Speaker 1 00:00:11 You are listening to Right On Radio Kfa I 90.3 FM and streaming live on the
[email protected]. I'm Sam on tonight's program, Dave Fat Fatigue talks with Patty Horvath about her debut story collection, but now I'm found the characters in these stories struggle to make sense of upheaval in their lives. But now I'm found as a compelling exploration of the human spirit confronted by abrupt and rendering change.
Speaker 2 00:00:38 And I'm Josh Weber. In the last part of the hour, Annie Har View will be in discussion with Linda Lagar Grover, but collective memoir done through Poetry the Sky Watched Sky Watch gives poetic voice to Ojibwe family life assembled in this work, our voices of history, of memory and experience as expansive and particular as the starry sky.
Speaker 3 00:01:15 And good evening, Patty Horvath, welcome to the program.
Speaker 4 00:01:18 Welcome. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3 00:01:20 We're delighted to have you. So we usually kick off pretty quick right here at the top of the hour with a reading. But before we do that, Patty, let's talk a little bit about you and how you came to write, um, all these marvelous short stories, um, your career as a writer. Why don't you give us a little background?
Speaker 4 00:01:36 Well, this is actually my second book. My first published book is a memoir, alt of Diff. The difference, uh, put up by a trust compress a few years ago about my experiences with disability and self-identity. Um, I had scoliosis, my spine was fused. And I, as a reader, I'm also a writer. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And as a writer, I'm also a reader because the two things, you know, go hand in hand. Right. And I became really interested in the ways in which differently abled bodies have been depicted in literature, folk tales, fairy tales, biblical stories, and I was looking at that and, um, what it means to, um, have formerly been visibly disabled. What happens to one sense of self when a physical disability ceases to be visible. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And that in a sense animates the story collection as well, because a number of, um, the stories in here, of course have to do with illness and, um, dying and coming to grips with that. So I guess I've long been concerned as a writer with issues of the body.
Speaker 3 00:02:40 Yeah. One story in particular, one story in particular, uh, would, you know, might not necessarily be autobiographical, but one would be, uh, forgiven if one assumed there is some autobiography. Correct.
Speaker 4 00:02:54 Um, the stories are largely yes. They, there's half of the stories have to do roughly half with my childhood in Connecticut, um, growing up in a single parent household, um, in Connecticut. And the other half have to do with an adult coming to. And those are largely what links them is this notion of, um, abandonment in its many guys'. But the later stories, I wrote some of them and was working on the collection as a whole, as my husband was going through treatment for terminal cancer. Okay. So that informs that notion of loss Yeah. Informs the later stories in that sense. Yeah. Autobiographical,
Speaker 3 00:03:31 I wrote the word loss a number of times as I was reading this. Uh, so
Speaker 4 00:03:34 Yeah. One word.
Speaker 3 00:03:36 Yeah, one word. Uh, so Patty, with that as an intro, congratulations on the book, by the way. But now in front Thank you. Black Lawrence Press. Thank you. Good people There. We, we love Black Lawrence. Uh, so let, let's, let's start with that reading that you have planned first. Okay. And,
Speaker 4 00:03:51 Well, I'm going to read the last story in the book, which is called, so it's the shortest story in the book. Um, the collection is bracketed by this story and by the opening story, wakey Nights. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, which are both, um, stories about a woman waiting to hear what's happened to her child, um, and trying to ward off the news. So this is Hope Sunrise. She turns in bed too early to rise the sky sickly yellow red, rimmed red in the morning. Sailors take morning, but she is not adrift mattress firm beneath her box springs bed frame concrete floor, she has risen too early, is all tossing and turning through a sleepless night. No particular reason. The occasional mild disturbance she attributes to age. The sun has not yet risen. Curious phrase, the sun, as we know, neither rising nor setting, fixed in the sky, unmoving planets spinning around it, turning and turning on their axes.
Speaker 4 00:04:53 She does not feel this. Of course, the earth rotation such a thing would be intolerable. The unceasing sensation of movement, the constant reminder of time, the day has not taken a turn for the worst figure of speech. But still, the phone is not wrong. She has no premonition, no reason to be awake. So early in the morning, a Sunday, the second in May, the one with flowers and cards, she lies still. She thinks of her son. He would be driving now moving back home. Another year of college. Completed exams taken, forces passed. She is moved by the thought of this, the long drive East suitcases in Noel. Music playing sun in his eyes, miles to go. He would've left early, the sky, barely light, would drive for hours, passing borders. Towns then states too soon yet to turn off the highway. Too soon to stop for coffee, for gas, a quick pee.
