, it was like, that’s the way, you know, that’s how you do it. Or when Anne would do one of her things, that’s the way to do it there. Because they’re — they’re poets, first, in some core, fundamental, deep DNA way, and then they also want to change the world. They want to, you know, bring the revolution. David Devine: And what’s interesting is — is watching a performance of poetry is a lot different than you reading it yourself. Because when you’re — when you’re seeing Anne Waldman do it, or anyone else, you’re just like, oh, dang. They’re like, invested. Laird Hunt: Yeah. David Devine: Yeah. Laird Hunt: So, like, Amiri Baraka, who was a frequent visitor here, same deal. All — you know, all about bringing change, bringing the revolution. But it started with the poetry. Started with the stuff on, you know, on the page, or in, you know, in the air. But it was the poetry first. David Devine: I’m getting chills, because I remember these people, because I worked SWP, like, 15 years ago, and I remember a lot of these people you’re talking about, and it’s just like, whoa. Like, some — Laird Hunt: Some legends, yeah. David Devine: That just show up and just hanging out. Laird Hunt: Yeah, absolutely. David Devine: All right, so while setting up this podcast, you mentioned to me that you are a rare being at the SWP, as in, most teachers, are basically poets, and in essence, you are a novelist. So this was an interesting distinction to me, because you were mentioning that you were extremely poetry friendly, which I hope so. You married a poet, so obviously you’re definitely friendly with poetry. But what I’m wondering is, could you tell us what it is like to be a novelist teaching at a more heavily leaning poetry curriculum? How does this edge guide you and help you teach in the classroom? So it seemed like back in the day there was a lot of fiction and novelist environments, but now it’s maybe coming back. So is there like an edge being maybe not a poet, teaching poetry. Or, how does that work for you? Laird Hunt: Yeah, so I decided that I would — I would teach, I’m teaching this workshop called Memories Imagination, which is built in and around sort of autobiographical endeavor, right? So writing, how do you put a self onto the page? How do you put yourself onto the page? And because I’m, you know, I’m a fiction writer, I’m bringing — the examples I’m bringing are prose. So their stories, their bits of novels, bits of memoirs, that sort of thing. And I would say that the group I’m working with is, maybe, I don’t know, three quarters, you know, they would identify as poets, and then, you know, the other 25 are quietly, you know they’re working on short stories and that sort of thing. But I find poets when they read fiction or they read memoir, when they read prose, they’re seeing all kinds of fascinating things that are happening in language. And it’s not just about galloping towards a story, or you know putting the shape of a life onto the page. They’re seeing it in granular terms, in ways that is very interesting to me. And then, on the other hand, they’re also seeing how they can build out their packets of language, if they’re working in small lyric forms, and stretch that into something else that might be really exciting and productive for them. So I find that I’m not being greeted with, oh, a boring novelist is in front of us, energy at all. It’s like, hey, you know what do you have to say? Right? David Devine: Get out of my classroom. Laird Hunt: They’re just very, very engaged, attentive, and that just makes you want to give, you know, even more than you thought you were going to give back in terms of what you have to offer. So it’s, you know, I’m — I’m finding it to be as just every single one of those 15 summers, it’s just a great experience. It’s a — they’re smart, they’re good writers, and they want to be there, and that makes a difference. David Devine: I could see how that could be inspiring as the teacher as well. You’re just like, man, these kids got it. This is fun. And yeah, like you’re showing up even more for the — for the content, and just like the class is like, alive, and everyone’s just vibing. You also mentioned something while you’re just talking like bringing yourself to the page. I was just thinking like bringing yourself to the page as a poet might be hard, but it’s like, if I was writing poetry, David’s writing poetry, but if I was writing fiction, it’s like this entity stor — I don’t — you know what I mean? It’s like this fake, fictional story that I’m creating. Like, how do you bring yourself to something that is fictional, compared to being poetry, where it’s like you’re explaining a situation of clouds rolling over Cold Mountain, or the political environment of like, this versus that? You know what I mean? Because it’s like, it’s easy to bring yourself when you’re talking from yourself, but how do you bring yourself when you’re talking from fiction? Laird Hunt: Yeah, when you’re when you’re inhabiting, say, a character’s mind? David Devine: Yeah, there’s like, multiple, you know you’re — you’re telling the story from, like, everyone’s perspective. Laird Hunt: Yeah. Yeah, and you know that — we’re in a funny time right now, because there’s so much cultural mistrust of people inhabiting voices that are unlike their say, right? And you know, every single voice that isn’t you is unlike yours, so it makes it, you know, there’s a problem there. David Devine: Yeah. Laird Hunt: But it’s that’s the fiction writers challenge and dilemma. David Devine: It happens more often — Laird Hunt: Yeah. David Devine: Turns out there’s more non voices of you than — Laird Hunt: