Interview with Laurie Kuntz
RSP: It must have been difficult transitioning from Brooklyn to a Vietnamese refugee camp in the Philippines. Would you say that your own sense of displacement gave you a deeper empathy for the refugees you worked with that it gave you a common ground?
Well, I did not go directly from Brooklyn to a refugee camp. After graduating college in NYC, I moved to California to live with my boyfriend, who later became (and still is) my husband. From California, we went to South America and were world travelers for a while. We then worked as teachers in Brazil. After living in Brazil for a few years, we returned to the states and felt completely lost.
In 1979, when an opportunity came up for us to accompany Steve’s (my husband) grandparents on a family reunion trip to Israel, we jumped at the chance.
Is the chronology getting confusing? Sorry, I tend not to answer questions in a direct way. I wander, which, I think, is part of the poetic spirit. Anyway, California to Brazil to Israel then to Asia. By the time I got to Asia, I had lived in South America, on a kibbutz in Israel, worked the grape fields in Greece, and lived in a Tibetan Monastery in Nepal, for a short time.
So, yes, when I got to the refugee camp, I had seen part of the world. I believe New Yorkers are very provincial in the sense that they think NYC is the world. Luckily for me, I had lost that provincial outlook by the time I arrived in the refugee camp. In Brooklyn, I came from a lower middle class family, but our lives were so rich compared to the rest of the world.
Traveling the world, then returning to Brooklyn to see family was distressing because there was a sense of loss, our common ground had been trampled on. No one could really understand my reason for wanting to expand my horizons, for wanting to leave Brooklyn, and that in itself made me feel displaced among my own people. So, to get back to the original question: Yes, I felt empathy for the refugees in that I had a sense of how they felt ripped from all that was comforting and familiar. I can never profess to really enter their horrible traumas, as my life, in spite of minor dysfunctions and minor poverty, was so much more blessed than the horrors these people experienced.
RSP: I'm not sure if the average person, myself included, truly understands what goes on in a refugee camp, or what the camps are for. Would you please take us through a typical day in the life of a refugee?
Wow, that is a book in itself. Let’s start from the basics. I worked with Southeast Asian Refugees. These were Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian people who escaped from their countries after the Vietnam War. They did not want to live under Communist rule and were hoping to be resettled in a free country. They all escaped to Thailand, and refugee camps sprung up all around the Thai borders.
The refugees were playing the waiting game in these camps. They were waiting for a third country to accept them for resettlement. The United Nations in concert with other countries set up educational programs. Once refugees were accepted for resettlement in a third country (USA, France, Germany, Australia) they took language and culture classes which were offered in the camps. I was there as an ESL teacher and teacher trainer. I trained Filipino teachers to teach ESL to refugees bound for resettlement in America.
A typical day in the camp for a refugee would be to wake and fetch water, get food rations for the day, do work detail, then go to language and culture classes. Refugees lived in sub-standard, crowded conditions. Sanitation was poor, food was basic, medical facilities were atrocious, but hope and determination for better lives were the guiding force of the refugees’ existence. Their resilience was inspiring, and I think it is their resilience of spirit that became my muse at the time. My husband, Steven Debonis, has written a marvelous book, Children of the Enemy (McFarland Publishers), which gives a much better account of the day to day life in the camps.
RSP: So many people would love to live the life you do, but feel that it's not possible with a poet's meager resources. So tell us, how have you managed to lead such an exotic lifestyle?
Well, I lived as a world traveler. I worked my way through each country I was in. In Israel I lived on a Kibbutz, in Greece I picked grapes. The money I made from the back-breaking grape harvest allowed me to go to India and Nepal. Remember , these are also very cheap countries to travel through. Once I arrived in Thailand, I got a job in a refugee camp. In Thailand I made a volunteer’s salary. I lived modestly. It is doable.
RSP: Your experiences with the refugees have inspired many poems of loss and survival. The poem "Aftershock" in your award winning Simple Gestures chapbook (Texas Review Press, 1999) is particularly haunting. Would you walk us through the events that inspired this poem?