Speaker 4 00:05:53 Your lights are on, thanking the attendant, looking away just on to do that, to switch them off. Not seeing the driver, the other car running a light looking up too late, blinded by the sun in bed. The woman tosses and turns morning has not yet begun. She knows she should sleep, but the thought of him alone in the still on the still dark road causes something to rise in her. Some feelings she must quell her fears. And coate not concrete. She cannot put a name to them. Sleep is all. Sleep is what she needs. She turns on the light. Soon he will be here. The phone has not wrong, and though she cannot feel it, the earth is still moving. No way to make the this moment stop though later sooner than she can know that that is all that she,
Speaker 3 00:06:46 That is all that she will want. You just broke up a little bit at the end there. I wanted people to hear the last, uh, phrase. Uh, that's all that
Speaker 4 00:06:54 All we
Speaker 3 00:06:55 Want. Yes. That is Patricia Horvath reading from the Short Story Collection, but now am found. Um, let's talk a little bit about Wakey Nights and Sunrise. Um, okay. The, the two stories that bookmark, as you said, the collection, both of them pushed my parental anxiety buttons, I must say. Uh, nothing more, uh, fearsome, worrisome than, uh, a child in, you know, possible danger. And it's still possible. That can make you crazy, right? As a parent, why did you put these stories where you put them? This sounds very, um, deliberate.
Speaker 4 00:07:29 Well, they speak to each other. I think they're about the ways in. You know, when my, when my husband was passing away, my doctor told me denial is a powerful survival tool. And I think in a sense, these stories are both about denial. And waking nights. This woman just keeps playing solitaire over and she starts playing solitaire. Then she can't, then she starts doing crossword puzzles and she's just doing anything to push this fear away. The same way that the woman in the story doesn't wanna think she wants to go back to bed. She can't. But, um, I'm interested in like, what, how do we deal with abrupt and rendering change? Hmm. And, um, I should say probably that I'm not a parent. Um, my publisher, Diane Ghetto, when she called to tell me they were accepting the book, was saying, oh, you know, as a parent, these stories move me. I know you must something else about how this feels. And I don't. It's just imagination. It's just lost in a different guise. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, there's another story in there about a young man whose girlfriend goes away to bible camp. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And that story, um, received the Bellevue Literary Reviews Goldenberg Award.
Speaker 3 00:08:44 Yeah. Congratulations.
Speaker 4 00:08:45 Thank you. The editor called me up and said, I'm religious too. I went to, you know, I, I I know you, I am from that same kind of background, and I'm not at all. I had just driven around some camp up in Canada that looked really desolate and scary and became fascinated by it. <laugh>. But I love that. I love when you know the imagination, because I've always had a hard time distinguishing a little bit between what's real and what's imagined. Right.
Speaker 3 00:09:09 Well, those are beautiful stories. I love that. Yeah. Uh, you're clearly good at this. Uh, so these two stories, they're brief, almost poetic, almost poetry. Like, do you write poems? Patricia?
Speaker 4 00:09:22 I wish I did.
Speaker 3 00:09:23 Well, you do, you do. Inside these stories. I really feel like you do. Thank you. Uh, they're powerful. They're beautifully written. Um,
Speaker 4 00:09:30 What I try to write them is poems, so they just don't work. Is that
Speaker 3 00:09:34 Right? I
Speaker 4 00:09:34 Jealous of my friends.
Speaker 3 00:09:36 Yeah. Some of these stories. And, um, the one you just mentioned and, um, uh, the, but now I'm found the title piece, Griswold Never Let Go. These are stories for me that could have been novels, uh mm-hmm. <affirmative>, because I loved the characters and I was sorry that I wasn't gonna be with them after, you know, the story ran out. Well, um, you've
Speaker 4 00:09:59 Given me some ideas.
Speaker 3 00:10:00 <laugh>. Let's talk about stories and why you settle on the short story form. Why you write short stories.
Speaker 4 00:10:07 Well, I don't exclusively write short stories. Um, my first book was a memoir. Right. I'm working on it, I'll say collection now. But I love stories. I really do. Mm-hmm. And people have said to me, well, you know, story collections don't sell. Mm-hmm. And that may or may not be true, but I mean, that's not the primary reason. I think why writers write. Yeah. Most of us. Yeah. We're right. We're trying to explore something about, um, I know I write out of what I turned vaccination and inquiry. Something's bothering me and I have to try to figure it out. Huh. And I love stories. And the first things that we hear when we're children are stole once upon a time. Right,
Speaker 3 00:10:43 Right. Exactly. Both
Speaker 4 00:10:44 Those who are writers, and we hear those words and we notice suspend our disbelief, and we're know we're gonna be in a world of magic. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and fairy tales. And the supernatural informs some of these stories. There's a girl who thinks she can communicate with spirits via Ouija board. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. There's a girl who's trying to turn herself into a witch. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Uh, there is a woman who thinks that if she leaves cakes on her son's gravestone, she can somehow communicate with him. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, that's what I, that blurring between the, the, you know, the once upon a Time fairytale world and the world we live in is fascinating to
Speaker 3 00:11:20 Me. It is fascinating. We'll come back to some of that. When you were talking about writing and, uh, publishing. You reminded me of, um, Ian value added. Now I have, I have a printout of your book. I don't have the the bound version, so it's on my page
Speaker 4 00:11:34 Until next week. That's why.
Speaker 3 00:11:36 Well, that's why, Hey, ladies and gentlemen, this is hot off the press. You can pre-order this baby right now.
