John Rutherford, The Pursuit of Poetry No. 3
Interviewed by Bryan Helton
Can you tell me about where you grew up?
I grew up in Southeastern Texas on the border with Louisiana in a small suburb of Beaumont called Groves, Texas.
Why do you think you became a poet? What was it in your childhood and early life that led you in this direction?
I remember the precise moment that I started thinking of myself as someone that could be a poet. I went to Port Neches-Groves High School, and unlike many other schools in the early 2010s, our English department was taught entirely by people who had M.A.s in English and taught as adjuncts for Lamar University and other nearby institutions. For all four years in high school I was required to memorize and recite verse; Freshman year it was fifty lines of The Odyssey; Sophomore year it was Marc Antony’s funeral oration from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar; Junior year it was the entirety of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven; for my Senior year I had the choice of any of Shakespeare’s sonnets, and I chose “To my dark mistress.” I recently read Dana Gioia’s essay “Poetry as Enchantment” for a course at the University of St. Thomas, and he goes into some detail about how poetry was taught and how it ought to be taught. My education in this regard was remarkably traditional by 21st century standards.
I explain all of that as a preface to something that occurred in the waning days of my senior year of high school. For my 12th grade English final exam there was the opportunity to gain bonus points on the test. There were several options: one could answer an additional essay question, or write a summary of one’s experience at PNGHS, or write a poem. I elected to write a poem. It wasn’t a very good poem, I can’t remember much of it now and I don’t know if I even have it still, but my teacher, who had three master’s degrees, gave me full marks and wrote something very encouraging, noting that I was the only person who had done so. I remember coming home on the last day with that exam in my possession. I kept it for a long time, and that was the first time that I felt my literary ambitions realized. I’d always wanted to be a writer and had made several abortive attempts at short fiction and novels, but writing that poem was a freeing experience, and I felt that I’d found something as close to a calling as I’d ever felt.
Who were your early poetry or literary influences? Which remain with you today?
My earliest influence beyond any other was Keats. The Rev. Malcolm Guite, and English priest, poet, and professor described his own early writing as “Keatsian air guitar” in a YouTube video once. That is very close to my own experience. My early poems, some of which were quite absurd, were written in a similar style to Keats. It’s much the same kind of desire that teenaged boys and young men feel when listening to a good song: one wants to make that noise. I wanted to be John Keats. Later on, I discovered Dylan Thomas, W. B. Yeats, and other English, American, and Irish poets, but I’d say that Keats, Thomas, and Yeats are the ones that have stuck with me. I’m also a big fan of the poetry of C. S. Lewis. Not everybody knows that Lewis really wanted to be a poet, and that he wrote poetry for his entire life. I’m also a fan of the poetry and translations of J.R.R. Tolkien and especially Seamus Heaney.
Which contemporary poets do you enjoy? What books have inspired you of late?
John Compton is a fantastic modern poet who has published many very fine books. His book Melancholy Arcadia is particularly good. Devon Webb, a New Zealand poet, is quite modern in her writing and is very good. She writes with a clarity of voice that is uncommon in one so young. There are also poets associated with various literary movements in Texas: Dr. Laurence Musgrove, who runs The Texas Poetry Assignment, and who has published a considerable amount of my recent work; David Meischen, whose Caliche Road Poems is very inspiring. I’m reviewing that book for The Review of Texas Books later this year. I have the good fortune to work in an English Department, so I’m surrounded by fantastic poets and writers 40 hours a week every week. Professor Katherine Hoerth’s recent book Flare Stacks in Full Bloom is incredible. Casey Ford, the Writing Center Director at LU is a Pushcart nominee and a good friend, who writes beautifully. Jesse Doiron, an Instructor of English, is also a great poet who turned me onto TPA in the first place, and I cannot make this list without mentioning his work. Outside of LU, there’s of course Malcolm Guite. I have several of his books, but my favorites are The Singing Bowl and David’s Crown. I’m looking forward to his new Arthuriad, Merlin’s Isle, which will come out in 2026 from The Rabbit Room Press.
