Robert Dana (1929–2010)

A COMMUNITY OF WRITERS: PAUL ENGLE AND THE IOWA WRITERS' WORKSHOP, by Robert Dana, Editor.

If you are a booklover, a book nerd, someone who loves to read, lemme see, what else? Oh what the hell. If you love books then you will definitely LOVE this one, because it's an inside look at how books and writers get made. And yes, I get it that because this book is particularly about the Iowa Writers' Workshop and Paul Engle, the poet-guy who really got it going deep in the darkest days of the Great Depression, and then KEPT it going for another thirty or forty years, that you're gonna get a kind of hagiographical slant. And indeed, you're not going to find any naysayers here about Engle. He was, after all, the guy who provided the grease - the funds - that kept it all going for as long as he lived. A master diplomat sort who, at the cost of his own career as a poet, continued to convince wealthy people and corporations to provide financing for the Workshop that was often independent of university funding. So if he comes off as somewhat saint-like, I for one am okay with it. The Iowa Writers' Workshop was the original Model T that gave birth to hundreds and hundreds of creative writing programs all over the U.S., and has even spread to other countries. And it all began with Paul Engle's own particular and far-reaching vision.

Nearly three dozen writers - former IWW students and instructors, and in some cases both - have contributed essays to this stellar collection. There is not a clinker in the bunch, and many of the contributors are authors I have long read and admired. Vance Bourjaily, whose novel BRILL AMONG THE RUINS I discovered while I was in grad school. Philip F. O'Connor, whose beautiful novel, STEALING HOME is a favorite. And Richard Stern and Donald Justice, lifelong friends from even before the IWW years. I've read the COLLECTED POEMS of Justice, and Stern's OTHER MEN'S DAUGHTERS is a novel I've read more than once. Curtis Harnack, whose Iowa farm memoir, WE HAVE ALL GONE AWAY, has attained classic status, is in here, as are Robert Bly of IRON JOHN fame,long-time writing guru, R.V. Cassill, and Oakley Hall, author of that great western, WARLOCK, as well as an oft-overlooked novel of San Diego, CORPUS OF JOE BAILEY.

What surprised me the most though were some pieces by people I did not know. Ray B. West, a long-time instructor along with Engle, wrote a beautiful piece about the nearly two-week period he hosted the flamboyant poet Dylan Thomas, painting a moving picture of a sad and lonely, tortured alcoholic genius. And there is Kay Cassill's series of vignettes and memories of Engle, telling how deeply and permanently he affected her life and career. Gail Godwin's memories of the kindnesses of her instructor, Kurt Vonnegut, are equally moving. And Vonnegut's own eulogy of Engle is uncharacteristically straightforward, telling how he was "dead broke with a lot of kids and completely out of print and scared to death. So he threw me a life preserver, which is to say a teaching job ... No writer in all of history did as much to help other writers as Paul Engle."

Perhaps the one jarring note in the collection is the piece by Michael S. Harper, who tells us that (in 1961) "Iowa was an immersion in another kind of segregation, not only in housing but with regard to the company and behavior of writers, in and out of class. I spent most of my downtime with black athletes." But he also later adds, "My mentors were not my teachers mostly because I was incorrigible, would not listen, and blundered in my own way. Iowa gave me that opportunity." And what opportunity - Harper went on to teach at Brown, Harvard, Yale and other prestigious universities. I know this from the highly informative appendix, Notes on Contributors, which provided reams of tantalizing information of the publishing and professional careers of all concerned.

Perhaps one of the most moving and fascinating pieces here is the one by Engle's widow, the writer Hualing Nieh Engle, who lists the high points of Engle's life and career, starting with his hardscrabble childhood, the son of a horse trainer in Cedar Rapids. She tells us, "Paul was a good storyteller." Then she shares a number of those stories. What a life he led. Paul Engle died in 1991 at the age of 83. He was between flights at O'Hare airport, still working, still in motion to raise funds to support and promote budding writers. Another book I know I want to read soon is Engle's memoir, A LUCKY AMERICAN CHILDHOOD. This book? It was a pure joy to read. My highest recommendation.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER… (mehr)