Speaker 4 00:11:41 February 17th.
Speaker 3 00:11:42 February 17th. People get in line, go camp out. Uh, anyway, there's a <laugh> passage in, uh, value added where the narrator, and maybe we'll have you read some value added. It's a funny piece. Um, talks about writing some poems and putting them out there. And it, it, uh, I, I can read some of it. Nevertheless, I'd sent the promising poems into the world, and a couple of them appeared in journals that two or three people might have actually read and encouraged. I wrote some more poems and sent those out too. And so on. I, I like this moment because it's kind of a meta moment in a way. Of course, our writers talking about doing this, and I thought I'd ask you about why writers do this. You could write these stories for yourself. Um, but we put them into the world, just like your character here. Put the poems into the world. Um, I've never asked the writer this question before, but, um, what makes a writer wanna buy on the stories up and I
Speaker 4 00:12:43 Keep them in a drawer?
Speaker 3 00:12:44 Yeah,
Speaker 4 00:12:45 That's a, that's a really good question. I sometimes ask myself that too. You know, when I write something and I don't, it's not working. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, that's a very good question, I think, and there's something about communicating. About communicating. Okay. I mean, a lot of these stories, first of all, let me just back up a minute and say thank you for saying that value added is funny because if you tell stories, someone you've written a collection, and the stories are largely about grief and abandonment. <laugh>, you
Speaker 3 00:13:13 Know? Exactly.
Speaker 4 00:13:14 <laugh>. Um, and, and some of the stories I have been told are funny, and I find that very gratifying. So thank you for saying that. Absolutely. I think we all have things we wanna communicate, and when we're writing, we're trying to, you know, we're imagining a reader and we're imagining maybe saying, you know, here I am in this situation, or here, my narrator is in the situation. I've got something I'm trying to figure out about loss or grief or abandonment or disability, or joy or what have you. And maybe you, maybe that will spark something in you too. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So some, in some ways, I'm having a conversation in my head with the reader when I write.
Speaker 3 00:13:49 I like that.
Speaker 4 00:13:50 That's why I'm, I'm sending these stories out to the
Speaker 3 00:13:54 World you've resolved, solved the riddle of why writers write and put their words out in the world. And that makes perfect sense. That's beautiful. Uh, so let's keep talking about humor. Uh, it j I read an essay by Jane Smiley once Umhmm, who, you know, wrote a, a funny novel, a comic novel, but she, she of course said, once you say that, it's not funny. Once you tell people it's funny, it's not funny. She wrote a long, beautiful essay on that whole issue of it. Um, so
Speaker 4 00:14:23 <inaudible>, you said it instead of me
Speaker 3 00:14:25 <laugh>, but you pull it off. Uh, were you trying, do you try for humor or does it happen? Do your characters just come alive? Does the scenes happen on their own? How does that happen? Magic thing happen.
Speaker 4 00:14:37 I don't know that I'm trying to be funny. Um, I don't think I'm trying, I just think that sometimes the way in which the, sometimes the best way into something that is serious or, or, um, grim in some matter mm-hmm. <affirmative> is through humor. I mean, you look at the history of, of humor, and it's often used to address really dark subjects.
Speaker 3 00:15:05 Yeah.
Speaker 4 00:15:06 I don't, I mean, I, I know, and I've written something that's funny, but I don't sit down and go, I'm gonna be funny now. And I don't think that would really work.
Speaker 3 00:15:14 Right. That's right. Right. Uh, I also think as a reader and everyone listening to this program reads and, um, and we spend most of our time in the world with other people trying to be pleasant, cracking a joke if we can, we spend a lot of time trying to be not offensive to people and mm-hmm. <affirmative> and, uh, that those efforts rarely show up, in my view, in fiction. Um, because writers can be very concerned about the big idea, um, that they forget that, uh, we're just shuffle along. Uh, so instead of in, in a, putting aside loss and grief, um, three sort of grounding themes for me in these stories are place, family, and then character. Um, I'm gonna start with the last one. Um, you make choices in these stories to write from a particular point of view. Um, how do you, how do you do that? You, you really, uh, write confidently from, uh, you know, a a child's point of view, a young person's point of view, older person's point of view, et cetera, et cetera. Um, I, I, it's a silly question to ask how you do that, but how do you decide how to approach a story?
Speaker 4 00:16:25 Well, it's not always. Sometimes it just happens naturally. It's not always easy with, but now I'm found, it was written originally from the Point, it's a story, but now I'm found as a story about a young man who is dating a woman who wears a mo a a back brace for scoliosis, which is what I wore. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And he, he's in love with her. They're teenagers. And she, um, eventually gets sent to Bible camp by her parents and gets, um, saved. She tells him, she dumps him and says, you know, I'm saved and you're not. So I'm, I'm in Moral certitude is something I'm really interested in. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But I originally wrote that story from her point of view, and I found her so unlikable that it was unworkable. Huh. And I thought, well, what about the boy? What about the boy? Let's try this from his perspective. So it was, that was kind of a, um, a little bit of a struggle.
