Washington poet laureate to speak in WW this week

By Kelly Black

for the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin

Poetry matters. It might just be a step toward living a more ethical existence.

Tod Marshall—Washington State Poet Laureate and professor at Gonzaga University—will be talking at Words & Wine on Wednesday at Foundry Vineyards. The event is sponsored by the Walla Walla Public Library as part of its Big Idea Talks series.

“Poetry matters—not just to poets, professors and students. Poetry matters to everyone,” said Marshall. “I was a first generation college student and because of that I understand the skepticism that many have for the arts.”

Marshall was born in Buffalo, New York but—like many American mutts, as he would say—he migrated across the country in connection with parental employment. He ended up in America’s heartland: Kansas.

He grew up in a home that might be familiar to a lot of people, with a lot of dysfunction. But there was also plenty of books and music.

His father would play the guitar and sing the music of The Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul and Mary, and Simon & Garfunkel.

“Blowing in the Wind.” “American Pie.” “Puff the Magic Dragon.” “If I had a Hammer."

“Those were probably the first poems that I heard,” Marshall said.

His favorite song was “The Only Living Boy in New York.”

Despite his best attempts to fail high school, his soccer abilities earned him a scholarship to Siena Heights University in Michigan and a chance to reinvent himself. There he discovered the power of poetry on the written page.

In our contemporary world, Marshall sees several forces at work against the arts.

Funding is one issue. Although he applauds the boom in science, technology and mathematics as well as the emphasis on STEM in schools, he finds the miniaturization of humanities frightening.

“Humanities are the framework that those studies should exist within because they make us think about the implications of those discoveries, the humane usage of those discoveries,” he said.

Another force, consumerism, seeks to focus all our energy on our material dwelling in the world.

Consumerism, according to Marshall, wants to deflect us from contemplating that ultimately there is no product we can aquire, there is no bigger car we can get, and there is no fancier phone that can help us circumnavigate those huge things that as humans we have to face: growing older, navigating death, piloting the amazing and challenging dynamics of becoming a parent or falling in and out of love.

“There is nothing we can buy that can help us with that,” he said. “(Consumerism) is like this glittering toy we use to distract a baby who is having a tantrum.”

At times, people do not want to think about the huge issues we face as a society, or about living in a world where people can do monstrous things to one another, including genocide, child abuse and human trafficking.

People find those issues terrifying and collectively tend to shrink away from them.

“The arts can force us to confront terrors,” Marshall said.

Whether really tuning into a piece of music or spending time with a painting or immersing oneself in a poem: “When you look away from it, the world you look away to is different from the world you were experiencing before you started looking at that work of art,” he said.

Marshall believes we are at our best, as humans, when we have a generous openness and receptiveness to the world.

One of his favorite poets, John Keats, conceptualized the phrase, “negative capacity.”

“It is the ability to exist in a state of uncertainty without an irritable reaching after facts or reason,” said Marshall.

Marshall sees tremendous value in nurturing the ability to exist in a state of uncertainty and to recognize the possibility of being changed by art or by a conversation.

This includes cultivating an openness to the ways others have experienced the world, rather than building up walls between ourselves and others.

He also believes in finding words that matter—whether a poem, a section of the Bill of Rights, a quote or a biblical verse—and internalizing those words by committing them to memory.

“Carry them with you,” said Marshall. “Put them in your heart. Then invite the world into that space.”

Recognizing the possibility of being changed by poetry or art or a conversation, and keeping ourselves open to all of that change, is a step toward living a more ethical, kind and generous existence.

“I believe that the more we open ourselves up to the world, the better we can move through it without causing harm,” he said.