What do you think about poetry’s potential impact in our time and place? Can it make a difference personally or socially? If yes, how so?
Going back to the Gioia essay, I agree with him entirely. Poetry can and should be centered in our society. It’s the oldest human art form, and one that crosses all geographic, national, and cultural barriers. It can make a social difference and have great personal impact on individuals. One of my favorite documentaries is Louder Than a Bomb(2010). It’s a documentary about a youth poetry slam that takes place every year in Chicago. The festival’s name has changed, but if young people from across the country can converge on Chicago, a much-maligned city, to read, write, and perform poetry I believe that the impact is obvious. So, what’s stopping poetry from being in the pride of place that it so deserves?
I agree with Gioia that we’re teaching it badly. The last seventy or so years of public and higher education have separated poetry from American life. We treat it as something akin to a complicated liturgy, a higher mystery that can only really be understood by experts. But that’s not what poetry is at all. Consider for a moment our national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner.” While it became our national anthem much later, it was originally a poem entitled “Defence of Fort M’Henry” about a battle during the War of 1812. It wasn’t set to music until much later. Perhaps the best patriotic hymn in the history of the English language “Jerusalem,” is in fact a poem “And did those feet in ancient time” by William Blake. They became songs much later because they were so popular as poems.
I’m not being jingoistic here, merely attempting to illustrate my point. Poetry can and should be as central to our lives as those two songs are. It is a matter of education, demystifying poetry and poetics and teaching it better. There is as much joy, for me at least, in a good poem as in any pop song. And the writing is typically better.
How, when and where do you write?
I have absolutely awful handwriting and so I type nearly all of my poems, usually in Google Docs though I have been experimenting with using LibreOffice. I find myself less prone to distraction that way. I write a lot of poems in my office at home, or at work, but I’ve also written poems or ideas for poems in my notes app at 3 AM. That’s typically when I do a lot of writing. I’m an insomniac, and I figure that I may as well use the time.
Describe the journey your poems take from initial impulse to final revision. Does the pattern vary much?
The pattern does not vary, really. What typically happens is that I get a fragment running through my head. Sometimes this fragment doesn’t actually make it into the poem itself, but in that case it usually spirals out from there and something like it will. Most often this starts in the middle, and I’ll write the poem from the middle to the end, then go back to the beginning.
Which part of the process do you find most difficult? Easiest?
The easiest part for me is the first draft. The hardest part is revision. I often have no trouble at all writing the initial draft of a poem but struggle to revise it into something I’m happy with submitting for publication or letting anyone else see. It can take a very long time. I have a subfolder in my Google Drive labeled “Drafts I don’t want to [expletive redacted]-ing look at anymore.” There are probably fifty or sixty drafts in various stages of completeness there, from two-line fragments to multi-stanza poems. When I’m struggling to write something new, I’ll go back and work through an old draft until I get bored or frustrated, then find some other method of employment.
Can you tell me about writing Birds in a Storm?
The poems for Birds did not develop all at the same time, but they do tell a coherent narrative. It starts with a poem about Hurricane Harvey and ends with one about Tropical Storm Imelda. The space between is a series of poems, neo-pastorals, observational poems, et cetera that were written independently of one another. It wasn’t until I thought seriously about publishing a collection that I decided to put them all together. The writing was nearly complete. There are two poems in the book that were added late, one of which was written a few days before I submitted the manuscript. My goal with the collection was to tell a story of life in Southeastern Texas between storms. For many of us that live on the Gulf Coast, that’s how we mark time, and so I wanted a potential reader who had no experience of hurricanes to experience it the way that we do. I believe, I hope, that I’ve accomplished it.
When you are not writing poetry, what are you doing?
