Robert Bly

Once when I was trying to get advice about publishing poems, I wrote to Robert Bly, whose poetry I admired. He wrote back, a long letter in his hieroglyphic hand, giving me specific suggestions with names and addresses. I may have tried a couple of the publishers he mentioned. I do hate rejection slips. My heart sinks when I see the envelope addressed in my own handwriting.

I found a printer with a Linotype near where I lived. His shop was named Mount Vernon Press. He even had a Benedictine font, though he ran out of "e"s before he typeset the last pages of my little chapbook, The Phoenician Sailor.

I sent a copy to Robert Bly. He was gracious and generous with his praise. He asked me to send three of the poems to a friend of his who was starting a magazine, and she did in fact publish them. So of course I would be a fan of Robert Bly even if he did not write such good poetry. When I saw one of his poems in a magazine last week, it was like a "Hello!" from a friend.

At a reading Bly once gave in San Francisco, he said good poetry should stir you up. His book, Loving a Woman in Two Worlds (Doubleday, 1985) is some of the most stirring poetry you will ever read. Just the titles of some of his other poetry books bear out his intent: The Light Around the Body, Sleepers Joining Hands, The Fish in the Sea Is Not Thirsty, Old Man Rubbing His Eyes, This Tree Will Be Here for a Thousand Years.

Ever since Iron John, Robert Bly has been better known for his men's books and lectures than for his large and comprehensive body of work, poems, essays and translations, but he is still out there, reading stirring poetry and beating a drum and probably strumming on his out-of-tune banjo.