In this episode of The Write Question, host Lauren Korn speaks with former Montana Poet Laureate Tami Haaland about her latest collection, If I Had Said Beauty (Lost Horse Press).
About the book:
If I Had Said Beauty, Tami Haaland’s fourth collection of poetry, is dedicated to “known and unknown” ancestors. It explores the possible narratives and distant origins of what lies behind a sense of self—including recent and ancient DNA, recessive and dominant traits, mitochondrial underpinnings, and an intricate microbiome. Luminous and spare, the poems seek to unravel and speculate, document and lament what happens in a life and what might have been. While probing for definition in the mysteries of deep time, the poems are nevertheless grounded in encounters with wild and domestic life, intimate moments of loss and family connection, all of which intertwine to expand the meaning of “autobiography.”
About Tami:
Tami Haaland is the author of four poetry collections: If I Had Said Beauty, What Does Not Return, When We Wake in the Night, and Breath in Every Room. Her poems have recently appeared in Fugue, Cutthroat, december, Cascadia, Healing the Divide and have been featured on The Writer’s Almanac, Verse Daily, American Life in Poetry, and The Slowdown. She served as Montana’s Poet Laureate and has received an Artist Innovation Award from Montana Arts Council as well as a Montana Governor’s Humanities Award.
This episode has been edited for time.
Mentioned in this episode:
“Ode on a Grecian Urn” by John Keats
“Sunday Morning” by Wallace Stevens
Previous episodes of The Write Question featuring Tami, hosted by Chérie Newman featuring When We Wake in the Night (WordTech Editions); and this one hosted by Sarah Aronson featuring What Does Not Return (Lost Horse Press)
The Red Book by Carl Jung
Tami Haaland recommends:
Except By Nature by Sandra Alcosser (Graywolf Press)
Aednan by Linnea Axelsson, translated by Saskia Vogel (Alfred A. Knopf)
Blue Dusk: New and Selected Poems, 1951-2001 by Madeline DeFrees (Copper Canyon Press)
Brutal Imagination by Cornelius Eady (G. P. Putnam’s Sons)
“A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings,” in Collected Stories by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Harper Perennial Modern Classics)
The Cloud Path, especially “The Stone House,” (Milkweed Editions) and Earth Recitals (Lynx House Press) by Melissa Kwasny
Evening Land by Pär Lagerkvist (Wayne State University Press)
Miss Iceland by Auður Ava Olafsdatter, translated by Brian Fitzgibbon (Black Cat Press)
Sight Lines by Arthur Sze (Copper Canyon Press)
View with a Grain of Sand by Wislawa Szymborska (Ecco Press)
Ghost in a Red Hat by Rosanna Warren (W. W. Norton & Company)
Before Our Eyes: New and Selected Poems 1975-2017 by Eleanor Wilner (Princeton University Press)
Lauren Korn recommends:
If I Had Said Beauty by Tami Haaland (Lost Horse Press)
The Cloud Path by Melissa Kwasny (Milkweed Editions)
Obit and Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief by Victoria Chang (Milkweed Editions)
Your Mother’s Bear Gun (River River Books) and The River Where You Forgot My Name (Southern Illinois University Press) by Corrie Williamson
Pastoral, 1994 by Joe Wilkins (River River Books)
Another Attempt at Rescue by M. L. Smoker (Hanging Loose Press); read the title poem here.
The poetry of Louise Glück, especially The Wild Iris (Ecco Press), Averno (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), and Meadowlands (Ecco Press)
Plainwater (Vintage Books) and Eros the Bittersweet (reprint, Princeton University Press) by Anne Carson
Almost Beauty: New and Selected Poems by Sue Sinclair (Goose Lane Editions)
Grief Sequence by Prageeta Sharma (Wave Poetry)
—
The Write Question team for this episode was Lauren Korn, host, co-producer, and editor; and Chris Moyles, co-producer, editor, and sound engineer. Ken Siebert engineered Tami's side of the conversation from the studios of Yellowstone Public Radio. This episode is supported by Montana Book Co., located in downtown Helena, Montana, since 1978, offering new books for all ages, vinyl records, and community activism. For delivery in Helena and shipping online, visit mtbookco.com.
The Write Question logo and brand (2022) was designed by Molly Russell. You can see more of her work at iamthemollruss.com and on Instagram @iamthemollruss.
Funding for The Write Question comes from members of Montana Public Radio; and from the Greater Montana Foundation—encouraging communication on issues, trends, and values of importance to Montanans. A hat-tip to Humanities Montana for supporting this program since 2008.
The Write Question is a production of Montana Public Radio.