Spending time with my wife of these past five years, Caitlin and my younger brother Joey. I also have played a text-based political simulation roleplaying game in one guise or another for the past twelve years, so there are always plots and shenanigans afoot. I also enjoy pipe-smoking as a hobby, as I am an inveterate nicotine addict. I also like cooking. Nothing particularly fancy, but I make a good gumbo.
I’m very interested in how dedication to the art of poetry changes us as readers. What are some of your favorite books of prose? Novels, biographies, essays, etc? Why?
I’d have to say that my all-time favorite book of prose is The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien, which one can tell from the everything about me. I reread it, and The Silmarillion, once or twice a year. I also find delight in revisiting my childhood in the form of The Chronicles of Narnia. Lately I’ve been really into historical fiction. It started off with the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik, which is set during the Napoleonic Wars except both sides have the benefit of highly intelligent dragons. As you can imagine, hijinks ensue and there are some excellent descriptions of aerial combat. That led me to reevaluating historical fiction as a genre, something I previously spurned. I recently picked up Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin novels. My father was a sailor in life and worked as a boat captain on the Sabine and Neches rivers until this past December. One of his favorite movies, and my favorite memories, is watching Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World together. It came out when I was eleven or twelve years old, and it became a regular watch at home. I still watch it when I’m feeling nostalgic to this day.
I’ve never read much in the way of biographies until quite recently. This past summer, Lamar University Literary Press put out an autobiography called Turtle On A Post, edited by my former boss in the English Department Dr. Jim Sanderson. Dr. Sanderson is primarily a fiction writer and essayist, but shortly after the start of the Fall 2020 semester, we got a call from a man called Carl Parker. Carl Parker is famous throughout Southeast Texas and the whole state more generally. He spent thirty years in the state legislature in both the House and Senate representing the interests of Southeast Texas. His name is on at least two buildings: one at Lamar University in Beaumont, and the other at the similarly named but totally separate institution Lamar State College-Port Arthur, in Port Arthur, Texas.
When Senator Parker called the office, I’m the one who had the good fortune to pick up the phone. Dr. Sanderson was between classes at the time, so I immediately dispatched one of our student workers, a young woman called Hannah, to go and fetch him as quickly as possible. Parker had dictated his memoirs into a tape recorder and then given them to his wife, Beverly to type out. Dr. Sanderson took these collected memories and shaped them into a coherent narrative. It was an immense project, which took the last three years of Dr. Sanderson’s time as chair, and much of the of his first year as Lamar’s official Writer in Residence. The finished product, as published by Lamar University Literary Press, is not just Parker’s memoir, but a loveletter to Southeast Texas. Senator Parker passed away in March of this year, and his wife Beverly in April, about a month later.
What I’ve never liked about biographies is that they’re about people. I don’t find people interesting. I find stories interesting, and that’s what makes Turtle On A Post different. It’s colorful, funny, and above all a story. Parker was a storyteller in the grand Southern tradition of old men that spin yarns, and there is something comforting and appealing in that to me. I can’t recommend it enough.
What are you working on now? Have you found a particular direction you want to take your new poetry?
I don’t know if I’d call it a new direction, but shortly before I was accepted at UST I started a long-form narrative poem tentatively titled “Away.” The project is something I plan on continuing at UST and turning into my thesis eventually. More generally, however, I’m going to start practicing regular meter and form, moreso than I already do. I’m also working on a collection, a pamphlet or chapbook that is an exploration of my time as a department administrative assistant at Lamar University. There are certain absurdities, institutional frustrations, and experiences that are universal to those dealing with academic institutions. I hope to bring levity and insight into the conversation around the academe. I don’t know if/when I’ll publish it, but I am working at it.
John Rutherford is a poet living and writing in Beaumont, TX. Since 2018 he has been an employee of the Department of English at Lamar University. His work can be found in The Concho River Review, Texas Poetry Assignment, The Basilisk Tree, and his 2023 chapbook Birds in a Storm from Naked Cat Publishing. He is an MFA student at the University of St. Thomas.