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JERREY ROBERTS

Poet Wally Swist, outside his South Amherst home, says he is inspired by his study of Eastern philosophies.

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JERREY ROBERTS

Award-winning poet Wally Swist recalls the time he spent with poet Robert Francis.

Wally Swist will tell you that poetry is underappreciated in the United States, perhaps in part because there's an assumption among many people that something as short as a poem just shouldn't take that long to write.

On the contrary, says Swist: He spent about seven years putting together the poems in a new collection that will be published this summer by Southern Illinois University Press.

But for Swist, that hard work is paying off. After receiving growing praise and recognition for his work, Swist has capped an especially productive period in the last three years with the impending publication of his new poetry volume, "Huang Po and the Dimensions of Love." He's also been named a finalist for the Green Rose poetry prize, offered through Western Michigan University, and recorded an audio book of his poems for a Berkshire County publisher.

"The last 10 years have been very bountiful, and the last three years have been particularly good," Swist said in a recent interview at his home in South Amherst. "It's been a fertile period."

A native of Connecticut, Swist, who's 58, is a two-time winner of poetry fellowships from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts and he was the poet-in-residence at the Robert Francis homestead, Fort Juniper, in North Amherst on three occasions. His poetry, published and anthologized in numerous literary magazines and journals over the years, is best known for its themes about nature and a sense of spirituality that draws on his study of Eastern philosophies.

Swift's upcoming volume features a number of poems that he either began or completed between 2003 and 2005, while he was living at Francis' Fort Juniper, the small home the poet (1901-87) built in 1940 along Market Hill Road. One piece, "Snowdrops, Fort Juniper," is both dedicated to Francis and inspired by him.

"I literally felt this presence," Swist said. "I heard him whisper in my ear, 'Go and see the

The poem, like much of Swist's best work,

The poem, like much of Swist's best work, reflects a keen eye for the details of the western Massachusetts landscape and a sense of the importance of being "in the moment." As he writes:

"They bloom through each blanket / of March snow, and I am unable / to believe they are blossoming / after my winter of solitude. / When the snow melts, I can't help / but see them: these augurs of spring / that offer the fragrance / of the wind that blows over new snow, / the three white, waxy petals / on their small tubular stems / nodding among their speared leaves."

"Snowdrops, Fort Juniper" is one 62 poems in Swist's new volume, which is named after a Chinese Zen Buddhist master of the ninth century. The volume was a co-winner of the 2011 Crab Orchard Series Open Poetry Competition, sponsored by Southern Illinois University and the Crab Orchard Review, a poetry journal published at the university.

The annual competition attracts hundreds of submissions. The two winning entries for 2011 were selected by Yusef Komunyakaa, a New York poet and teacher who won the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for poetry.

"I feel really gratified that a poet of his stature and accomplishment has recognized my work," Swist said. He's also grateful to a testimonial that another highly regarded poet - Billy Collins, the poet laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003 - has provided for the forthcoming volume: "Complete with walking stick, a sharp eye for birds and botany, and a yearning for passion, Wally Swist makes his way through the world and takes the lucky reader with him."

Another of Swist's manuscripts, "Gratitude: New and Selected Poems," was a recent finalist for the Green Rose Prize for Poetry, offered through Western Michigan University. Though he came up just short for that one, the fact that he was one of a handful of finalists in another large competition "makes me feel I'm on the right track," he said.

Local jaunts

A one-time features writer for the New Haven Advocate in the 1970s - one of his colleagues at the time was Jonathan Harr, the Northampton writer who struck gold with his 1995 book "A Civil Action" - Swist came to the Valley in the early 1980s and "fell in love with the landscape." He has lived here ever since, except for a four-year stint between 1998 and 2002 when he lived in Hartford, Conn., and managed a bookstore at Trinity College.

His first poetry efforts were along shorter lines: Swist spent years writing haiku, several thousand, in all, drawing inspiration from his rambles in places like Mount Toby in Sunderland and the woods of North Amherst. Some 900 of these short poems were published, including ones in a 2005 volume from Brooks Books of Decatur, Ill., "The Silence Between Us: Selected Haiku of Wally Swist."

Swist also met Robert Francis in 1984 after he worked up the nerve to approach the then-elderly poet to tell him how much he admired his poetry. Swist was starting to tell Francis that he, too, was attempting to be a writer when Francis simply said, "Why don't you see me tomorrow at 1 o'clock?"

That led to a friendship during the last years of Francis' life. Swist regularly visited to read to him and help with errands - Francis' eyesight was failing - and talk about writing. Looking back, Swist says, he sees Francis as a key mentor: He helped Swist develop a narrative, lyrical style of longer poems. He also inspired Swist to live simply while committing fully to writing. Swist has worked in a number of "day jobs" over the years, primarily in regional bookstores, to help make ends meet.

"I think I've gotten a certain perseverance from him," Swist said.

That perseverance caught the attention of Berkshire Media Arts (BMA) of Monterey, which this spring will release an audio book, "Open Meadow: Odes to Nature," featuring Swist reading 80 of his nature poems. Swist jokes that the company is known by the tagline "Audio for the Refined Ear." It has released audio books of Edith Wharton and Henry James as well as collections of other poetry.

Pulitzer Prize-winning Cummington poet Richard Wilbur has said of Swist's project: "Wally Swist's fine poems do justice to love and nature, and those we hear on this recording are well-written and well-read."

Swist has other projects in the works, including public readings. He's looking for a publisher for a new collection of poems, "A Field of Sunflowers," some of them revisions of poems he wrote 20 or more years ago. Most have previously been published, Swist said, but he'd like to see them collected in one volume.

"This isn't the easiest life," he said, "but it's one I treasure and think is important."

Steve Pfarrer can be reached at spfarrer@gazettenet.com.