Today we, Brian Reed and my partner in crime Frances McCue
from the English Department at the University of Washington,
are here to have a conversation with, uh...
"Bill"? or "William"? MATCHETT: "Bill" is fine.
REED: Bill Matchett, who is a professor emeritus from the Department of English at the University of Washington.
Also, long-time editor of Modern Language Quarterly.
Author of a study Shakespeare and Forgiveness,
as well as three books of poetry,
the most recent of which is called Airplants: Selected Poems
that came out in 2013.
And he's written dozens of articles, essays, and other critical work that's appeared in
many different journals including The New Yorker.
And we're here today to talk a little bit with Bill about
the English Department in the glory days of people like
poet Roethke and chair Bob Heilman,
who we still hear stories about all these years later,
but also the history of the Roethke Reading itself,
which Bill was instrumental in founding and keeping going, down to the present day,
where we have, tonight, the latest Roethke poet, Alice Fulton, reading.
MATCHETT: Well, do you want me to start talking about how the Roethke Readings came about?
Yeah? Okay. REED: OK. MATCHETT: Alright.
When Ted [Theodore Roethke] died in 1963--
without anything being done to bring it about--
various people gave the department money in his memory.
I would assume that the biggest amount came from the Bloedel family
in whose swimming pool he had the heart attack and died.
And, uh, they were a prominent Seattle family, and very good friends of his, so my guess is--I don't know this, but--
my guess is the largest amount came from the Bloedels, but lots of other people gave money. And then the question was:
"What do we want to do with this money?"
because the department was already quite used to hiring someone for a term--a quarter--when Ted was gone.
They would hire lots of poets already, while he was still alive but when he wasn't here.
And that was always known as the "Roethke Position." That had nothing to do with this money.
That was departmental money.
And, indeed, that went on, uh,
and we could get some quite fine poets to come because
Bob Heilman could use Ted's year salary for two quarters (LAUGHING) or something! So the, so the,
the pay was pretty good!
And we had lots of distinguished poets here for that. But that's not the "Roethke Reading" at all.
The "Roethke Reading": Bob Heilman called Bea Roethke
and Dave Wagoner and me together, as having been closest to Ted, probably, and uh
-- I'm sure there was some politics in Bob's selection, but anyway --
to talk with him about what to do with the money.
And the idea of a series of readings of distinguished poets was certainly the top of our list.
But we then
(as it turned out we were wrong)
but we thought there might be enough money left over
that we would use it to buy contemporary poetry for the library just to keep up
keep up the poetry. That didn't happen because the readings took what there was.
Anyway,
Bob was very anxious
for several things on this.
He hoped we would get the finest poets we could find.
And you may not like this next bit, but he wanted it to be under the control
of a group that was not the Creative Writing group,
because Bob was afraid that, if the Creative Writing group handled it,
they would not necessarily go for the finest poets. They would go for the politically most useful poets:
those who edited magazines, those who did other things that might help their own careers.
And Bob was adamant that this should be an English Department position, not a Creative Writing position.
I gather that's changed now. (LAUGHS)
REED: It has but, um, it certainly is a perennial question when beginning to try to
figure out who should be, uh, the reader in a given year.
Uh, everyone on committees shares lists and has conversations, [but]
um, it usually turns to be out that the Creative Writers are the ones who have
friends who know people who can call in favors to get the people we want.
(LAUGHS)
MATCHETT: Well as it was set up--with Bea's pushing, too--um
the choice for the reader each year was to be made by
Dave [Wagoner] and me, and whoever had the Roethke Position as the teacher.
That got dropped very quickly, and if I may be very frank, it got dropped because one of the people in that position
was so determined that HE give the Roethke Reading. (LAUGHTER)
And Dave and I were so determined that he NOT give the Roethke Reading
that, uh, that whole idea got dropped.
Uh. And, indeed, I think only once have we had
the person in that position
give the reading. We've tried very hard to say "That position does not include your being the Roethke Reader."
One reader was. And that's because
W. H. Auden had accepted our invitation REED: Oh, well... MATCHETT: to give the reading, and
when I got in touch with him to say it's time to make travel arrangements
he said on the phone "Oh, I've decided not to come!"
This was March.
This was March, a little late.
And so we did ask Rolfe Humphries, who was here then.
Auden was the one big name we missed. The other big name we missed
was Marianne Moore,
who had accepted the invitation
and then her doctor told her she couldn't come.
And so that was legitimate. We don't think.. I mean I've never seen
Bob Heilman as angry as he was about the "I've decided not to come" of Auden.
Um. So those were the two big ones we missed, but, otherwise, I think that if you look,
I'll take credit for the first twenty-five on this list, that is through Adrienne Rich.
I think we...I can say that, at first we got these fine poets coming
because they honored Ted. I mean, that's why... that's why Lowell was here, that's why MacLeish was here,
that's why Berryman was here:
They came because they wanted to honor Ted.
And I think, my guess is--you can check this-- I think they were offered five-hundred dollars for the reading.
And the Graduate School paid for transportation, and the English Department put on the reception.
And so the three.. Well, the Graduate School dropped out, so that money was no longer there and, uh,
and I gather that the five-hundred came to not seem enough (LAUGHING) when we were getting people who weren't doing it for Ted.
Now I think some of others came because they wanted to be on this list.
I mean, they were happy to join the group that had been here, so
it was quite easy to get the people we asked, to begin with.
I gather that became harder, and is harder.
Well, I gather some of the people you invite they have, they have uh,
agents who then say, "The fee should be..." and we can't afford it.
REED: Oh yeah. The fees can be seven- to twenty-thousand dollars. Or more.
MATCHETT: The first one we had turned us down for the fee, when I was still at it then, was John Ciardi.
And we invited him, and I think, I think by then we were offering a thousand? What are you offering now? I have no idea.
REED: It depends on what...four thousand.
MATCHETT: Four? Oh wow. See, I think we were offering about a thousand and John,
whom I knew quite well through the Poets' Theatre wrote back and said,
"No, I don't go anywhere for less than five thousand."
So he, he was not a Roethke Reader. (LAUGHS)
And then I want to say, there was a woman in
the President's office, who was somehow in charge of, uh,
of press relations for the university.
I think her name was Jean Cox. Oh, she was wonderful, wonderful.
And the result was that all those first readers
when they came--they usually came to Seattle on Wednesday so that they wouldn't arrive the day of the reading--
and she had it arranged that they were interviewed by the Times, by the P-I [Post Intelligencer], on the radio,
and all this appeared the day of the reading, and it helped bring out a crowd, I'm sure.
Uh. And it was Jean's doing. (And I'll come back to Jean when we get to Berryman.)
But, um,
I'm sure that was a great help...