Road Trip: Don Welch

As the section makes abundantly clear, Don Welch has enjoyed considerable success as both a writer and a teacher. Indeed, he and the late Bill Kloefkorn continue to exert a great deal of influence on Nebraska writers.

Don continues to live in and write about Kearney and his beloved pigeons. He is a wonderful fellow.

Like Kloefkorn, Don is an excellent reader. He has read at Peru State, and I hope to have him back soon. In fact, nearly all the writers in the anthology have visited Peru State, either as part of the Nebraska Literature Festival or as guests of the Creative Writing Series--Jonis Agee, for example, read at Peru State College not long ago, as did Ted Kooser when he served as the country's Poet Laureate.

Like all the authors you will read in the anthology, Don's inspiration comes from his upbringing in Nebraska and the people who inspired him, what he calls, in a different context, "that intertwining of influences" (41), something we all share, which allows us to communicate our experiences in such a way as to make connections with readers.

Pay particular attention here to your experiences from which your work grows. Again, this experience includes your reading. Thus, for example, Don talks a lot about the poets who influenced his work and grew with him.

Don also makes no bones about why he thinks that American poetry has suffered over the past forty years. In his estimation, the work lacks the essentials at the heart of poetry, what your text talks about, rich images and, well, beauty: "On the one hand, they're very physically rich in the imagery and the tones that they write. On the other hand, they're not afraid to push thought into good, truthful, and beautiful dimensions" (41).

Well, you need not agree with what Don Welch has to say; however, what he writes is true with respect to what good poetry does: this writing takes chances.

Note, too, the seriousness and the fun. While poetry is, he claims, like prayer, he says as well that some of the best material from young writers comes from people who say they do not write poetry.

So the words come from the heart but with a festive spirit!

For inspiration, therefore, look within to discover what Welch labels a "hidden head." In effect, the manner in which he describes what inspires him has everything to do with what your text calls the journey the class embraces.

Read carefully, in addition, what Welch has to say about how he writes, about how he teaches, and about what inspires and excites him. The poems at the conclusion of the section point directly to what he says in the interview.

Here is another of Don's poems, one he sent me, a poem dedicated to one of his mentors, William Stafford, and one that attests to his abiding love of birds. (One of his collections carries the title A Brief History of Feathers--this poem appears in this collection):

"The Dead Kingbird"

Once, as a boy, I picked up
a flower with wings and carried it home,
a breath of decay slowly circling its body,
death, a figurative bird taking off.

But there in the dark of my youth
that kingbird mounted itself. There
in that place from which all surrenders come,
it began singing a singular love,

one wing a small parenthesis,
the other more than an end to it,
and each generation has left it
dead and renewed.

After reading especially Chapter Four in your text, you can better appreciate the figurative language here and the play on sound and sense.

How is death (tenor) a figurative bird taking off (vehicle)?

And how is a wing a parenthesis?

And what makes a Kingbird a flower with wings?

Note how the poem's context helps establish the ground for the figural language.

Enjoy Don's poems and share your thoughts on the Discussion Thread.

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