Fall for the Book: A Night of Poetry at Truro

A three-piece orchestra played in the Truro Church courtyard Sunday as poet Jeanne Murray Walker met and talked with her eager readers.

The event was part of the Fall for the Book festival and after enjoying some food, music and conversation, those gathered headed inside to hear Walker read selected works from her latest book, "New Tracks, Night Falling."

"The book is a little bit about the issues I see in American culture," Walker said. "I think in some ways, that's not quite true, because the poems are lyric and most of them grow out of experiences I had, but I am a little concerned about the kind of fear we have in the American culture right now."

Walker's poems deal with high concept issues such as Sept. 11, and beliefs from the scripture, but also delve into the real life issues and debates that people talk about in their daily lives.

"I think that culture has been adrift. I worry about the fact that we don't talk across political divides," she said. "I worry about the fact that people tend to exist in their own little political pockets and only listen to the radio stations, or television stations they agree with, and we are alienated from one another."

Maybe that's why the word "separation" is a big part of the poems in the book, heading one of three chapters—the others being "choices" and "tracks."

"I think by the end of the book, that is what is overcome but in a way, I suppose that is the theme of the book," she said.

At the start of her reading, Walker read from her preface, as a way to orient people a little bit about the poems that were to come.

"It's very unusual for a book of poems to have a preface," she said, "but the editors of this book insisted I have one, and since I went through the trouble of writing it, I felt I should read it and set it up a little bit."

She engaged the crowd with her readings and made new fans out of those in attendance.

"I had never read her poems before, but I really enjoyed listening to her tonight," said Christine Harrison, who heard about the event at the church. "They were very powerful, and for me, poetry doesn't always make a lot of sense, but these had a very clean message."

After her poetry reading, Walker signed copies of her book and answered questions.

"I love meeting the people who read the work," Walker said. "I always think of writing as completing some type of circuit when it gets read. I don't believe in writing and putting things in a drawer."

This is a message that she also tries to impose on her students at the University of Delaware, where Walker serves as an English professor and head of the Creaive Writing program.

"The goal is to write it and get it out there," she said. "It's important that people show what they have written."

Up next for Walker is a book of selected poems from her previous works.

"I'm trying to take all seven books and stand a little bit away, along with some new poems, and see what the pattern is," she said. "That's a real project for somebody who is doing the writing, because you don't see very clearly what you're writing about. It's not that you write the same poem over and over, but you are obsessed with the same issues, and I need to figure out a pattern for that book."

Walker is also finishing a book of personal essays with her agent and hoping to have that project done in April.