NOON: I don’t write much poetry (it’s too hard!) but I read it and appreciate it at readings and other presentations. I attended Kenneth W. Brewer’s workshop on the creative process at the Wyoming Writers, Inc., conference in Cheyenne June 4. Ken, Utah’s poet laureate, discussed in-depth the writing of a new poem entitled “Noon.” He says he wrote it in “a Brewer form, kind of like a sonnet.” His original inspiration for the poem came from the fact that “in the 1880s, when you traveled by train from D.C. to San Francisco, you would go through 200 time zones.” And there was no consistency. It could be noon at one spot, 12:30 at the next, then noon at the one after that. The advent of the telegraph helped the U.S. create standardized time, which removed some of the guesswork from train travel. Brewer combined that info with his fascination with his railroader grandfathers’ pocket-watch with the sighting in his backyard of a cat-faced spider to create “Noon.” “When I have a poem going, everything I experienced gets synthesized into it,” he says. Brewer then read the poem, holding his journal in his left hand, his right hand gesticulating like an orchestra conductor’s. To read some Brewer poems, buy his collection, Sum of Accidents: New and Selected Poems, or read a few online at the Utah Arts Council site. Ken travels to the Utah Valley State College conference in Orem June 9-11.