I was working in the Philippine Refugee Processing Center in Bataan, Philippines. There was a terrible earthquake in the mountain region of Baguio in 1990. Many people perished. A friend’s girlfriend was in Baguio during the earthquake, and she had to walk hundreds of miles to safety. She arrived at my doorstep broken and traumatized, looking for her boyfriend. That poem was borne from her story.
RSP: I love the poem "What Passes On" in your chapbook Women at the Onsen (Blue Light Press, 2003). In this poem, you wrote:
"Afraid of a move back to America,
a country now more foreign
than this Asia I call home"
Poets have always been known for their wanderlust: Lord Byron, Rimbaud, H.D., Ezra Pound, Cid Corwin - the list is staggering, their reasons for transplantation as diverse as their poetry. Does your living in Japan speak more of your allegiance to Asia or your aversion to the U.S.? Could you expound upon this?
At this point in my life, it is my work that keeps me in Asia. When I was younger, I felt an aversion to going back to my own culture. I felt that Americans were very ethnocentric and could not step outside of their own small world to understand other cultural experiences.
I remember when I was living in Brazil, I used to have dreams that I was back in America, and I would wake feeling distressed. I don’t feel that way anymore. I am a product of all of my experiences. I am so grateful that I was born in a country that allowed me such freedom of choice and movement. I have a better sense of who I am, and what and where I came from.
It is the vulgarity of Brooklyn, and the serenity of a monastery, and the witnessing of refugee’s lives that allows me to accept myself and be accepting of others. My allegiances are not to a country, but to people I love, some are in Asia and some are in America.
RSP: You had your son in your mid thirties. Did his birth signal a temporary halt to your travels and writing, or did it inspire you to challenge yourself more?
Having a child puts everything on the back burner. In retrospect, I wish I could have accepted that when I was a new mother. In that first year of mothering I tried to live my life in the same manner as I had lived before I had a child. I had these great delusions of grandeur that my baby would be lying in the crook of an arm breast-feeding, while I was writing poems with the other hand.
These were delusions. I was a bit neurotic trying to balance my new role as a mother with my old, more comfortable roles. But things tend to balance themselves, and now almost sixteen years later, I can say that my son has been my greatest inspiration. It is the poems I write about him that I feel are my most meaningful work. If I had to define myself, I would say that I'm Noah's mom first, then I am a poet.
RSP: How did motherhood affect you as a poet?
Once I became a parent, I became less judgmental. Being less judgemental allowed me to see the world in more forgiving light. It is this forgiveness that ultimately defined, and in a sense, refined my poetry.
RSP: For the past several years you have worked as the Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Maryland, Asian Division, on Misawa Air Base, Japan. During this time you also edited the University's literary magazine, Blue Muse. You're currently teaching language arts at the on base high school. How do you balance this demanding teaching schedule with the more intimate demands of poetry?
I try to think of everything as a poem in the making. My interactions with my 7th and 8th grade students will one day be the subject for a poem. A poet always has the gift of words. There are months when I don’t write, but I know the poetry is in me. I don’t worry about it. I often joke that when I am not writing poetry, I am living poetry. I look at everything as a poem in the making. Eventually the poems that need to be written will get written.
Wow, those sentiments work on good days; I can not truthfully say that I am always this calm about my lack of productivity. A writer needs to write, this is true, but a writer also needs to watch movies, hang out, walk the dog, bake a cake, grade papers, shop, get a pedicure, take a bike ride (my very favorite thing to do with earphones on, and listening to the Rolling Stones)–I need to remember this, and then I can feel at ease with whatever writing schedule my life, at the moment, allows me.
RSP: How have you managed to thrive as a poet despite your isolation? Have you ever wished you could be a part of a local writer's association, or do you prefer operating solo?
