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Author Q&A:
In his blues period

Brunswick's Herb Coursen publishes a new volume of poetry in which he's woven the words of popular songs of particular years.

By Ray Routhier rrouthier@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer

Free time is not an issue for Herb Coursen.

He’s a writer and poet from Brunswick with a new volume of poetry, “Blues in the Night,” just out with the Westbrook-based publisher Moon Pie Press.

Retired from Bowdoin College, Coursen also has just finished, in no particular order, a book about Shakespeare, which is his specialty; another volume of poetry; and a novel – and he’s in the final stages of a sequence of novellas, preparing them for publication.

Other than that, he’s got all kinds of time on his hands.

“What have I got to do but enjoy this beautiful spring and summer weather that we are having and do some writing?” he asks.

“Blues in the Night” is his first book of poetry published by Moon Pie. He’s had his poems included in many anthologies, and Garrison Keillor has featured his writing several times on “The Writer’s Almanac,” which can be heard weekday mornings on public radio.

Since Alice Persons and Nancy Henry began Moon Pie Press in 2003, it has published 55 titles.
Coursen will read from his book Saturday at Bard Coffee in Portland. We spoke with him by phone last week.

Q: Tell me about “Blues in the Night.” You named your poem and your book after a great Johnny Mercer song. Are you a Johnny Mercer fan?

A: About half the poems in the book are actual blues, which not only is a musical form but it’s also a lyric form. Almost all the blues poems in the book are from a particular year in which I take the songs that were popular that year and weave them into a poem. So most of the words are stolen.

Q: How long have you been affiliated with Moon Pie?

A: Informally for several years  because I have been in charge of bringing poets up to Curtis (Memorial) Library for the Longfellow Days readings in February.

Some time ago, I began to notice that a lot of the poets I was inviting were published with Moon Pie – Kevin Sweeney, Marcia Brown, Alice Persons and a few others. So I realized that what Alice was doing was publishing a lot of very good poets in an attractive format. So I asked Alice, “Would you be willing to publish a book of mine?” And she said, “Yes.”

The result is a very attractive book. I didn’t have anything to do with the layout or format. She put together a very nice book. So officially, I have been affiliated with them for only a month, but my relationship with Moon Pie goes back several years.

Q: What drew you to poetry?

A: Basically, it was moving to Maine in the ’60s. I had taught poetry for a long time, but never felt any poetry in me until I went through my first Maine winter. I had to do something to respond to the environment, so I wrote poems. Most of my poems are still about the environment, and my response to it.

Q: What is the biggest challenge of poetry these days?

A: I think the challenge is not so much to say something new, because a lot of things have been said before, but to phrase what you say in a way that is at once individual and also communicates with someone else. When someone hears the poems, they can experience what it is the poet is experiencing. That is always the challenge of poetry, and has been since Homer.

Q: You lecture at Bowdoin, correct?

A: I lecture on Shakespeare a couple of times a year. I used to teach at Bowdoin, until I retired after 30 years. My field is Shakespeare in performance on stage, film and television.

Q: There seems to be a lot of Shakespeare available on stage these days – at Portland Stage, the Theater at Monmouth, Acorn Productions, Fenix Theatre. Do you have an opinion about the quality of Shakespeare that we have available to us?

A: The first thing I would say is that the opportunities to experience Shakespeare today compared to when I came to Maine in the ’60s are incredible. I love Monmouth, and always have. I’ve been to Acorn, I’ve been to Portland Stage. I saw “Richard II” at Acorn. That’s a very rarely done play, and they did a wonderful production in a loft above a bar. They did a very good “Merchant of Venice” a couple of years ago, and Fenix did a brilliant “Midsummer Night’s Dream” at Deering Oaks last summer. Absolutely brilliant. I think the Shakespeare scene right now is vibrant.

Q: When someone like Garrison Keillor reads one of your poems over the air, what does that mean for you? How does that translate into your life?

A: I’ve got to be honest. I do not like a lot of the poetry that Garrison reads. A lot is prose, and I sometimes cringe at the poems. But I like the way he reads, and I think he is doing a tremendous service. Some of the information he reads before the poems is fantastic. He’s got great people doing research for him. And every now and again, he does poetry that really hits me.

I think the poetry is mixed, but Garrison provides a great service. I liked it when he has read my poems, and he’s done them very well. He has read four of mine.

Staff Writer Bob Keyes can be contacted at 791-6457 or at: bkeyes@pressherald.com

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Herb Coursen

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MEET THE AUTHOR

HERB COURSEN

WHEN: 6:30 p.m. Saturday

WHERE: Bard Coffee, 185 Middle St., Portland.

CONTACT: 899-4788; www.bardcoffee.com

WHAT ELSE: Coursen will be joined by Nate Amadon, executive director of Port Veritas and a poet.