Absolutely, you know, there are what, 7 billion plus people — David Devine: Eight. Laird Hunt: You know 8 billion, there we go — David Devine: A lot. Laird Hunt: And so we’re — you’re one of those, and you’re only supposed to — anyway. So, you know, one — one thing that fiction writers have started to do recently is do this thing, you know, this sort of autobiographical auto fiction, where you write basically a fictionalized version of yourself, you put that on the page, and then no one’s going to give you a hard time for, you know, speaking for someone. You know, you’re not supposed to speak for that kind of thing, however, and I’m interested in that kind of writing, and so I don’t have anything against that, but I still am really intrigued by that deep, empathetic gesture of inhabiting a mind that maybe isn’t, doesn’t have the same gender as you, that maybe doesn’t have the same, you know, socioeconomic background. How can I empathetically, carefully, kindly do that? And to me, that’s been the work for, you know, I’ve been at this for 30 years, trying to do that, and so I try to communicate that to students who may be really worried, like, I don’t want to, you know, writing fiction, I’m not sure I can do that, because then I have to be speaking for someone else. Well, you’re not speaking for, you’re speaking of, that’s one thing. Prepositions are important. Never speak for, but speak of, speak with, speak alongside. Think of it that way. But this is part of what we do as human beings, the empathetic gesture. We put ourselves in other people’s shoes, and we’re not trying to steal their shoes, right? We’re not trying to make money off of it or anything. We’re just trying to understand what this human context is, and it’s communal. It’s not an individual. And so, you know, it’s a worthy challenge, and the conversations are very productive. We’re having some of those this week in Naropa. You know, how do I — is it okay for me to write that character? Because, you know that that wasn’t my lived experience. David Devine: You’re kind of creating care — you’re like, this guy sucks. I hate him, But like, it’s part of the story. Laird Hunt: It’s part of the story, right? Yeah, so it’s part of the work. Curiously, we go to movies and there are all these nasty people on — who are portrayed. We don’t care about that. We don’t care what language they use, all of that. Somehow you put it in a novel, and all of a sudden, it’s like, wait a minute, what — does, you know, does the author correspond with this character? I’m not so sure that he or she does, etc. But it’s strange that emphasis maybe because it’s language, I don’t know. David Devine: Okay, here’s another question I just thought of, do you ever feel like you’ll be criticized because you created a character that maybe you don’t resonate with, and or the community that you’re presenting your work to might not like? Laird Hunt: Yeah, it happens, every time you publish a book. I mean, I’ve published — I published novels that were that center the stories of women, for example. And, you know, I’ve had been told when I was an MFA student at Naropa, don’t do that. Do not do that. Only write male characters, this kind of lesson. And I was just stubborn enough. And also, you know, I was raised by my rural Indiana grandmother. It seemed very strange that I wouldn’t be allowed to, you know, have a character. David Devine: You’ve learned a lot. Laird Hunt: Right, I wouldn’t — couldn’t have a character like my grandma. And so I just — I thought, you know, I’m gonna try this. But what I, you know, when I did do that, I was really careful. I gave it — Eleni was my first reader. My editors read it, you know, people who might be implicated. And you just take care, and then you do it, and then you expect — I expected, to be criticized. But more the question was, how did you pull that off? Because that’s not your experience. And so to me, that was an enormous compliment, and also just a huge relief. David Devine: I mean, in essence, it is your experience. It’s your experience fictitiously, putting your mind into a character that necessarily you don’t embody. Laird Hunt: None of my characters are me, not a single one. I’ve never written a character who was just like me. It’s impossible. You can’t do it. Laird Hunt: Interesting, unless you’re a poet, then you’re kind of — Laird Hunt: Poets, just kind of — yeah. The lyric gesture, writing about what you’re thinking, what your experience is. David Devine: Okay, yeah, cool. So I’m gonna move on to a little bit more of your books and writings. What I’m curious is, you’ve written many books over your career as a writer, and how do you prepare and get ideas for writing, and the topics that you would like to choose? Is there a moment of inspiration that sparks the writing? You know you were just talking about, like, creating a character like your grandma, you know what — like, why, where, how? Laird Hunt: Yeah, I can give you an example of one of the — one of those books that I mentioned. Many years ago, Eleni gave me a book, as a birthday present, and it was the Civil War Letters of Sarah Rosetta Wakeman, who went to fight during the Civil War, disguised herself as a man to do so and took the name Lyons Wakeman. Four or 500 women did this during the Civil War on both sides of the conflict for the North and the South. And they did it for all kinds of reasons, and often it was monetary. In the case of Sarah Rosetta Wakeman, she came from a poor Upper New York State farming family, and this was a way to make some money. Very moving series of letters, sometimes signed Sarah, sometimes signed Lyons and Lyons slash