Speaker 3 00:17:18 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>,
Speaker 4 00:17:20 Um, other stories, I just took things from one particular, the stories that are set where the narrators are young. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, those are often first person stories, and those are often just, I start out with, let me tell this story about what happened to me. And then as I'm writing it, I change enough things that it becomes fiction. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, so I have this sense of myself as a younger person in some of the stories. Sure, sure. Actually, in those se in that sense, pretty seamless to, I didn't have to make those decisions.
Speaker 3 00:17:54 I also imagined you as, uh, someone in the health, uh, profession because you write so beautifully, have <laugh> scenes in hospitals or, um, people
Speaker 4 00:18:03 Over way. I've spent a lot of time in hospitals in my life when they tell you. So that's, that is another that I did not have to imagine. Unlike the Bible camp.
Speaker 3 00:18:13 Yeah. Um, I mentioned place and family, uh, families here through and through, um mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And do, do you tap your own family, uh, for your stories? Well,
Speaker 4 00:18:24 I do. I mean, you'll notice in those, in those families there, there's most of them, um, are characterized by absentee fathers. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3 00:18:32 <affirmative>.
Speaker 4 00:18:33 And so that certainly was my experience when I talk about how abandonment is something that is linking them. It's, you know, in, in myriad guises, there's the abandonment of people rejecting each other on religious grounds. There's the abandonment, unwitting, unwilling of death, people dying, which is a form of abandonment, even if they don't necessarily want to. But also when I was a child, um, my father left, he more or less disappeared mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so that was a kind of an abandonment that I was always struggling to come to terms with mm-hmm. <affirmative> that informs many of the stories. And so you have a family of a mother and a narrator, and sometimes there's a, um, a sibling, often a sister in these stories mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, and that's not my family for one thing. I don't have a sister, but it's that. Um, and, and then again, it is because we were, um, of a family without a father figure.
Speaker 3 00:19:33 Right. Right. I wanna come back to value added. I'm looking at the time and what these moments go really fast. Um, and yeah, they really do. Uh, maybe I think you have a little reading for us from value added that story, or you, maybe you can give us Perfect. Some words. Give us a sense for that. Um,
Speaker 4 00:19:52 Sure. Um, I will, I'm just gonna read the first two pages of that with, um, I can talk about the stories, Genesis if you want to afterwards
Speaker 3 00:20:01 Please. That'd be great.
Speaker 4 00:20:03 So this is called Value Add Editing. What fabulous you First thing was my hair was disappearing each morning in the shower. Handfuls came loose from my scalp. I'd pull entire chia pets from the drain, wrap them in tissue and tossed them away. Breakage said Jack, he swiveled the hairdresser's chair. So I was in profile a W woman Pink smocked, too much nose, too little chin Jack combed out a damp section, pulled it taut, locked in hair. He said, I'm not blonde. We could fix that. He snapped his fingers, <laugh>, God knows what, possessed me. Change the color. Jack said, and that's what people will see. Platinum, don't be timid. He swiveled me to face him his own, own hair. Dark, ample, job stiff. Will we shape it too? Jack painted my hair with a solution that wreaked the pneumonia. He wrapped my head in foil, and I sat like that in the window of hair today, flipping through magazines, reading articles like Value Added, invest in a More Fabulous You, which contained tips somewhere to find handled French soaps at $40 a bar, how to apply gold, collect eyeshadow for those 24 karat occasions, and why a simple toe straightening procedure was a must for the new summer footwear.
Speaker 4 00:21:18 I read plastic surgery successes featuring the human Barbie doll and a couple who after getting plastic surgery, decided to sign up their children too, so that they would look more like a family. I did not want to stop reading Hmm. Time's Up, Jack said he peeled back the foil and began to cut my hair when he finished, looked terrific and completely wrong. It looked as though it had Spreaded chair of wings lifted itself from Miley Cyrus's head, and fluttering briefly popped itself down on my skull. Miley. Now, that was a blonde's name. Miley, Marlena, Marilyn, may not. Sarah, a woman 127 years old, practically Barron and married to the biggest grouch in the Bible. Hmm. Or the dessert lady, the one who's bland portrait appears on boxes of cheesecake, coffee cake, what have you. Or a woman who teaches freshman composition. And the occasional theme course man in lit man in society, man woman lit in society at a community college whose students leary eyed sulking pretended not to notice that their professor had just gone off fem fatal.
Speaker 4 00:22:27 Perhaps they simply didn't care. There was that perhaps like my colleagues cramped together in the adjunct office, which was the name given a con, a converted storage room. They mistook indifference for discretion. Look at you. This, the biggest reaction I got came from the Philly poet, a fossilized woman in ruffles and pearls, who lorded it over the rest of us. Because in addition to comp, she taught an introductory creative writing course each spring and had published a chap book long since consigned to that limbo, where out of print book's languish the Friley poet's husband was an acquisition's lawyer, though she was mom about what he acquired. She didn't need to work. She told us this, especially as she had a lucrative sideline writing, reading card verse lucrative her word. Nevertheless, she'd been at the college approximately 100 years if she ever retired. I was in line to teach her creative writing course, a thing she knew and disliked before I could tell by the comment. She made comments like, oh, Sarah, are you teaching comp again this semester? <laugh> <laugh>, the frilly poet. And I shared a desk with two other adjuncts, but we've each been assigned our very own mini locker. Mine was on the top row. I had to stretch to reach the combination lock. And that was the second thing, because you see, I was shrinking.
