Poetry from and notes to and from Walt McDonald, the Texas Poet Laureate 2001, and Paula Marie Bentley, Assistant Editor of Sol Magazine.
 

Hi, Paula--

I'm touched by your interest, and grateful.  Last year, though, I discovered after giving another interview with a journal's editors that I've already said enough, or too much, in conversations and interview-essays.  I haven't done very many--but time's running out, and so I thanked them but withdrew the interview and decided to limit my work to poems.  I'm sorry.
===========
Walt,

I relayed your kind regrets to my editor, and she asked if you can grant permission for us to print, as an educational/informative tool, two of your poems (of your choice) in our magazine for our readers to view.  As she said it:  "How do you feel about asking Mr. McDonald if we can 'borrow' one or two of his already published works...his choice of which, and use them as an example of excellent writing as an educational opportunity for our poets."  Of course, you retain all rights, and will have your name listed with the poems along with the copyright.

Have a lovely day!

Smiles,

Paula
============
Paula,

Thanks again for your kind invitation.  Rather than limit you to one or two, I'm sending five, which you and your editor could choose from, if you wish.  If you prefer that I do it, just let me know.

All five are previously published, and I own the copyright; the journal title is at the end of each poem.  Gladly, I give you permission to print any or all of the five in Sol Magazine, as you requested, below.

In case you want a bio. note, I'm including one, which you could edit for brevity.

I assume you'll let me know which poem(s) you choose, if any.  Simply delete the rest.  Also, please let me know when you publish the poem(s) in your magazine.

Thanks again, and best wishes in your own writing and with Sol Magazine.

Walt

Jays are insane
in summer when it rains.
Hawks cling to mesquite trees
flailing in gales on prairies
made for scorpions and snakes.

Turtles tumble down flooded trails.
Cattle caught on the range
gaze with shiny eyes,
free at last of flies.
They thrust their bone skulls

into grass, ignoring the flash
of lightning, the crash
of thunder, as if they'll wade
black mud forever,
grazing in this green haze.

(1112 from The Formalist)
-----
Cascading Down McDonald Creek by Walt McDonald

Clouds entangle us in snowcapped mountains
bulging above us. Heads back, we revel
and we stare. Clouds rise and clash,

should echo back like boulders.
How can such vapor swirls keep silence?
The Lord's in His holy temple, here,

even though signs in Glacier Park warn
Here there be grizzlies. Plaques along park roads
explain the fossils, plate tectonics.

A month in Glacier Park's a blink,
a glimpse of switchbacks, a million rocks
not even scratched. Nights under blankets,

we lie with curtains wide and watch the stars.
Hiking, we lean over thousands of feet
where trickles start, tumbling to a stream

we've picnicked by, cascading down McDonald Creek,
to rivers, the Pacific, back as snow
over glaciers, high in hosanna clouds.

(2092 from Ellipsis)
------
Praise by Walt McDonald

It's four, Montana cabin cold.
I lift a blanket past her arms
and slip outside with coffee,
valley so still I hear the Amtrak
to Seattle miles away. No breeze
or stars, the deck so cold

steam rises like a rope trick
from the cup. The moon plays poker
with a deck of clouds, and folds.
Last week, a pack of wolves downwind
raised muzzles to the moon and howled,
prowlers of mountains back in Montana.

Praise dark before the dawn.
Praise God who made the dawn
and water tumbling down from snow,
the tap I'll turn today. Praise God
for sleep, for grizzlies
wild in the mountains, and massive.

For breath that puffs away,
for this dark day, the sun
we're spinning around, the moon
I believe is out there past the clouds.
For my wife's closed eyes
I need to open once more, soon.

(2109 from Bellowing Ark)
-----
The Dark, Hollow Halo of Space by Walt McDonald

Rock of all, my marble, stone
of my tomb and my stairs. More firm
than granite in mountains, you are older
than immortal diamond and gold.

My body is putty, a tiny blue planet
in the dark, hollow halo of space.
Billions of bonfires are specks
in your eye, maker of fabulous galaxies

far from earth, and all burning. My heart
burns slowly, unnoticed, as gold burns,
even novas I've never seen.
I'm numbed by the buckshot of stars,

trillions of tons in each one. When the air
I'm made from is ash, only dust I'll become.
And go when You call, where You are,
stone of my tomb and my stairs.

(2154 from Christianity and Literature)
============

Bio. note:

Walt McDonald was an Air Force pilot, taught at the Air Force Academy, and is Texas Poet Laureate for 2001. He has published eighteen collections of poems and a book of fiction, including All Occasions (University of Notre Dame Press, 2000), Blessings the Body Gave and The Flying Dutchman (Ohio State, 1998, 1987), Rafting the Brazos and Where Skies Are Not Cloudy (North Texas, 1988, 1993), Counting Survivors (Pittsburgh, 1995), Night Landings (Harper & Row, 1989), and After the Noise of Saigon (Massachusetts, 1988).

His poems have been in journals including American Poetry Review, The American Scholar, The Atlantic Monthly, First Things, Image, JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association), London Review of Books, The Nation, New York Review of Books, Orion, The Paris Review, Poetry, The Sewanee Review, The Southern Review, Southwest Review, and The Texas Review.

Walt is Poet in Residence and Paul Whitfield Horn Professor of English at Texas Tech University. He has received four Western Heritage Awards from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame, and six awards from the Texas Institute of Letters, including the Lon Tinkle Memorial Award for Excellence Sustained Throughout a Career.

Native Texans, Walt and Carol have three children and seven grandchildren.
 

"An Interview: Walter McDonald." Interviewer, Christopher Woods. Touchstone 10.3 (1985): 3-12.

"An Interview with Walter McDonald." Interviewer, Christopher Woods. Re: Artes Liberales 13.1 (1986): 1-6. This interview is also included in Ronald Baughman's chapter called "Walter McDonald" in his edited book, Dictionary of Literary Biography, Documentary Series. An Illustrated Chronicle, Volume Nine: American Writers of the Vietnam War. Detroit: A Bruccoli Clark Layman Book, Gale Research Inc., 1992. 215-274. Woods' interview is on pages 227-234.

Robert Compton. Interview/article. Dallas Morning News, June 5, 1990.

Ronald Baughman. "Walter McDonald." Dictionary of Literary Biography, Documentary Series. An Illustrated Chronicle, Volume Nine: American Writers of the Vietnam War. Detroit: A Bruccoli Clark Layman Book, Gale Research Inc., 1992. 215-274. Baughman's interview is pages 262-274.

Interview with Walter McDonald, Rebekah Presson, Producer, "Contemporary Writers on Radio," New Letters on the Air. University of Missouri at Kansas City, October 12, 1995.

"Interview with Walt McDonald." Chris Ellery, interviewer. Concho River Review 10.1 (1996): 31-49.

"A Conversation with Walter McDonald: March 4, 1996, Frostburg State University." Nightsun 16 (1996): 47-50.

Television Interview. Professor Leigh Maxwell, Interviewer. University of Central Arkansas PBS, 1 October, 1997.

"Interview with Walter McDonald [with photo]." Fred Alsberg, Interviewer. Westview 17.2 (1998): 1-11.

Darryl L. Tippens. "'Evidence of Grace: An Interview with Walter McDonald." Christianity and Literature 49.2 (2000): 173-187.

Sarah Elzas. "State Laureates Speak of the Writing, Reading and Revising of Poetry." (Interview/essay with six state poets laureate, including Walt McDonald." Education Update, New York City 6.4 (April 2001): 20.
 
 
 
 

---

Home