We Have Been to Vermont, Day 1

The landscape changes suddenly out of the Albany/Schenectady corridor into southwest Vermont. Route 9 changes to Route 7, billboards and traffic vanish. Suddenly an obelisk towers (I want to veer onto the side road and touch it, but my thumbs and politics are already opposable) over the valley in which Bennington nestles, famed for its writing workshop, and, according to Wyn Cooper, a place I'm more likely to run into John Gardner's ghost, since he spent much time there. I stop in town for coffee and a walk up and down the main drag, festooned with statues of people very much like an Americana statue I recall from Santa Barbara of a guy washing a window, kid sitting on his shoulders. He's here, too, or his brother, along with numerous others by the same artist. It makes me think of State Street, but it's only three blocks long, no Museum of Art or Anthropologie or Restoration Hardware or Saks. It's quiet and cute, and I don't see a chain anything, so I get a cappuccino at the non-Starbucks and head east over the Green Mountains toward Brattleboro, toward Wyn and Shawna's place in the mountains above Marlboro.

I nearly missed the turn off of Route 7, but slammed on the brakes, thankfully no one behind me. The pavement vanished and I was on back roads into the low mountains, ultimately along the Green River until I found Wyn and Shawna's driveway--steep gravel up to a lovely home with a large deck. Wyn and Shawna were there with open arms and smiles, but Shawna had work and rehearsal, so I wouldn't see her much till later. I felt immediately welcome. Their house is gorgeous, filled with art and broadsides and books, ensconced in maple and pine forest just up the hill from the Green River. After catching up about the drive, etc., Wyn readied to take me to the "swimming hole" at an old wood damn beside a covered bridge about ten minutes from his house. I suspected immediately that this would be a lovely place to look for mushrooms and, while he was getting ready, I stepped outside and found a chanterelle in the woods just steps from the back of his house. When he came out, we jumped in his sweet '63 MG and headed into the village down the river a bit. He swam while I balanced on the rocks. I was ambivalent about getting in. I'd have to undress. Wyn explained that nudity was legal in Vermont unless a community passed a specific law against it. Still, there was a couple there from NYC and, more importantly, the water was chilly, so I just stayed with the rocks and the river music and enjoyed the scenery and the sweet air. We chatted briefly with the NY couple before we headed back to the house, then into Brattleboro to shop for provisions--by provisions, think wine--to go along with the Memphis barbecue Wyn planned to pick up for dinner after Shawna's rehearsal.

We went into town and it happened to be a first friday artwalk evening, and we walked through several very cool galleries and Wyn introduced me to a few of the area artists and gallery owners. We stopped at a local brewpub for a beer, and Wyn knew everybody, it seemed, so he had to make a few rounds around the room. I sipped my beer and enjoyed the atmosphere. Wyn sat down and we enjoyed our pints. The server was also a friend who had acted with Shawna, and Wyn explained that she would soon be off to Guatemala, plans unspecified. She recognized my Califone T-shirt and we talked a little about the music before her next round was up and she had to leave. Life in Brattleboro is good. I have finally been to Vermont and I can retire the first poem I ever published ("Lunchtime in Vermont"), which was, to be kind to it, an exercise in line breaks and immature mindfuck postmodernism, as I understood it at twenty.

Later, we picked up the barbecue, supped late, and drank later--excellent barbecue washed down with big wines, including a lovely Italian Aglianico Rubrato and a Turley Moore Earthquake, both gorgeous wines with barbecue. Good wine and good food don't matter, though, if the company isn't up to the sensual pleasures. Wyn and Shawna, on the other hand, as we all love fine foods and grand vins, would make peasant bread and a jug of dago red a royal meal. We talked late, too late, about Shawna's impending performance, friends, poetry, music, art, politics, love, and who knows what else? I was there and it was a perfect evening. All I can say is thanks for my good fortune, my good friends. I hope I can return the favor one day.

Turley and Everwine and Hannah and her Sister, Part Last

After a leisurely morning sipping coffee and groggily seeing George and Amy leave to walk Mookie and Nigel (or vice versa) and then off to work (and I thank them again for their wonderful hospitality), I headed up the coast toward Fresno, where I was born at.