Speaker 3 00:23:52 Hmm.
Speaker 4 00:23:53 And the narrator just keeps getting smaller and
Speaker 3 00:23:55 Smaller. Yeah. It's really something. Uh, Patricia Horvath reading from her short story collection out next week from Black Lawrence Press. But now am found, we have a couple of minutes left here. Tell us the genesis of this story. You're gonna do that?
Speaker 4 00:24:07 Uh, I was diagnosed with full-blown, full-blown osteoporosis when I was still in my thirties. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and I had just moved to New York. Um, and it, I was, I discovered because I went for a routine exam. A baseline exam, and I had drunk, and I was not even 40 yet. Wow. And it occurred to me, so this was, you know, in the, in the turn of the century, the, the during the boom, not the bust. And so these, you know, ads that I'm using in the story were things I actually saw in the subway and the article about the, I did not make that up, about the family wanting to have their kids have plastic surgery I saw in a magazine somewhere. And I thought, this is a serviceable
Speaker 3 00:24:49 Metaphor. Oh my God.
Speaker 4 00:24:50 <laugh> the creative person, the creative person in the consumer is vortex, is, you know, the shrinking is a, is a very serviceable metaphor here. Absolutely. Shrinking. And nobody notices and you disappear. Right,
Speaker 3 00:25:04 Right, right. Exactly. Beautiful. Well said. Um, I wanna talk about your forthcoming book. Um, the things you're working on right now, A book of essays. Is that true? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, what's your, what's, what's driving that? What, what's your theme? Do you have one or are you gonna
Speaker 4 00:25:21 Oh, I do. It's a collection of essays, um, about my experiences simultaneous, uh, simultaneously as a caretaker for my husband when he was terminally ill mm-hmm. <affirmative> and a cancer patient myself, because I was a cancer patient around the, I had just finished cancer treatment when he was diagnosed mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so, um, it's coming to terms with that. It's about the experiences of caring for somebody during Covid when we were, um, alone. And the hospice people wouldn't even come because of the virus. And you know, about coming to grips with loss. And again, the essays, even though the, the subject matter may sound indeed bleak, the essays are not entirely without humor, but, and I've structured them around the ideas of the, um, seven deadly sins and the seven cardinal virtues.
Speaker 3 00:26:16 Oh.
Speaker 4 00:26:16 So there's, um, patience and chastity and charity and lust. And that was because when I was writing these initially, I thought, I need to get some distance from them. And the notion of sin. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and corollary virtue seemed to me a, a serviceable way to do that, to get a little distance from the material I was reading, um, Mary Jo Banks's translation of the Inferno at the time.
Speaker 3 00:26:40 Oh, wow.
Speaker 4 00:26:41 And that what gave me the idea.
Speaker 3 00:26:43 Wow. Well, that sounds is powerful. And, you know, as you suggested, I will say this about the, the short stories. Um, we talked a lot about loss and grief and so on. Um, but these are, uh, not stories sort of drenched in sadness by any stretch. Uh, they're full of life. They're full of, uh, truly enchanting characters, uh, that we very quickly care about. And I'm telling you, Patricia, we want more from them. <laugh>. At least I do. Thank you. And I think your readers will. Um, so I'm sure that's will also be, is also true of the essays. Have the essays appeared anywhere that we should be looking or you, they
Speaker 4 00:27:21 Have, they have, they've been, and one of, uh, patients was in the Massachusetts Review Envy was in New Ohio Review. Raff was in the Los Angeles Review. If they're on, I'm, I think if you go to my website, which is patricia el hbe.com Oh, great.
Speaker 3 00:27:36 You
Speaker 4 00:27:36 Can some of them. Okay. Um, but I think about five of them were published, and I just, I was on, I was fortunate because I was on sabbatical last year. So after my husband passed away, I was not in a state where I could write initially. Um, and I slowly got back into writing these by writing in my journal. Um, yeah. And I was able to complete the collection. So now I am in the process of editing it and making these discrete essays into a cohesive hole.
Speaker 3 00:28:05 Wonderful. And I'm sure they're gonna be amazing.
Speaker 4 00:28:08 Thank
Speaker 3 00:28:09 You. Hey, Patricia, keep us in mind when that book's out. Okay.
Speaker 4 00:28:12 Absolutely.
Speaker 3 00:28:12 Awesome. And we have been speaking with Patricia Horvath about her new short story collection, but now am found out next week from Black Lawrence Press. Please look it up, folks, and check her out. Google her. Patricia Horvath. H o r v a t h. And Patricia, thank you. What a delight.
Speaker 4 00:28:29 Thank you so much. I really enjoyed our conversation.
Speaker 3 00:28:32 Great. Have a good night.
