Sheryl St. Germain – Ames, IA
Writer-in-residence, May 2005
I sat on the swing outside my studio the first day of my residency, amazed and moved by my surroundings. The air was cool and green thanks to the trees, and the water in the pond was thick and dark, inviting reflection. A snake, its head held high, slithered through the water. Iris and angel’s trumpets were in bloom. Two cardinals, red as blood, flew back and forth from one side of the pond to the other, singing. A prothonotory warbler, looking like a bright yellow sun, perched on a branch near me, proclaiming. I could see crawfish chimneys on the ground, beautiful structures that looked to be made of bubbles of mud. A red-tailed hawk rushed overhead, into the forest, then an egret landed delicately on the edge of the pond. From deep in the canopy of the forest, an owl hooted, and something deeper beyond growled, could it be a tiger? I could hear the jazz of the river in the distance as boats moved their broad bodies through the waters. A green anole paced up and down on the railing to the deck, doing pushups and expanding its pink throat sac. A crow cawed, and the owl hooted again.
Heaven, I thought, for anyone who loves Louisiana as much as I. Or at least the Garden of Eden.
What had I come here to do? What had I said I was going to write? I could no longer remember. The charismatic personality of the Louisiana landscape had got hold of me, and I could feel its world entering me, my skin, my eyes, my mouth. The anole stopped its pacing and turned from green to brown. He eyed me suspiciously. I returned the gaze, and we sat, locked like that, woman and lizard, for what seemed like several minutes. Memories of my past in the Louisiana landscape washed over me. I remembered these lizards from my childhood. I remembered these sounds and sights from my childhood (well, except for the tiger!).
The first lyric essay I completed at the studio was based on memories the anole gave me. Because of the way the anole had spurred both memory and inspiration, I decided I needed to keep myself open to the environment, to imagine myself as translator of what I was experiencing while in this special place.
Several other gifts came my way during my time at the studio. A walk in the forest with botanist David Baker taught me how imperiled the forest was, and what needed to be done to restore it. I felt like the forest myself, in need of restoration, and I began to write about the forest, to visit it, sometimes unprotected from bugs and poison ivy and snakes (I do not recommend this!). I wanted to meet the forest on its own terms, to go to it as unprotected and vulnerable as it was. I would walk into the forest and sit down with my journal and a glass of wine, look and listen and write. I wanted to try to hear the forest’s language.
I did the same with the River, walking up to the levee with my journal, sitting, looking and listening, trying to hear and see anew. I went with no plan, no preconceived notions, with only a desire to listen. One evening on the levee I wrote for an hour without stopping, not knowing what I was writing or where it was coming from, though it felt like there were benevolent spirits all around me, and indeed I am certain I felt the power of the Mississippi, which didn’t care one way or another that I was sitting on its banks.
A visit with Joe Carmichael to the Endangered Species Research Center to help feed the whooping cranes and sand hill cranes inspired another piece. I learned the growling I had been hearing at night was in fact the growling of lions and tigers housed at the Center. I rode my bike every day on the river road and found amazing treasures in the ditch that lined the road –swamp lilies, iris, cattails, sensitive briar plant, and wild garlic, that inspired other pieces. A visit to Algiers Point revealed intriguing histories and paradoxes that motivated me to design a large project it will take years to complete, though I was able to do much valuable research for this project while in Louisiana. Trips to the French Quarter, a visit to a friend’s garden, the stories Joe and Lucianne shared with me evenings as we sat together and ate, all seemed sacred gifts, many of which will wind up in an essay or poem.
I was able to complete significant drafts of four lyric essays, rough drafts for another six, and notes for several more. I was able to finish two essays on forgiveness that had been very difficult for me to write, though I had tried, before coming to the studio. The essays dealt with difficult, emotionally raw material, and I’m certain I was only able to complete them because I felt so safe and nurtured in this environment.
I had come to this place depleted—as this forest has been by Chinese privet—by a demanding job that seemed to take more and more of my imaginative energy, and by a personal tragedy that had also sapped my spirit, heart and mind. I hardly knew who I was when I drove up the gate or how I would find the energy to begin what I had said I was going to begin. When David showed me the young oaks that were trying to grow in the forest, the ones that kept being held back because of the understory of privet, and when he told me that any individual tree can only try so many times to break through to the canopy before it gives up, I understood, because I felt like those young oaks.
Tragedy followed me even to this place, as I learned, a week into my residency that my garage had burned down and the fire had almost taken my house in Iowa. Because of the beauty and calm and nurturance provided by ASITW and its staff, particularly Joe and Lucianne Carmichael, I was able to continue to work, almost without stopping, during the disturbing phone calls I had to make and receive regarding the fire, and afterwards. This ability to concentrate on creative work despite a tragedy would have been impossible for me in any other kind of environment.
Not all artists will arrive here as wounded as I, but I can’t imagine that any artist who is open to the language of the environment that surrounds them would not feel restored and their spirit and creativity fed.
As important as the environment was, I don’t think I would have been as successful or felt so good about being here had Joe and Lucianne not been so generous in sharing their stories with me, and food, and listening to mine. Their quiet, genuinely supportive and caring presence created a sense of community I have never found at any of the numerous artist’s communities I’ve attended.
It rained one day during my residency. The rain washed the air and picked up the scent of the trees, the soil, the flowers. It freshened the air, and for hours I sat on the porch listening to the rain and smelling the fragrance of the forest. I like to think of that day of rain when I remember how I felt when I left the studio, with bundles of words and essays and ideas, the poetry with which this place had gifted me. Like the rain-freshened air, I had been washed and blessed with the life of the forest and its denizens.
Sheryl St.Germain
May 2005
Biography
New Orleans native Sheryl St. Germain is a widely published author of poetry, essays and creative non-fiction. Winner of prestigious awards such as, two NEA Fellowships, an NEH Fellowship, the Dobie-Paisano Fellowship, and the William Faulkner award for the personal essay, she is Associate Professor of English at Iowa State University, where she teaches both poetry and creative non-fiction writing. Her poetry books include Going Home, The Mask of Medusa, Making Bread at Midnight, How Heavy the Breath of God, and The Journals of Scheherazade. Swamp Songs: The Making Of an Unruly Woman, a collection of lyric essays, was published in 2003 by University of Utah Press.