Sarah never made it back from the Civil War, never came home because she died of disease. So that idea was implanted in my mind, and I didn’t know what to do with it. I’d love to do something, but it took another 10 years or so of just thinking, writing other books, and then suddenly a line came to me, thinking, I forget what re-inspired this was, but the line was, I was strong and he was not. So it was me went to war to defend the Republic. It came to me as a kind of gift, just that line as it was. And so it’s about a woman who goes to war and her husband stays home. And it’s an inverse of the Odyssey where Odysseus goes out to have adventure and leaves Penelope at home. In this case, Penelope goes to war and Odysseus stays home. And so that, you know, that was the — it started to go. And I was doing more and more research, reading in the letters and diaries of women who had done this, but also common, you know, regular Civil War soldiers. These historical novels I’ve written, always have a kind of push, pull between research and writing, doing — and then doing some more research, that kind of thing. But there, it’s fun. It’s fun to read about that stuff. David Devine: Yeah, that’s kind of wild, all right. And it seems interesting too, because then with that woman pretending to be a man and going into the war, she’s having this alter ego, but it’s still her. When you said he’s not strong enough to go, so I went. I thought you were talking about her alter ego, like so she was telling herself, I’m a woman, so I’m not allowed to fight, but — but my alter ego is and that’s gonna — that’s who’s going to fight. So, that’s what I first heard. Laird Hunt: And it has — it definitely has some of that — that resonance. But you know, the penalty for being discovered was, you know, if you were discovered in disguise, you were immediately dismissed, and you might be 600 miles from home, you were just booted, or you were accused of being a spy, and maybe you were executed. And so, in addition to all of the terrors of just being a soldier who might die, either from bullet or disease at any moment. You also had the fear of discovery. And so just, you know, the mental force of the — of the people who did this was, was very inspiring. David Devine: And you’re just such an intimate space that, like, it’s — that’d be hard to keep — keep on the down low. Laird Hunt: Oh, absolutely, absolutely, David Devine: All right, so what I’m curious about is like, how would you define your style of writing? So, you know, you have, like, a body of work. You — like what is it like, nine novels now? You worked with the UN and I would say, what would you say is your style of writing? Do you write about politics? Do you write about like, do you just create stories? You know you’re talking about, like, creating characters like your grandma and like — like women’s stories. How would you say you move forward to find a novel to write or your inspiration? Laird Hunt: Yeah, so I’ve gone through different — different periods. I had an early, more experimental period where I was — the novels tended to be urban based — based on, like, I live in New York for six years and — or based on my experiences in Paris or Tokyo, that sort of thing. So I had that phase, and I was really interested in exploring language. And then I started writing these history based, women centered stories that were focused around hard moments in American history. So whether it’s sort of the pre-war period of slavery in the United States, the Civil War period, the Jim Crow period in the US — in rural Indiana where I’m from, as it was affected by the Jim Crow laws in the south. And then also, I was really, you know interested in early colonial history, especially witchcraft and its implications for women. So hard moments in American history. So four novels were written in and around that, trying to wrestle with what that meant, and you know, how it came about and how it still affects us today. Some of these, you know, conversations and arguments and — and violences that continue on. And then, more recently, I’ve been working on stories set returning to rural Indiana and moving in and around characters who were like the characters I knew when I was a kid, living there with my grandmother. And so I’ve kind of almost like an archeology of the — of myself, but also that context, partly because the Midwest and Indiana specifically, is seen almost entirely through the lens of sort of MAGA Republicanism and, you know, right wing politics. And there’s certainly plenty of that, but it is far from the only story there. And so this — I get my dander up a little bit because there’s some good people there. Like, I want to talk — you know, tell some other stories that come out of that that part of the world. David Devine: It’s almost like the style changes according to the locality and or the environment in which, like a writer’s in. So it’s interesting to hear that. Laird Hunt: Absolutely. David Devine: So after Naropa and the Jack Kerouac School, you moved to New York and began work with the United Nations, which seems like really awesome. And how do you find yourself writing for the UN and also, what were you writing about? And how did these stories develop and come to be? Laird Hunt: Absolutely, well, I love answering this question, partly because poets were again at the at the start of my story with the UN. And by that, I mean Eleni and I had moved to New York, and I was — was sort of at loose ends. I needed a job, and someone who was connected to someone else at the St. Mark’s Poetry Project in — in Manhattan said that they were looking for people to hire at the