News

The Robinson Jeffers Fall Festival 2011 — October 7, 8 & 9

The annual Robinson Jeffers Fall Festival presents a three-day celebration of one of America’s great poets. The opening event is a sunset celebration, held in the Tor House Gardens Friday, 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. at 26304 Ocean View Ave, Carmel. Fine wines and hors d’oeuvres will be served in the garden with poetry read by Taelen Thomas and Elise Rotchford. Liyanna Sadowski, harpist, will perform some of Una Jeffers’ favorite music in the Tor House dining room. Reservations are required for this $20 event.

Lectures and presentations will provide four unique views into Jeffers’ life and work, starting at 9 a.m., at The Carmel Woman’s Club, SW corner, San Carlos and 9th, Carmel. Attendees will hear about how Jeffers captured the customs and culture of the Big Sur and Monterey area in his poetry in a presentation by John Walton, Distinguished Research Professor of Sociology, U. of California, Davis. Jeffers influence over other creative minds of his time such as Ed “Doc” Ricketts, John Steinbeck, and Joseph Campbell will be described by Gere diZerega, M.D., Professor, Keck School of Medicine, USC. Renowned Jeffers biographer James Karman, Professor Emeritus, California State University, Chico, will discuss Jeffers Family life at home, with details gleaned from his newly published second volume of Collected Letters, which will also be available for purchase. Tor House Photographic Archivist Joan Hendrickson will present a visual tour of life at Tor House. Lectures Saturday are $60 for the full day pass, with reservations required. A $75 ticket gains entry to the Friday Sunset Celebration and all Saturday’s lectures.

On Sunday morning the traditional Jeffers Poetry Walk will be guided by Jean Grace and Lindsay Jeffers. The free walking tour starts at 9AM at Monastery Beach (aka San Jose Creek Beach), just north of Pt Lobos State Park. Park on the west side of Rt 1 and meet near the south end of the beach. Bring a favorite Jeffers’ poem to share and a bag lunch for a noontime picnic on the beach. Dress in layers for unpredictable weather. Note that this is a change from the usual location at Carmel River Beach due to storm erosion.

RJA member John Cusatis publishes new work

RJA member John Cusatis’s article “The Curious Desire of Knowing: Robinson Jeffers and the Poetry of Science,” was published this summer as part of the two volume anthology Restoring the Mystery of the Rainbow: Literature’s Refraction of Science (Amsterdam & New York: Rodopi Press, 2011). The article, which draws its title from Jeffers’s poem “De Rerum Virtute,” examines the role science played in increasing Jeffers’s reverence for the natural world. The essay was originally presented as a paper at the RJA Conference in Carmel in 2004.

Cusatis also recently edited a reference book titled Postwar Literature, 1945-1970 (New York: Facts on File, 2010), which includes an essay titled “Modern Primitive Poets” by University of South Carolina professor Keen Butterworth. The essay treats Jeffers alongside other “modern primitives”: James Dickey, Theodore Roethke, Robert Penn Warren, and William Carlos Williams. In the volume’s introduction, Cusatis frequently references the vigilant nature of Jeffers’ poetry, particularly the poem “Carmel Point,” which captures Jeffers’s disgust with the increasing encroachment of postwar suburban development. Library Journal named the book a 2011 “Best Reference Source.”

Election Results and the Year in Review

It is the middle of the summer, but there is still news here at the RJA. Ron Olowin has won a hotly contested race for President and will serve as President-Elect until the end of my term, on Dec. 31, 2011. His term begins on Jan. 1, 2012 and runs until Dec. 31, 2014. I want to thank Geneva Gano, who came in a very close second in the race for President. Malinda Miller won the race for Advisory Council and will serve until Dec. 31, 2013. RJA is fortunate to have such gifted and committed people to help guide the organization into the future.

Our next year in RJA should prove exciting. Thanks to tremendous work by editor James Karman, the second volume of the Collected Letters is due and the third is under preparation. Jeffers Studies goes from strength to strength under the capable leadership of George Hart. Thanks to the stewardship of Rob Kafka, our finances are as strong as they have ever been and many thanks are due Malinda Miller, who built and continues to develop this website, which attracts more and more web traffic. Under the steady hand of Executive Director Erika Koss our membership is slowly growing, and the Long Beach conference was a great success, with many fine presentations. Our new President will soon take up the question of the date of the next conference, and I will proceed with a review of the Bylaws per the motion passed at our last meeting.

All in all, we’ve had an excellent year and the next looks promising. Thanks to all for your support of RJA.

David J. Rothman