Writings from a world where the poet is king

Poet ‘King’ Knute Skinner tells John Rainsford why a writer’s life can be more than just a walk on the beach

THE legendary King Canute might well have fought the ‘ungovernable sea’ but it was left to his namesake, international poet, Knute Skinner, to savour the pleasures of peaceful coexistence.
Born in St Louis, Missouri, Knute is the recipient of a Bachelor of Arts (BA) Degree from the University of Northern Colorado, an MA from Middlebury College’s ‘Bread Loaf’ School of English and a PhD from the University of Iowa. He is also a long-time resident of Killaspuglonane, near Lahinch.
For the regally named Knute, though, the journey to get there was never going to be as simple as a walk along the beach. After receiving his doctorate in 1958 and following the death of his father, the previous year, he decided to leave the USA for the Canary Islands where he hoped to spend his time writing poetry. In his recently published memoir, Help Me to a Getaway, published last year by Salmon Poetry, he recalled the rationale behind that fateful decision.
“From a book entitled Bargain Paradises of the World, I concluded that I had the means to live out my days writing poetry on the Canary Islands. An attractive job offer did arrive from Whitman, a prestigious college in Washington State but even so, I held to my impulse.
“You may be wondering how realistic I was, intending to live on so little [his father’s estate left him an annual dividend of just $240 per annum] but to me, it seemed simple. Lanzarote is today an expensive tourist destination but at that time, Bargain Paradises described it as the least expensive of the Canary Islands. Based on what a room and full pension would cost per day, I calculated that the year’s room and board would come to $300. If I rented a small house or apartment, my expenses would be considerably less.”
In the end, Knute Skinner lived on three islands (though not Lanzarote). He could never settle there, however. Instead, purchasing an old cottage in Killaspuglonane, near Lahinch, he was soon to be seen cutting turf from a local bog and selling home-grown vegetables at the nearby market, all the time honing his poet’s craft.
“I first saw Clare in 1958.  I was just passing through, as I thought, on my way to the Canary Islands. I originally stopped to spend a few days with the family of an Irish friend from Miltown I met in Iowa (Bill Murray, later known as the novelist William Cotter Murray). 
“I stayed in Dereen, Liscannor, with his sister, Suzanne, and her husband, Brendan Vaughan for a month, moved into digs in nearby Kilconnell for two months (at the home of John and Barbara MacDonagh), and finally moved on. In 1962, I returned to buy a cottage, however,” he said.
Stranger with a Watch, his first book of poetry, appeared in 1965 followed by A Close Sky over Killaspuglonane (1968). He met and married Washington-based third-level English instructor Edna Faye Kiel in 1978. He also secured a lecturing job at Western Washington University for part of the academic year, allowing him to supplement his Spartan earnings in Clare.
Later works, including Learning to Spell Zucchini (1988), What Trudy Knows and Other Poems (1994) and The Bears and Other Poems (1991), show a willingness to use fictional characters to reveal hidden truths about life.
“At first, my chief inspiration was the work of great poets of the past.  Later, it became nature, including human nature. I would rather someone else described my style, as I do not feel comfortable doing it. I can say that my style varies. I have written both formal and free verse, both lyrical and narrative. Whatever I do, I hope to find the precise words that do what I want them to,” he said.
In 1977, Knute founded the Signpost Press, a not-for-profit corporation devoted to publishing contemporary literature and is founding editor of the Bellingham Review.
Strangely though, he feels that writing was never in his blood.
“There were few books in the house,” he recalled. “My older sister did have a multi-volume set called The Book of Knowledge and beginning at a young age, I read through it. There were ample entries with poems and I read them all, becoming intoxicated with the uses of rhyme, meter and verbal music.
“I did not see myself as a writer until I was in my 20s. In secondary school, I belonged to a club called the Scribblers. At the university, I more or less quit writing, being immersed in theatre at the time. It was only later, teaching secondary school in Boise, Idaho, that I began writing poetry in earnest. Many of my biggest career decisions were made on impulse. If I had another life to live, I might have liked to act or in some other way be involved with theatre.”
Today, his poems appear regularly in both national and international publications and he has taught poetry workshops for the Washington Poets’ Association and at a large number of American universities. In Ireland, he has taught workshops in Ennistymon, at KISS (the Kerry International Summer School) and at the Kilrush Writers’ Conference.
“I prefer poetry (also fiction and drama) that conveys a vivid sense of experience,” he said. “It is hard to say why but I do not especially like writing that relies primarily on abstract language or that exists primarily to support a message.
“I cannot speak for other writers but in my case, it was pleasure, which inspired me, the delight of beginning a poem and overcoming obstacles in developing it. Certainly, some of my poems do deal with human pain but many of them are, I think, celebrations.”
He is a frequent participant at events like The Ennis Book Club Festival, the Irish Writers’ Centre and The Kerry International Summer School. Honours bestowed on him include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Governor’s Invitational Writers’ Day Certificate of Recognition (Washington State), The Pavement Saw 2003-2004 Poetry Chapbook Prize and residencies awarded by the Huntington Hartford Foundation, Fundación Valparaíso, The Tyrone Guthrie Centre, The Achill Heinrich Böll Association and the Millay Colony for the Arts.
Recent publications include, The Cold Irish Earth: Selected Poems of Ireland (1965-1995), Stretches (2002) and Fifty Years: Poems 1957-2007 (2007). A new book of his poems is due to be published next year under the working title Concerned Attentions.
He was also a recent guest reader at the increasingly popular On The Nail series of writers’ events held at the Locke Bar in Limerick and happily divides his time between Ireland and the USA.
“I am currently working on a new collection of poetry, to be published by Salmon next year or early in 2013,” he stated. “I am also involved in a project with the artist, Sara Foust. She is doing paintings suggested to her by certain of my new poems and I am writing poems in response to some of her recent work.  This may or may not result in a joint publication.”
For some time, he belonged to the North Clare Writers’ Group whose members met weekly to read poems or short stories to each other and get comments. It was a very supportive and interesting group of people, he felt. Sometimes a member would suggest an assignment (a topic, a group of words, or an approach) but no one was compelled to follow their suggestion. After some time, the group began publishing an annual anthology of members’ work but eventually, the initiative died out. It is, he feels, a fate sadly typical of many writers’ groups in Ireland today.
“I would say that it is very difficult to become a writer. There is usually a period of trial and error, of only occasional success and of course, little or no income from writing itself. Even with time, it does not get so easy that each piece of work does not present challenges. 
“A writer must be willing to take pains with his or her work and not be easily satisfied with the outcome. Writers must also remain focused in the periods between fresh ideas and do it only if they have a strong urge to write and are not in a hurry for recognition and publication,” Knute stressed.
Knute Skinner’s career has shown that although life can be difficult at times, it also has moments as serene as any Clare beach.
He will be reading a selection of his poetry on August 6 at the International Festival of Traditional Irish Music in Feakle, www.feaklefestival.ie. He will also give the first in a series of readings being organised by Gerry Harrison on Friday, July 29 at 7pm, at Banner Books, Parliament Street, in Ennistymon.