This is what I miss the most. I am desperate for a writing community. I believe a writer needs a community of writers in order to thrive. A community of writers also makes one grateful for the gift of being a writer. I feel my life is so blessed and full; however, I do lack a community of writers. And, when I was teaching at the university, I always told my aspiring writing students to get into a writing workshop–to find a nurturing company of writers.
RSP: You're something of a celebrity in the local community, perhaps in due part to your frequent - and unique - poetry readings on base. Could you describe a few of the events you have organized?
When I left the refugee camp to come and work on a military base, many people, myself included, tended to look at this as a negative thing. Sort of selling out - remember, I am a product of the sixties. However, I said if I can turn one mind away from the bomb and toward poetry, it is all worth this change of venue for me. I feel my presence on a military base, and I have lived in this community for 11 years, reminds my students that there is a world beyond the military world.
My presence, as someone off the mainstream path, hopefully has a positive impact on students who are in the process of trying to define themselves. The appreciation of poetry, which is what I try my hardest to impart on my students, is a gift I hope that they will carry. I have an original quote on the board in my classroom which says: “A poem a day keeps the angst away, and if that doesn’t work try chocolate.”
I have given a few readings on base. Dr. Sharon Vanderveer, one of my colleagues, generously gave of her time and talents to write a one act play honoring my poetry. This play was performed for National Women’s Month in 2001. This year, I collaborated with another colleague and friend, Nancy Janoson, an internationally renown flutist. We performed my poetry in concert with her flute for Educators' Day.
I am always a bit hesitant about the audience within the military community. I don’t know if there is an audience for poetry, but whenever I do perform or read, I am so pleasantly surprised by the support and appreciation that is out there.
RSP: Have you received any feedback to your work from the Japanese community?
The Japanese are so impressed when they find out that I write poetry. Many have taken an interest in my work. Unfortunately, many of my Japanese students have said that they love the sound of the poems, but have trouble understanding the true meaning. It is the aesthetic of the poem, the rhythm of the language, the effort of the art form that they enjoy even if they can not totally comprehend the work.
Japanese are very patient and persistent. They appreciate the blood, sweat and tears that go into the art form. I have been very honored with how they have respected me as their teacher and as an artist. The poem, “Calligraphy Class” (Women at the Onsen) describes these feelings, especially the last stanza:
Shigoto, my work?
Shijin, a poet, I answer,
they lower their heads and sound
the sweet hum of approval.
Heavy marks of Ta, Chi, Tsu, Toi smudge
the rice paper to wrinkle.
My letters, formless to meaning
lack the grace of their character
ordered and permanently stained
with true indelible sense.
RSP: You have had the unique opportunity to experience foreign countries more deeply, more thoughtfully, than a tourist might. Your book Women at the Onsen is an insider's look at Asian life behind the veil of common tourist assumptions. What awareness would you like to impart by way of your poems?
Just that–an awareness. I want to bring the outsider into the world I write about, whether it be a Japanese Onsen (hot bath), a boat ride down the Mekong, or celebrating my son’s 7th year. A true compliment for me is when a reader says that the poem evoked a respondent chord.
RSP: Speaking of Women at the Onsen, I have to tell you that it is an aesthetic delight the size, the Ukiyo e woodblock print on the cover, the feel of the paper, the readability of the font the book is marvelous. How do you feel about chapbooks, compared to full length books? What do you feel is the role of a chapbook, considering its low retail price and limited distribution?
I have published two chapbooks, and one full length volume. I like my chapbooks more than the full length book. I have had a great rapport with both of my chapbook editors. I used to think that chapbooks were like getting to first base where as a full length collection was a home run. Of course, there is some truth to this.
However, I notice that many more accomplished writers are now publishing chapbooks. I think the chapbook is becoming a more reputable book in its own right. I would like to see the form gain more status within the publishing world. The important thing is to make poetry accessible to the people. I would love to have another full length collection published, but I think readers are gaining a new found respect for the chapbook as well.
RSP: All writers have an Achilles's heel. What is yours, and how do you hope to compensate for it, or work through it? In contrast to this, what poem do you feel is your strongest, both technically and viscerally?