Speaker 4 00:28:33 You too.
Speaker 3 00:28:34 Bye-Bye. Bye. And now this,
Speaker 5 00:28:41 We are just about to have a great conversation with Linda Lagar Grover. Um, she is an author in multiple genres. She is a, a faculty emeritus at University of Minnesota Duluth, and she is a member of the Boys Fort Ojibwe here in Minnesota. And we had her on last year for GI Cami Hearts, which was super fun. And we're excited to have her back this time for poetry.
Speaker 4 00:29:12 Okay. We're good. All right. I'm gonna hang up the other phone. Okay.
Speaker 5 00:29:15 Awesome. Great. Hi, Linda. Thank you so much for joining us on K F A I. It's really great to have you back.
Speaker 4 00:29:23 Thank you so much. I'm so happy to talk with you again.
Speaker 5 00:29:27 Thank you. Last time we had you here, it was for, uh, GI Hearts. We're having you back now for, um, the Sky watched. Could you tell us a little about your creative practice and how poetry, non-fiction, other things you write, um, fit together?
Speaker 4 00:29:43 Well, I think everything that I do wraps back to, um, Anishnabe history, Ojibwe history, and to my own family's experiences. And so the sky watched, I think, follows that pattern in, uh, four sections where I, I begin this collection with some poetry about some of the old time teachings. And then from there, you know, after establishing, you know, the, the foundation of our ways of being anishinabe beliefs and spirituality, then the impact of, of colonial experience is really the next section. And really focusing on the boarding school experiences and with, with my family's and other people's experiences. These are, these are, you know, I would really call this non-fiction. And so the next sec in the next section there, um, it is the aftermath of that, of trying to pick up the pieces and gather ourselves together and to pull strength from, from what was already there, um, in spite of the great, um, the great beating that things took.
Speaker 4 00:31:00 And then the fourth section is being an anishinabe woman today. So kind of interlaced with these though, are experiential things. They are, um, uh, there's poetry here about, oh, listening, listening to something at the, uh, Duluth Symphony. And, um, just going, going about my, my daily, my daily life, or kind of an interaction with a, with a sculpture by Gordon Van Wetz that was in the Tweed Sculpture Garden here at the University of Minnesota Duluth. And so this is a, this is a reissue of a book that was published some years ago, and it is revised and expanded, and I think with the, with the experience of years, I, I think it's made the, it has made the collection richer.
Speaker 5 00:31:54 Did you add anything for this reissued edition?
Speaker 4 00:31:58 Yes, I added quite, quite a bit, actually. So I think that every single poem in here has been revised. And then, um, it's reordered somewhat, but yes, there is, there is more poetry in here, newer poetry. And it's, it's not in its own section though. It is, um, it is kind of interspersed as, as it works, you know, within the whole collection.
Speaker 5 00:32:20 Yeah. Um, as you talked about kind of the trajectory of the book and kind of the way things pull together towards the end, and it ends on a really nice thing with, um, gratitude towards being ojibwe and gratitude towards your Ojibwe community and heritage, um, passed down from your father. Um, you talk about the Ojibwe concept of a good life in the book, especially the introduction. Do you wanna, um, tell a little bit about how that informed your process and how, where you wanted the book to go?
Speaker 4 00:32:52 We are taught as anishinabe people to be thankful for things mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so from a, from a very early age, we try to, we try to, um, instill that in our children mm-hmm. <affirmative> to understand first of all, that, you know, we, we were created here. We have, we have purpose there. You know, we all have something that we are supposed to be doing to contribute to our, our family, tribe, community, the world. Um, but we understand that we didn't create this. And for that, we are, we are thankful people. We understand that we've been given many, many gifts. Everything is a gift. And because of that, we, um, we really are, um, supposed to be in this walking the Good Road here, um, becoming, becoming people who are generous, generous, you know, with tangible things. But really most importantly is developing the best we can, A generosity of spirit.
Speaker 4 00:33:52 And so that works in kind of a spiraling through generations. And I begin, you know, I introduce the book in that way, and I, I hope that, that that is present all the way through. And yes, at the end, then I, I do, I do finish, finish it with the, you know, kind of reinforcing that, that, um, a poem that I wrote in honor of, uh, Joy's joy, har Jo's poem, becoming 70, you know, doing, doing this in response to her, and reinforcing the idea that we are very fortunate to get to be older people.
Speaker 5 00:34:26 Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I really, that's, that's great. I feel like we're, we mainstream culture is so youth focused, and it really takes away from the honor and the exciting thing that is growing to be old. Um, to dig in a little more into some stuff that was super interesting in the book. Um, there are a couple poems that I think, um, that I read several times because I think they pushed back really nicely on ways that when white people try to engage with native culture or native land, um, that can inherently either minimize or commodify, um, like native experiences and, um, native realities. Um, I'm especially thinking about the poem, um, that, uh, riffs off Robert Frost and talks about land acknowledgements, as well as the, um, poem to a white woman who bought dream interpretation cards. I love the phrase spiritual concession stand. Do you wanna talk a little about kind of how, I guess how you congeal, like, this is very broad, and I'd love for you to take it wherever you want, but like how you kind of, um, were able to encapsulate kind of the broad range of things that these, I guess, coping engagements, I don't know, wanna say that white people try to do about the ways that they've behaved towards others.
