A wand'ring minstrel I—
A thing of shreds and patches,
Of ballads songs and snatches,
And dreamy lullaby…
You may recognize this quote as the ditty sung by wandering minstrel Nanki-Poo in Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera, The Mikado (1885). A strange thing about being a poet in America is that, although most poets start down this road because they're bookish loners, they're destined to spend large swatches of their professional lives in disguise, performing in front of great and small audiences — mostly small, unless you're Billy Collins — reciting as if they're certain they have something important to say.
In short, we have to sing for our supper.
History updates itself. We're enjoying a revival of the medieval wandering minstrels who hiked from town to town — like the more famous paladins, or fighting knights — making a dicey living singing and reciting at banquets and social gatherings, dodging bullies and bandits, not to mention small armies in the always numerous wars. These minstrels gradually morphed into the troubadours, attached to a particular nobleman, castle or court.
The modern version of this life was re-created primarily by three poets. Ezra Pound (1885-1972) brought the medieval writers to our attention by translating, adapting and writing about them in poems like "Sestina: Altaforte." Then Robert Frost (1874-1963), failing as a farmer, invented the poet-in-residence position by accepting posts at the U. of Michigan and Amherst College. And finally, golden-voiced Dylan Thomas (1914-1953) took time off from Brown's Pub in the Welsh village of Laugharne to give hugely successful, and often scandalous, readings across America, to support his writing and drinking habits. It was good for his pocketbook, but bad for his health.
In 1993, when I took early retirement, we knew we'd need some extra income, and right away found out that sheer luck was a major ingredient in a troubadour's life. We'd hardly started thinking about how to go about this when I got a call asking if I'd like to be Writer-in-Residence at the U. of Hawaii. Well, let me think for a nanosecond! Timing is everything, and someone in charge there had liked something I'd recently published, and called me on the spur of the moment.
Living in Honolulu got us hooked on the semi-itinerant life. We were welcomed by leis and dancing hula girls — wand'ring minstrels themselves — and, like Gaugin in Tahiti, we felt we'd found a way of life to get our work done and have fun, too. A writer-in-residence is supposed to spend a lot of time writing. You get to work with bright young people with few of the practical responsibilities involved in the Education Machine. Plus, you escape before you start repeating yourself: there aren't too many tricks to good writing.
Since Hawaii, we've traveled steadily, for varying times. At Old Dominion University, we stayed in a charming cottage thanks to Oprah Winfrey. It belonged to ODU professor Sheri Reynolds, whose novel, Rapture in Canaan, was chosen for Oprah's show. With that windfall, Sheri bought a larger home on Chesapeake Bay, and offered her place to Jeanne and me for the semester.
Travel, of course, is always tiring, and sometimes harrowing. Enjoying a beer with friends at the Chattaway one night, I told them I was leaving for Greensboro, North Carolina, the next morning (to be at UNC/G). "Are you crazy?" someone said. "There's a huge storm heading that way." It was so balmy in St. Pete I shrugged off the warning and headed north the next day — right into the teeth of the Blizzard of '96. Somehow I skidded all the way to Greensboro before getting stuck in the middle of the road. I abandoned the car and slogged through the snow to our rented house. The next day, some friends and strong graduate students dug me out and pushed the car up our driveway.
I'm writing this at Converse College, in Spartanburg SC. It's not Honolulu, but Spartanburg has its charms, and we know we'll find good students here and make some friends, while singing for our supper. We can't do this forever, but Jeanne and I — like Nanki-Poo and YumYum — hope for a happy ending, or at least a mysterious disappearance, like the poetry-spouting Paladin (Richard Boone) in Have Gun, Will Travel. Paladin liked to quote John Donne's "Death Be Not Proud" at gravesites.
Me? Have sonnets, will travel.
—Peter Meinke, unarmed, will be tuning his supple songs, and Jeanne exhibiting her subtle drawings, at Studio @620 in St. Petersburg on March 25th, after their return from Spartanburg.
This article appears in Jan 20-26, 2010.