I feel I don’t take risks. My style has remained basically the same. I don’t experiment enough with different forms. I am trying to step out of the comfort zone of what I know will work, and try more difficult forms and themes. I often feel my most recent poem is my strongest, and that is because I am the closest to it at the moment. However, if I really take time to think about it, I would probably say the poems I write for my son are my strongest. I think they zoom in on the subtle details, the innocence, and the mundane that is often overlooked in the day to day life.
I would like to comment on the mundane. We abhor our mundane lives, but when something traumatic happens like finding a lump in your breast, or being a victim of an act of violence, we strive to maintain the mundane. Poetry can speak of the mundane in an appreciative way making it somehow spiritual; thus catapulting our ordinary lives into a galaxy of appreciation.
RSP: Please name two contemporary poets and two classical poets who thrill you, and tell us why. Would you quote a brief passage from each that exemplifies his or her writing?
I am so bad at this, I saved this question for last. I am not the type of person who can quote from volumes of great poets, especially these days, with my lack of estrogen! And some of my favorite lines of poetry are from poets whom I really have not read a great deal of. Poets and poems thrill me because they strike something that clears my vision, and allows me to see the world as a “clean and well lighted place.” I come across incredible lines of poetry and poets daily.
One of my favorite quotes is from Yeats:
"Think where man's glory most begins and ends, and say my glory was I had such friends."
I love Basho and Issa and the simplicity of the haiku. There is Frost for his accessible language. Bruce Weigl and Yusef Komunyakaa write stunning poems about Vietnam. Dave Smith was my first poetry teacher, and I am in awe of his work. Stephen Dunn is one of my very favorites. I love his verbal irony. His poem “The Routine Things Around the House” is the quintessential love poem.
And then, women poets, I love them all. Our themes are endless, and so many women do a sterling job at capturing the essence of what needs to be said in a poem.
I hate answering this question cause it makes me realize how very little I know about poetry and all the poets there are to know. So much poetry, so little time!
I just love the form, and I love discovering new and old poets and feeling their influences enter my realm of existence.
RSP: If you could take one on one lessons with one contemporary female poet, who do you think would have the most to teach you, and why?
I can not limit myself to one, and the list would change on an hourly basis. But for a quick answer:
Carolyn Forche–I love her political voice and I believe we have some similarities in our travel experiences. I would love to learn from her how to get the politics into the poem without being too didactic.
Sharon Olds–I have studied with her at the Squaw Valley Community of Writers Workshop. I love her poems about motherhood and aging. That is a topic I write quite a bit about, and I would love to learn how to do it better.
Marge Piercy–She was the first contemporary poet that I read. When I was in my twenties, I just loved her writing; I read it all. I have not kept up with her work, but I feel she rooted me in the appreciation of contemporary themes. I would just like to meet her.
I am answering this question at one in the morning. I am so sure there are so many great women that I am leaving out. This kind of question is ongoing. A Good writer discovers new muses on a daily basis. That is the beauty in the craft.
RSP: For every public honor you've received, I'm sure there have been countless private reactions to your work that have deeply stirred you. Would you leave us with one of your personal experiences that have made the poetic life worthwhile?
You know, my family in Brooklyn never really understood what I do. They knew I wrote, but they never spoke to me about my work. Then this past summer, I had an opportunity to give a poetry reading at Barnes and Nobles in Staten Island, New York. My mother , brothers, sister, nieces, nephews and cousins attended. They heard my poetic voice for the first time.
My mother was thrilled by the poems, especially the one I had written for my dad. That poem, “My Father Remembers” is a very honest and sad poem. I thought that my mother might be hurt by some of the honest emotion in the poem, but she felt grateful.. She loved the reading. It was the first time she had ever been to a poetry reading.
That moment, seeing how touched she was by my work, defined a life poetically worthwhile. And then, after the reading, we all went to a really decadent deli and stuffed ourselves with bagels and lox and corn beef and cheesecake–the basic ingredients of a poetic life.