Speaker 5 00:35:59 Like how, how you wanted to engage with those, I guess, and how you wanted to discuss those and give them dimension.
Speaker 4 00:36:06 Yes. The, um, the one to the woman who bought the, um, what is it called, native, a Native American spirituality, dream interpretation cards, <laugh>, I, I actually was standing behind her at, um, at a Barnes and Noble, and she, she had this on reserve, and so she was there to pick it up and mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, and I mean, I, I certainly wasn't going to say anything, but I, but I thought, my goodness, what are you, what are you purchasing here? Or what do you think that you're purchasing mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And in my poem, in, you know, in reaction to that situation, I, I, um, I would like to say that, you know, she's looking for something, but what she's looking for, she probably isn't going to see in a, a set of dream interpretation cards, and it isn't actually for sale. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, it's, it's there.
Speaker 4 00:36:56 Um, you know, what, what we know in our experience and what we're trying to learn, you know, are, you know, it's, it's something, it's, um, it, it would be free, it would be without price. How is, how is that, uh mm-hmm. <affirmative>, big spectrum there. Yeah. And so that one, you know, I talked about in that poem about Yeah. Buying, buying charms, buying crystals. You know, what, what do you, what do you, what are you looking for when, when you're looking to purchase this? You can't purchase Indianness, I think mm-hmm. <affirmative> is what I was saying. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and then the one about, you know, the, um, loss and a question which kind is kind of a parallel for me to Robert Frost love and a question, and his, what his poem is about how much is a person expected to do? How much is a, a nice person, a good person really expected to give how much?
Speaker 4 00:37:49 And so that one really, um, that one really is about when, um, when, uh, a land acknowledgement statement is read. So often those are read at the beginning of some type of gathering, and it's, you know, they're, they're read by a non-native person, but I mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and they're always, um, when I first read this poem, allowed, um, a man told me, yeah, you said those statements are kind of cringey. I said, yeah, they are. So some people have started calling them land acquisition statements mm-hmm. <affirmative>, or at least I have. And so what does it mean when, um, when this acknowledgement is read, what exactly is being acknowledged and mm-hmm. <affirmative> importantly to, to those who, um, who no longer perhaps have what you might call legal title to land. Um, how, how much are they expected to give mm-hmm. <affirmative> and for, and for what reason mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so that's, that kind of bothered more when, um, when I would hear a native person being asked to read that land acknowledgement statement. And yeah. They're up there reading it and I go, oh my goodness. You know what, yeah. What are we saying here,
Speaker 5 00:39:05 <laugh>? Yeah, absolutely. I feel like the amount that is given in giving a land acknowledgement is just so perfunctory and measly. Just to kind of, uh, touch on one more thing that I thought was an interesting, um, I guess interaction between, um, having an embodied experience as a, an individual who is native in Minnesota, when you're talking about, um, in one of your poems you were talking about being young and walking to your office job in your nylons and walking past like white people dressed for a party in like, basically Native American style. Get up, just kind of, oh, <laugh> complicating the experience of like, um, you can have a lived experience has something that differs so much from dressing as it, and I think that that's something that this book encompasses really well. Like you have, um, traditional, um, you have both very traditional, like, um, nano bjo and Nikos, um, Windigo kind of fundamental stories starting the book kind of a, an opening, and you really do bring it into the contemporary. How did you choose what to include in this book, in, in that full scope, from walking to work in your nylons to like foundational tales of your, your heritage?
Speaker 4 00:40:37 Well, you know, in that poem, um, it, it is called Casualty Days. And I'm, you know, and I'm remembering when, when I was, um, working, when I was, I was young. It was my first real, real job as a telephone operator. And I can remember walking, walking to work, and, um, and there were other younger people in, you know, I went through the seasons on this, you know, summer, fall, winter, summer, but walking past a group of, of, um, college students who were home for the summer, and they were, um, kind of socializing, semi socializing, semi having like an anti-war protest and, you know, chanting about ho chi min and stuff, and not, not seeing girls like me at all. And so, you know, I'm walking around there in a, you know, a, a dress for work and nylons and, you know, carrying up, you know, a plastic purse.
Speaker 4 00:41:31 And, um, just came face to face with a, a non-Indian girl, a a white girl who was wearing a, a beaded headband and, and chanting and raising her fist in the air, and just generally having a really good time. And, you know, we went in and went to work on the switchboard where some of the girls there were, they were, um, I mean, they were engaged too, or had boyfriends who were in Vietnam, and you know, how, how this must have hurt their hearts, you know, as they're walking in past people who didn't really see us as, I don't know, as equal human beings. And so, so seeing that girl in the headband and, and it was a, it was a beaded headband and very kind of, you know, nothing that, you know, nothing that I would wear, um, something that in those days made in Japan would be something that was like some type of cheap import. And I think that's what she was wearing. And, and, and it was like, I'm, I'm putting on Indian trappings here and signaling in some way what I am, and then being completely oblivious to a, to a native girl who's walking past her to work and stepping over on the sidewalk mm-hmm.