United Nations. There’s just word of mouth through the poetry community. So I immediately put my, you know, threw my hat in the ring. What that meant was I had no background as a journalist. I had my MFA from Naropa, which I was very proud of, but had, you know, otherwise, I didn’t have much except an international background. And I — David Devine: Didn’t have much. Laird Hunt: Yeah, well. David Devine: Just International. Laird Hunt: Well, you know, this — this was in the context of, you know, it was a huge press office full of, you know, lifelong journalists, and here I was this, you know, this brazen person. But the great thing was, you had to take a test to get in, and that was to do — recreate what you would do on the job, which was to do speaker by speaker account of what was being said in the General Assembly meetings, the Security Council meetings. Not a transcription — it wasn’t — we were not a transcription service. You were listening for what was important and essential in what say the delegate from Algeria or the delegate from Morocco was saying about Western Sahara, whatever the subject was. And I was able to do that. I passed the test, and then I had an interview, and Naropa saved me, because the guy who was interviewing me looked at my CV and said, I don’t see any journalism experience. You did fine on the test, but I don’t see any journalism background. You know what — but wait a minute what is this Europa thing? And you know, he’s reading off my — and I said that says Naropa, and very, you know, nicely and politely, but I told him about, you know, what I had learned, the experience there. And he’s like, huh? That’s pretty interesting. I kind of like the way you’re talking about that. All right, listen, we’ll give you a shot. And that’s all I needed, right? And so Naropa got me in the door. Poetry got me the word that there was, they were — they were looking to hire. So my experience, I was there for five years. I was a press officer and an editor in the department of public information meetings coverage service. So we did coverage of all the General Assembly meetings, Security Council and then also all the press conferences. So I found myself doing things like covering Chinua Achebe, the great Nigerian novelist, when he was made a messenger of peace. Or I came into work one day, and there was a huge crowd, and because I was in house, I pushed myself to the front of the crowd. And there’s Nelson Mandela coming out on the arm of the Secretary General Kofi Annan. So I saw him from 10 feet away. Yasser Arafat walked five feet past me with his big security guards all around. So you know, that was my daily life. And the last thing — last little experience, transcendent for me. I was working as an editor and editing some really boring copy from the Financial Committee, and suddenly this crazy crescendo of sound goes up the outside of the United Nations building in Manhattan. And my boss doesn’t even look up from what he’s doing and says, oh yeah, Aretha’s here today. She’s dedicating a monument, and she had just let loose with a spontaneous Aretha Franklin, and that was the sound I heard. It sounded like it was gonna, you know, knock the whole building down. So that was the kind of daily experience. You just didn’t know what you were gonna — gonna hear or see or do. David Devine: She, like walks up, she's like, sorry, I just — the reverb of that room just really hit me, and I just had to go for it. Laird Hunt: Had to go for it. David Devine: That’s awesome. Laird Hunt: Yeah, it’s pretty awesome. David Devine: Wow, very, very cool stuff. And it’s interesting to think how like poetry and writing and all that has brought you to the UN and this seems like some really intense work. Laird Hunt: Absolutely. David Devine: Okay, so for my last question is — is there anything currently that you’re working on, any projects that you have that you’d like to share with the audience, anything you’re excited to work on, any ideas that you got, anything you’d like to share with us? Laird Hunt: Yeah, absolutely. So I, in 2018, I published a novel, I sort of alluded to it. It was called, In the House in the Dark of the Woods, and it was about early witchcraft episodes in Connecticut about 40 years before Salem there were these witch trials in Connecticut that are poorly documented. So I wrote this novel in and around that experience, and I’m now, after six years, thinking, hmm, maybe I’m gonna write a sequel. So I’m back into the woods. I’m back with the witches, and things are really weird, and I love being in a really weird, intense space. David Devine: Okay, back in the woods with the witches, there you go. All right, well, I really appreciate your time spent with us and sharing our knowledge. And just all your journey of writing. And before we go, could you — would you like to share anything about like your website, how people can find you, you know, like, where you’re teaching, you know, you said Brown, but is there anything else you’d like to share? Laird Hunt: Yeah, sure. So absolutely, there is a website. It’s www.lairdhunt.org, and I’m also on Instagram. It’s just at Laird Huntt, two T’s, I think. And I lurk on Twitter. I don’t do much with — or X, or whatever it’s called these days, but Instagram is the place to find me. David Devine: Amazing. All right. Well, thank you for your time today, and it was really nice chatting with you. Laird Hunt: It was such a pleasure. Thank you. [MUSIC] On behalf of the Naropa community, thank you for listening to Mindful U. The official podcast of Naropa University. Check us out at www.naropa.edu or follow us on social media for more updates.