Getting Sandpointed: A Conversation with Jackie Henrion

 

Getting Sandpointed: A Conversation with Jackie Henrion

 

KIRPAL GORDON: Reading the poetry collection, Sandpointed, I wonder if the community in Sandpoint, Idaho, knows you from your weekly radio broadcast you host and curate, “Songs-Voices-Poems,” every Sunday at 7 PM on KRFY 88.5? I ask because the book is like an extension of your radio show! What also knocked me out is this back cover blurb from the town mayor’s wife Katie Greenland: “Sandpointed is a wise women’s collective weaving of place, presence, and possibility. At once a portrait of sassy poetics, a song of seasonal survivance, and a recipe for medicinal brew sure to tantalize any literary appetite. Written by a royal flush of witty and playful writers well-versed in lettered seduction. A soul-nourishing read.” Quite skillful of you and your writing group to get your town represented in the arts!

 

JACKIE HENRION: We were thrilled to have her endorsement. Katie and her husband, Shelby Rognstad, are not only supporters of the arts but they are courageous thought leaders, and devoted parents to their two children. As part of her doctorate studies in Leadership from Gonzaga, she now conducts presentations and workshops around the world about the power of women’s stories. In fact, the other endorsements at the front of the book are from a number of potent women in the Sandpoint arts community: Carol Deaner from the Pend Oreille Arts Council, Karin Wedemeyer, founder of the Sandpoint Music Conservatory and Suzy Prez, Manager of 88.5 KRFY.

 

KIRPAL GORDON: It appears this group has a long history. Why did you decide to publish a book now?

 

JACKIE HENRION: With covid restrictions and shutdowns, the women of the Sandpoint Monday Writers decided we would stop meeting for a while. Our long-term meeting place, Foster’s Crossing, an artistically quirky antique mall and restaurant, closed. We missed each other. We also missed the weekly practice: writing extemporaneously to prompts, witnessing our feelings, and giving wings to our creativity. In 2022, we decided to reinstate the meetings at the new Monarch Mountain Coffee, recently relocated to the heart of downtown Sandpoint. The book honors the writing process and this moment in time—our moment in time when women’s voices are at the crest of a cultural tsunami.

 

Jackie Henrion, Rhoda Sanford, Sandy Lamson, Robens Napolitan, Desiree Aguirre, Sandra Rasor

KIRPAL GORDON: Cultural tsunami? How so?

 

JACKIE HENRION: The most evident tsunami is that of high-profile figures held to account for their abuse of power for sexual ends. Women are challenging traditions around the globe, most evidently in the Middle East, on the African continent, and in France. During the covid shutdowns we had more time to reflect how human culture is changing in many related ways. For example, younger generations are showing us how to be more fluid in our identities, our jobs, and our families. In over a decade of Monday morning writing sessions, we also see changes in our language. We have matured in our perspective, occupying more space and holding the interspace for other women; less judgmental and more nuanced in our observations. Not just about poetic details but about ourselves. In a way, we are more forgiving of our formative conditions. Aging together makes us laugh more about our hair color, weight, families, memory lapses, and pets. Sandy Lamson’s piece, “The Oldest Bike,” is evocative in this way: ...“it leans against the wall to witness everything going on. The oldest bike in Sandpoint is envious; the last time it tried to see and hear everything, someone pushed it outside, where it fell into a crumpled heap from which it could not extricate itself without assistance. It was very embarrassing.”

 

KIRPAL GORDON: How did you discover or decide on the title Sandpointed?

 

JACKIE HENRION: We stretched the town’s name to a descriptive term to increase its stickiness. If you know a little about the literary history of the Northwest, you will have heard of Richard Hugo, the revered poetry professor at Montana State Bozeman, memorialized by the Hugo House in Seattle. He wrote a book called The Triggering Town, about his poetic philosophy. The resultant dominant cultural legacy from Seattle’s University of Washington out to the plains of Montana, is place-based. Certainly in Sandpoint, our creative language can’t help but include the geography, such as my poem “Lake This.”

“The lake exudes a tufted sailing regatta, lofted

Scrims wafting, floating, coasting along

The viscous surface about to be ice.

Like tall ships and small craft, drifting in the Northward breeze

Stately procession, over immobilized waves. Ducks

Dive, punctuating the edge of the crust periodically, Purposefully."

