What are the most significant ways that New Hampshire has changed over the past 25 years?
The population has changed, for starters. We’ve watched out little town of Warner grow from something shy of 2,000 to a significant 3,500 today. And Concord, which was 30,000 souls when we first came here is now more than 40,000. Then in 2004 we went from a Red state to a Blue state and by 2006 the Democrats had taken just about every seat that had been up for election. In 1976, when we registered as Democrats and asked for a Democratic ballot, the stack available was miniscule. Everybody was a Republican. I felt like a Communist when I picked up my ballot.
What are the most significant ways that poetry, writing and the arts have changed over the past 25 years?
I think the resurgence of the arts has shown the most significant change. There is the Capital Center for the Arts, there is the Red River movie theatre, there is the addition to the Currier Museum, there is the wonderful burgeoning of the Concord Community Music Center, as well as of the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen. We need to change that to Craftspeople. In our own town I have seen a growth in the number of writers and artists - - painters, glass blowers, sculptors, ceramic artists. I think a lot of these people perhaps were already there but there has been a growth in their public acceptance so that now they are more visible. And then there are the Farmer’s Markets, especially the farmers who grow organically and locally. This is a happy trend, one I hope to see continue to enlarge and expand.
What Granite Stater(s) would you say inspired you? In what way?
That most famous poet of New England, claimed by both New Hampshire and Vermont, Robert Frost. I had the good fortune to know him in the last few years of his life when I was at Breadloaf and he dropped in frequently. See, “The Final Poem” in Still to Mow (2007).
I greatly admired the late Susan McLane, both for her politics and the brave fight that she put up when she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
What would you consider your favorite spot in New Hampshire and why?
The big rock by our pond. Solitude, the most precious ingredient for a writer, is available here. I love listening to the birds early in the morning when I’m working in the garden just adjacent to the pond and I love listening to the late afternoon noises around the farm, at least four groups of frogs with distinctly different jug-a-rums. When it’s really hot, the little wood frogs start in and there is just symphony of sounds. Not a pretty symphony, but very primative and inviting.
What would you like to see accomplished in New Hampshire over the next 25 years?
I’d like to see more of the same – more grants to young artists, more philanthropic gifts to the Humanities Council and other arts organizations, and more support of organically and locally grown produce
