by Robert Stubblefield<\/p>\n
Even as a student editor of a college literary magazine, perhaps particularly as a student editor of a college literary magazine, you are aware of those rare instances when a work lands on your desk that unequivocally\u00a0belongs.\u00a0<\/em>And on that late winter afternoon in 1992 when I opened the envelope and read \u201cGraves in Wheat: La Grande,\u201d I knew that not only would it appear in\u00a0Oregon East,<\/em>but it would open\u00a0Oregon East.\u00a0<\/em>I held it, that touchstone. I found myself walking into an ever-so-slightly-freshening breeze along slushy sidewalks repeating those lines aloud\u2014\u201cThe empty hand of the wind \/ writes with a blunt pen.<\/p>\nThe empty hand of the wind<\/em><\/address>\nwrites with a blunt pen<\/em><\/address>\netching on each stone<\/em><\/address>\nits own dull name.<\/em><\/address>\n <\/p>\n The words individually are nothing extraordinary, mostly one-syllable and none more than two, but collectively they take shape in a form that commands attention. In a rare moment of symmetry the reader is less alone, and that feeling that cannot be named or previously articulated becomes perfectly expressed and shared. Those four opening lines from Thomas Madden\u2019s \u201cGraves in Wheat: La Grande\u201d evoke an emotion so specifically conjured that I wish to revisit it again and again to see shadows and panels of light shimmer, wave, shine, and fade. It\u2019s one of a handful of poems that mean the most to me, and repeatedly calls me to the bookshelf, always present, as real, as concrete, and yet ever-changing as a prairie, a touchstone. If uncertain how to proceed, come back and start from here.<\/p>\n Many of the decisions I\u2019ve made over the past twenty-six years I\u2019ve had occasion to revisit or question, but knowing that I instantly and innately recognized the quality and durability of those lines provides solace and leaves me confident that I was at times capable of exercising sound judgment, that one good decision can eventually lead to another.<\/p>\n \u201cGraves in Wheat: La Grande\u201d was a gift, a poem that Tom could have published almost anywhere, yet chose to bestow upon\u00a0Oregon East<\/em>, piloted right there to Hoke Center at Eastern Oregon University. As a student in his classroom, I\u2019d been the beneficiary of Tom\u2019s generous wisdom, humility, and grace. It\u2019s perhaps not so odd at all, how we steal gestures, copy phrases or movements from those we admire. My teaching style, if such a thing exits, is nothing more than an amalgamation and approximation of those I\u2019ve studied under and with, and a great deal of it comes directly from Tom. I recall him entering the classroom, striding to the front of the room and the lectern, and reaching into his shirt pocket beneath his sweater for a pen to take attendance. The general murmur quieted, and like a seasoned front man providing the three-count, Tom commanded our attention and class began in earnest.<\/p>\n Tom effectively laid out the subtleties of reading Mary Shelly\u2019s\u00a0Frankenstein\u00a0<\/em>through Mary-Lowe Evans\u2019 essay \u201cReading with a \u2018Nice Eye\u201d: Responding to\u00a0Frankenstein<\/em>.\u201d Without condescension Tom helped a classroom of students from ranch, wheat, and lumber towns to discern that \u201cnicer\u201d in this case did not mean benevolent, but harbored a deeper, perhaps even archaic, foundational connotation of fastidious and scrupulous. For one afternoon, Tom transformed our classroom into a group of semi-astute reader-response critics.<\/p>\n This Dialect of Grass\u00a0<\/em>demonstrates that examination of the world with a \u201cnicer eye.\u201d Individually and collectively these poems illustrate and detail a world simultaneously larger, yet more complexly and intimately connected than previously imagined. In \u201cDigging Potatoes\u201d Tom writes,<\/p>\nI see them stooping or kneeling<\/em><\/address>\nout there in the cold rain,<\/em><\/address>\nprospecting the thin mud.\u00a0<\/em><\/address>\n <\/p>\n An infinite amount of material to mine, and here Tom applies that powerful and fine lens to cast the familiar in sharp, accurate, and evocative relief.<\/p>\n These poems effortlessly traverse wildness and domesticity, move from Ireland to Illinois, to Montana across the inland Northwest to the Pacific edge of the continent, capture and convey ocean spray, freshly hung laundry, footprints on a sidewalk, desiccating and knifing winds, thunderstorms, and \u201cribs of basalt.\u201d<\/p>\n What we love and hold close and dear is ephemeral, but time is a fabrication.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Earlier I copped to stealing a gesture from Tom, but that isn\u2019t really true, because Tom Madden\u2019s wisdom, time, and attention was freely given. I recall reading \u201cWinter Solstice, 2015\u201d in volume 11 of\u00a0basalt\u00a0<\/em>and how it again brought forth that quiet awe, that rapt attention and anticipation Thomas Madden\u2019s work elicits. A new poem from Tom was always a gift.<\/p>\n And now\u00a0This Dialect of Grass.\u00a0<\/em>Here it is to visit and revisit, to position in a place of honor on my bookshelf, to carry from Montana to Oregon and back again, tracking that journey Tom made so many times, again and always a most excellent companion.<\/p>\nMissoula, Montana<\/address>\nNovember 2018<\/address>\n <\/p>\n Robert Stubblefield, <\/span><\/strong>a graduate of Eastern\u00a0<\/span>Oregon<\/span><\/span>\u00a0University,<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/strong>has published fiction and personal essays in\u00a0<\/span>Dreamers\u00a0and Desperadoes: Contemporary Short Fiction of the American West, Best Stories of the American West, Hayden\u2019s Ferry Review, Left Bank, The Clackamas Literary Review, Cascadia Times, Oregon Humanities, Oregon Salmon: Essays on the State of the Fish at the Turn of the Millennium, Open Spaces, basalt<\/em>,\u00a0<\/span>Talking River Review,<\/em>\u00a0and<\/span>\u00a0High Desert Journal<\/em>\u00a0among others. His most recent essay, \u201cWrecks and Shells,\u201d appears in the current issue of\u00a0<\/span>Southern Humanities Review.<\/em>\u00a0Robert grew up on a ranch in Eastern Oregon and now lives in Missoula, Montana, where he and teaches at the University of Montana.<\/span><\/p>\n “The Empty Hand of the Wind” is the foreword to This Dialect of Wind<\/em>, a posthumous collections of poems by Thomas Madden, published by\u00a0basalt press in February 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Robert Stubblefield Even as a student editor of a college literary magazine, perhaps particularly as a student editor of a college literary magazine, you are aware of those rare instances when a work lands on your desk that unequivocally\u00a0belongs.\u00a0And on that late winter afternoon in 1992 when I opened the envelope and read \u201cGraves […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":1276,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,1],"tags":[203,202,201,199,200,198,197],"class_list":["post-1271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basaltblog","category-featured-articles","category-uncategorized","tag-basalt-press","tag-basalt-a-journal-of-fine-and-literary-arts","tag-eastern-oregon-university","tag-robert-stubblefield","tag-the-empty-hand-of-the-wind","tag-this-dialect-of-grass","tag-thomas-madden"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/basalt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/basalt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/basalt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/basalt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/basalt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1271"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/basalt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1277,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/basalt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1271\/revisions\/1277"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/basalt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/basalt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/basalt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/basalt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}