Professor reflects on career as poet

A peek into the back page of poet and English professor Brian Henry's copy of Augustine's "Confessions" would reveal a long list of jotted-down words and phrases.

"Whenever I read, I read as a poet," said Henry, who is currently teaching Core for the first time in his four years at the University of Richmond. "I'm reading Augustine right now, and I read it in graduate school, but I'm just taking phrases that I'm going to try to use in poems and filling the back of the book with them.

"I've actually written one poem from this," he said.

Henry, 36, has written and published five books of poetry: "Astronaut," "American Incident," "Graft," "Quarantine" and "The Stripping Point." "Quarantine" was published in the United States in 2006 and was nominated for both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. The manuscript also won the Alice Fay di Castagnola Award from the Poetry Society of America in 2003.

"Quarantine" is a book in 40 verse parts about a man who died of bubonic plague in 17th century England. It will be released in England through Arc Publications this year.

"I wrote 'Quarantine' in three days in very intense bursts," Henry said. "Ironically, my book that I didn't work on for years and years and years is the one that did the best."

Henry's sixth book of poetry, "Wings Without Birds," will also appear through Salt Publishing this year. The book deals with ideas of the domestic and people's attachments to each other through familial relations, he said. Physical space and human connection through bonds of love and parenthood are also themes present in the book, he said.

"I also juxtapose that against the world outside of it," he said, "which is obviously threatening and chaotic."

In addition to his coming book, his poems have recently appeared in both British and American literary magazines such as The Warwick Review and Boston Review.

Not only does Henry submit his poetry to magazines, he also acts as co-editor of "Verse," a literary magazine that publishes poetry and poetry criticism, as well as some short fiction. Henry began editing for "Verse" right after college, he said.

"It's a lot of work, but it keeps me in touch with what's going on around the world in poetry," he said.

When it comes to his own poetry, Henry doesn't believe in the idea that inspiration is a passive waiting process.

"You can sort of live a life in which inspiration is always possible," he said. "If your eyes and ears are always in tune to what's going on, you're always in a kind of state of readiness."

Inspiration is possible when walking across campus or down the street, he said, hearing things that are sometimes strange or mysterious, or by looking at the everyday world through slightly different lenses.

"I think our obsessions or preoccupations choose us," he said. While his poems differ formally and he tries to make every one of his books different from the one before it, he said, the overarching "obsessions" or concerns in his work include violence, power, sex, desire, consciousness, the domestic and how they interact with each other.

Recently, Henry has been translating the work of other writers. Publishing company BOA Editions will release Henry's translation of "The Book of Things" by Slovenian poet Ale\0x0161 \0x0160teger in 2010. Henry met \0x0160teger in Slovenia in 1999 and has always liked him and his poetry, he said.

"I decided to translate his book because it's considered his best book in Slovenian," he said. "The language is very clean and precise and clever.

"I started working on that in 2006 and it just got accepted last month."

The book features 50 short poems, some of which will appear in magazines including The New Yorker and New American Writing. One poem, "Sea Horse," has already appeared in Boston Review, while another, "Earring," is in Guernica this month.

\0x0160teger's work hasn't had much exposure in the United States, Henry said.

"I've edited a literary magazine since I was 22, so I like introducing readers to new voices," he said.

Henry has translated the work of Slovenian poets before, releasing his translation of Toma\0x017E \0x0160alamun's "Wood and Chalices" in 2008.

"He's world famous," Henry said of \0x0160alamun. "He has almost 40 books in Slovenian and his poems have been translated into dozens of languages.

"Part of it is that I've written so much that I've purposefully slowed down, which is partly why I started translating. I wanted to work on other people's stuff, but I also didn't want to constantly be writing too much because I've written a lot and, you know, how many books can you have come out at once?"

Instead of constantly writing, Henry tries to fill his time with artistically relevant activities, he said. He reads both contemporary and older poetry, plays guitar and writes songs with his daughter. His work with "Verse" also keeps him busy, he said.

In Henry's Literary Editing and Publishing course, students get an opportunity to work on "Verse," looking over submissions to the magazine and discussing them in class.

"They have a lot of say about what ultimately gets published," Henry said.

Emily Hunt, who graduated from Richmond in 2007, took the course with Henry when it was called Literary Magazine Editing.

"I look back on that class often and realize how valuable the experience was," she said. "As an editor, Brian stressed what one can learn from looking at writing from the back end."

He will teach the course again in the fall.

Last spring Henry brought \0x0160alamun to Richmond as the guest professor for Poetry Writing.

"\0x0160alamun shares my belief that nothing should stop you if you want to put your work into the world," Henry said.

He also enjoys working with his creative writing students and helping them with their poems and short stories, he said.

"I always encourage students to submit their work to The Messenger because then you're looking at a campus-wide audience," he said. "If you're interested in putting your work out in the world, that's something I know about and so I want to help students with that."

A number of his students have had their work published already. Senior Caitlyn Paley produced a piece in a Mixed Media Writing course co-taught by Henry and Mark Rhodes, an art teacher currently on sabbatical. Her piece was recently published in the "Moria Poetry Journal."

"Brian told my Mixed Media Writing class that we should pursue online publishing," Payley said. "It never would have crossed my mind to try if he hadn't said something. Without Brian there is no way I would be published."

Seniors Tim Henry and Devin Gmyrek have also just had their collaborative chapbook, "Seven and Seven," accepted by Scantily Clad Press. The book is a short collection of poems they put together over the summer, they said.

"Brian wants all of the things that you make for his class to be able to exist outside of the class," Tim Henry said.

Gmyrek took \0x0160alamun's Poetry Writing course last spring, he said.

"After \0x0160alamun came, I was just really into it, and after school ended I just wrote in my free time at home."

English department chair Suzanne Jones spoke highly of Henry's work with students.

"The fact that Brian is encouraging students to publish, helping them with their writing, and directing them to good places to publish is very exciting," Jones said.

Meg Hurtado, who graduated from Richmond in May, took Creative Writing Poetry with Henry during his first year at the university. She is now a first-year student in the MFA program at St. Mary's College in the East Bay.

She recalls a particular piece of advice Brian gave her: "He did say to write and write and write while you're young and have the inspiration and the time and the energy, to hound the Muse till she's absolutely exhausted -- and then, while she's recovering, send as much of your work out into the world as you possibly can, as soon as you possibly can."

Contact reporter Guv Callahan at guv.callahan@richmond.edu.