 

Or Desiree’s story about Marburl, the lone post-apocalyptic figure who accumulates family on his way to the remembered safety of Sandpoint. In this way one can see Sandpoint as an enclave of hope where men and women can navigate new streams from their regional cultural lineage.

 

KIRPAL GORDON: The reputation of North Idaho and the extremist community called the American Redoubt movement have grabbed headlines in the recent past.

 

JACKIE HENRION: They are a noisy minority. But our group chooses to focus instead on authentic experiences and communal sensibilities. This book amplifies our shared experiences. We wish to become louder, inspire others. We write about this place and the paradox and diversity of viewpoints found here. We embrace them all. Writing our first and best thoughts, reading them to each other, and acknowledging each other happens quietly, yet profoundly, every week.

 

KIRPAL GORDON: Does the Sandpoint community know that you received your MFA degree from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University? I ask because your poetry project reflects a commitment to make community wherever you are, which the original JKSDP program directors, Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman, powerfully espoused. How did your degree from Naropa affect this project?

 

JACKIE HENRION: Although my work at Naropa influenced my language, our writing group uses the concepts through osmosis. At Naropa, I experimented with writing tools that helped me rise above cliches and think more poetically from Eleni Sikelianos. I also learned much about women’s writing and philosophy in Gabrielle Civil's class, discovering my lineage of the interspace and bridging through Dickinson, Anzaldúa, Perloff, and others. From Anne Waldman, I learned how politics begins and ends with personal sensations. But more than anything, I absorbed the value of continuing focus and energy: The “vow to poetry,” Anne describes. To learn the fundamentals of eloquent expression, then to value it enough to go to print, is a kind of sacred rite. As a result, it has been a delight to work with Laura Wahl at Turtlemoon Publishing, whose underlying mission is to publish women's stories and work. My MFA from Naropa helped me navigate the curating, editing, publishing, and marketing arenas more confidently. But all this knowledge fits within my parallel study of meditation and mind.

 

KIRPAL GORDON: Can you say more about your study of mind?

 

JACKIE HENRION: Before I went to Naropa, I had experience with meditation, and my undergraduate degree was in psychology. Then I encountered the work of psychologist Daniel J. Siegel. His concepts provide a framework and tools to integrate all of this knowledge in a helpful way for writing. I will mention only two here. His “wheel of awareness” describes four areas of insight critical to growth: the five senses, sensory awareness of subtle internal body processes, our thoughts and emotions, and finally, interpersonal dynamics. We can rise above the conventional when writers integrate language in these areas.

            The second is what I see as original innocence. When we start to discover ourselves through writing, we are more compassionate if we understand that we, and others, are formed from our DNA and circumstances. We learn how to survive through our formative environments.  For example, Robens’ poem, “Where God Lives,” is a poignant artifact of her upbringing as a minister's daughter.

“In my palms, the heat of suppressed youth

pulsed and ran up past the restricting cuffs

of my Sunday dress into my restless arms.”

 

When we become more self-aware through these writing processes, we learn that we can choose our actions and words differently with a focus of attention. Then our writing can take wings poetically. Our resultant growth and integration and provides something valuable for readers.

 

 

KIRPAL GORDON: How do you see that shaking out for readers of Sandpointed?

 

JACKIE HENRION: I see it as a kind of chamber music. The unique thing we have found through the group is a resonance of words and concepts. We achieve this resonance through one of our processes: collecting a list of words during the month which we use directly or for inspiration. In our writing, you can hear a repetition or echo in the finished pieces. Like the first poem by Desiree Aguirre mentions porcupines, so does one of my poems. You will also encounter some “recipes” from different writers. These repetitions are random and individually filtered yet pull the work together: a collection of “Wild Minds” at work. Like music, it takes time to absorb the vibrational qualities. Rhoda's Sanford's last poem in the book, “Give It Some Time,” is an apt invocation:

“...savor the taste,

feel the richness.

Relax into the pungent whisper of fulfillment.”

 

 Hopefully, it will inspire people to take this home and start writing groups of their own. It can be transformative---in the most subtle and fundamental ways.

 

KIRPAL GORDON: How can readers find the book?

 

JACKIE HENRION: It’s available on Amazon as well as in local shops (https://a.co/d/9o0OHWh). Many come to Sandpoint to enjoy skiing, the lake amenities, hunting, fishing, and scenery. But this book is a gift to yourself or someone else about real people who live here, their interior landscape, their hopes for growth, and ultimately their courage to share their work.