I took the 101 to Paso Robles, where my mother is from and where my grandparents farmed almonds, zinfandel, and vegetables . My uncle, proprietor of Richard Sauret Vineyards, still lives there and grows grapes for Rosenblum and other wineries (congrats on inclusion in Wine Spectator's top 100 for that yummy 2003, by the way), so making a quick wine stop seemed appropriate. Since I've always been a big fan of Turley Zins (or a fan of big Turley Zins), I made that my stop of choice despite the temptations of many new wineries along the 101/41 corridor. A quick turn onto Vineyard Road in Templeton led me to the redesigned winery and tasting room (formerly Pesenti winery) and I tasted several new releases, including the powerful Ueberroth and their version of the famed Dusi vineyard. Very good wines, all, so I ordered half a case to be sent to me (isn't it Friday yet?), some I can drink soon (Old Vines) and some to hold, the Moore Earthquake--fond memories of sharing one bottle, 17.1% natural alcohol, with Kurt Brown and David Oliveira at the Paradise Grill in Santa Barbara--and a Haynes Vineyard, their flagship zin. Some don't like Turley style wines, especially James Laube, but I find the fruit extraction more than compensates for the alcohol. Generally, the nose is dense fruit with just a hint of briar (moreso in the central coast offerings) and spices more or less complicate it nicely or amazingly, depending on the source. They're balanced, portlike wines without the sweetness, and I can only compare them to Amarones in a great year, with roasted fruit flavors and enough acidity to make it friendly to strongly flavored foods or even with deserts. They make a port, but it wasn't available for tasting.

I arrived in the afternoon at the Williams "Estate" in Fresno, a green 50s era tract home in a lower middleclass neighborhood two blocks from William Saroyan's former pair of Fresno houses. My nieces, Haley and Hannah, were playing in the wading pool, while my parents fiddled in the garden. Dad's gone seco-palm crazy, and sprouting fronds everywhere make the yard an eye and balloon hazzard, but it was nice to be home and to see my parents in good health. Dad has lost 20 pounds and Mom especially looks much younger than her 67 years. It was also good to catch up with the kids' mom, my sister Kelly, and Chase, her oldest son.

The next day, my full day in Fresno, I planned to visit the homes of various poets I know there. Phil Levine was in New York, but I wanted to catch up with Peter Everwine, Connie and John Hales, Glover Davis, Charles Hanzlicek, Jon Vineberg and Dixie Salazar (David O. and I visited Jon and Dixie last year), and I made a contact list and headed out. I made it to Peter's and just never left. It was great to see one of my favorite teachers and one of our finest poets, share a couple glasses of zin, and hang out, talking about everything from mutual friends mentioned already, poets we liked (especially Bob Hicok, whom Peter likened to Bill Matthews in terms of his pure love of language), prose poetry, the book festival, and our lives. I enjoyed his classes because he was so efficient and yet genial. He cut through everything in a workshop or class and always said something that was both surprising and luminous. He'd pull us out of our cloud-of-dust verbal scrum and say, "Hey, look up, here." Then he'd show us. I don't think I ever would have pursued poetry if it weren't for him. I first met him through his work, when Thom Gunn at Cal pulled out one of his poems, "Desire," to show us what a great contemporary poem was, then later when I met him in Fresno as I pursued a teaching credential, showed him a little poem, and heard him tell me to my surprise that it was good enough for me to begin serious study. (I can't emphasize enough the word begin in the previous sentence.) It still took me several years to get into the program, since I had a young family and a new career as a teacher. But his encouragement helped many of us take the art seriously even as many of us were intimidated by his inimitable, underappreciated talent. To whit, one of my favorite poems of all time, currently available in From the Meadow: New and Selected Poems (Pitt Poetry Series, 2004):

How It Is

This is how it is --
One turns away
and walks out into the evening.

There is a white horse on the prairie, or a river
that slips away among dark rocks.
One speaks, or is about to speak,
not that it matters.

What matters is this --
It is evening.
I have been away a long time.
Something is singing in the grass.


Peter Everwine