Speaker 5 00:42:43 <affirmative>.
Speaker 4 00:42:44 So, yeah, it's, um, sometimes there is just that, that jarring of, of experience where here, here's the reality of right now, and mm-hmm. <affirmative>, do you know, are, are people really aware that, that they are walking, you know, they are standing, breathing, walking, going to school on land, where, you know, our, where our ancestors, um, experienced some really difficult things and, and, um, were made to exit mm-hmm.
Speaker 5 00:43:13 <affirmative> then in, throughout this book, in that situation, it's very kind of clear that you're being embodied as your younger self. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, there are, um, and I think that you do a good job of embodying not only yourself in different places in your life, but also a variety of experiences or characters, um, like everything from other people to see smoke views on gee, tagami. It feels very lived in this whole book. Is there, is there any sort of process you do to, I guess, I don't wanna say get into character because that sounds too campy, but to like, get into the head space of whatever perspective you're writing from?
Speaker 4 00:43:56 I, I think I begin to write, usually I, I mean, I have some sort of idea, and then I begin to write mm-hmm. <affirmative> and I, I revise a lot and rewrite a lot, and poems are never really finished. I mean, um, um, a friend of mine, Ellie Schoenfeld, a poet here in Duluth area mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, just mentioned that once, that, you know, this is the form they're in right now when they're on the page. And so the poems continue their own, their own life. And we, as the writers revisit them sometimes and rewrite and understand that they really, they aren't finished anymore than, than we are finished. Mm-hmm. You know, they, they, um, they do have their own their own entity, I guess their own lives, so mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I, I sit down, I start, and if I don't feel like it's, um, you know, I write until I think it's about time to stop and <laugh>, then I revisit it again.
Speaker 4 00:44:52 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I often have a few things going on, reading and writing, both, um, at the same time, I'm one of these people who has, uh, several books going at the same time. Oh, yeah. And so I have several, several things I'm writing on at the same time mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but I, I, you know, I do try to prepare with, you know, thought and mm-hmm. <affirmative> and, and prayer. I mean, we anishinabe people, we pray a lot, you know, we pray our thanks and pray, you know, for guidance, you know, to walk the good life, uh, the good road to live. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, <unk> the good life, the best we can. And that is integrated into, into what I write also. I think
Speaker 5 00:45:29 That's really great. Um, is there anything where you had a living poem that you revisited in the sky, watched this new edition that you feel went in a really different direction than it was previously? Or do you feel like they all kind of just expanded upon what they were before?
Speaker 4 00:45:45 You know, I think they expanded to what they were meant to be. Oh. Um, you know, um, I, one of the poems is about, um, um, a portrait that hangs in the, in the hall at, in Bohan and Hall at U m D of a man who was, um, the college president years ago. And I, when I was, I didn't, you know, have any realization of this when I was working there, when I was, I was a secretary there, and the, the, the, the portrait was in a back room. And, um, eventually one of the deans brought it out and had it put in a nice spot in the hallway there, and I'd stop and I'd look at it and look at the little, the little, um, um, introduction at the bottom of who he was. And I realized one day, and I'd look at him and he just, I don't know, he just seemed, you know, such a calm person and mm-hmm.
Speaker 4 00:46:34 <affirmative>, I'd look at his life and just trying to see what I could see in there. And I, I realized at some point that his time at, in the College of Education here mm-hmm. <affirmative> coincided with the time of my grandmother's children's, um, removals to boarding schools. Oh. And so while he was, well, he was educating school, educating teachers who would be, who would be, um, perpetuating the, you know, schooling education that is like the American dream of people being able to go to school. At that same time, my grandmother's children were being removed and they were being sent to a whole different type of schooling education, which mm-hmm. <affirmative> was, um, uh, a convoluted American dream. I mean, we love the idea of, you know, people getting to learn things and go to school and have good lives, but the schooling that my, um, my grandmother's kids received was not intended for that. Yeah. And so I would look, as I looked at him, I think this poem was gelling over a long period of time. And then one day I just sat down and started to write.
Speaker 5 00:47:43 I think that that's such a great connection. Unfortunately, we're running out of time right now, so I just wanna close out by asking you what are you working on right now, if anything that you're looking forward to?
Speaker 4 00:47:56 Um, I will have a novel out this fall. Okay. And it's, um, it continues the, the three novels, the three fictions that I have earlier about a fictional native reserve, uh, reservation in northern Minnesota and town and, and the people who live there, the extended family and community.
Speaker 5 00:48:13 Oh, cool. Well, I'll definitely keep my eyes open for that. Thank you so much for joining us today, Linda. It was really nice to speak with you again.
Speaker 4 00:48:20 Oh, Annie, thank you so much.
Speaker 5 00:48:22 Thank you. Take care.
Speaker 4 00:48:23 You too.
