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BOB POTTER: Tonight, we present an interview with a group of University of Minnesota faculty who've published a book of poetry. The writers come from such diverse fields as family studies, medicine, art, teaching, and counseling. Of course, lots of people write poetry in their spare time. But why, one might ask, would people who've already achieved considerable success in their own field decide to publish their poetry? In part, that's what tonight's program is about.

The book is called The Broken Glass Factory. It includes the work of Joseph Valentinetti, Gerhard Neubeck, Eric Stokes, Mary Wyvell, and Stacey Day. You'll hear tonight all but Wyvell and Day. In addition, there'll be comments by Louis Safer, who designed the book and the moderator, Connie Goldman. The first speaker is Eric Stokes.

ERIC STOKES: I'm really amazed at the way things have changed, at least it seems to me, remembering high school days. If you wrote poetry, you made sure that it was buried and hidden and--

CONNIE GOLDMAN: Under the shirts in your drawer.

ERIC STOKES: And the scene here in the Twin Cities is just absolutely marvelous with respect to poetry these days. I'm continually delighted and also amazed at the widespread participation in poetry in the schools and the readings, the interest on the part of the public school children, high school children.

GERHARD NEUBECK: That's really been a revelation to me. I know Molly LaBerge, who is heading the poetry for children in the-- I think it's Minneapolis and maybe Saint Paul too.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: Saint Paul.

GERHARD NEUBECK: Saint Paul, yeah. And the grants that she has received to do all this, and the response, as you say, of children in schools, that's really very heartening.

ERIC STOKES: It's marvelous.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: It's not just on the level of hearing and reading and listening to the poetry that there's been some kind of great evolution or revolution. It's in, as you all know, in the daring to write it and make it public and share with other people those private feelings that go into the writing of poetry.

JOSEPH VALENTINETTI: Well, Louis is largely responsible for the book coming together at all.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: How did you get all these people to take their private poetry and really make it a public effort. I know that University professors are always under pressure to publish, but now you've got a group of them publishing something that doesn't have anything to do with their work.

LOUIS SAFER: Following up on what you just said, I think the fact that a poet is willing now to place his life, as it were, on the table, it's encouraging a number of other people who have been secretly hiding their poems to also show them and read them aloud. In fact, it was interesting to note at the poetry reading, how many people-- how many poets come to hear other poets. You go to a concert of a violinist, for instance, and they'll usually be a whole bunch of fiddlers in the audience to listen to the fiddler. Well, this is happening, it seems to me, in the realm of poetry, now that we're breaking down the doors.

GERHARD NEUBECK: I'm not at all sure that I can agree with this proposition that you're talking about, namely that the poet's feelings are private. I think a poet who writes poetry wants to be published like any other writer.

And so if there's any conflict between keeping things to yourself and wanting to see yourself in print, I think the feeling of wanting to see yourself in print wins every time because there's enough a lot of ego involved in a creative person that your own works are pleasurable to yourself while you create them, but you also want others to see them and approve of them. I think that proposition cannot-- in my mind at least, you cannot argue against that.

JOSEPH VALENTINETTI: I think what Eric was saying was that the public is becoming more accepting that poets have always written and wanted to be published, but there was no market for it.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: And I guess what I hear you all saying is that you don't have to choose as your profession, being a poet, to dare to write poetry, to want to publish it, to know that other people can appreciate it. It's one of the many things that you can do with your life and your profession.

GERHARD NEUBECK: I think most of the other people here are in their primary jobs somehow in creative activities. You are a loon. I know that you are as a composer. And you are too, aren't you.

JOSEPH VALENTINETTI: Well, not professionally. I do film as a sideline and photography.

GERHARD NEUBECK: So I think that there's--

CONNIE GOLDMAN: I think marriage counseling is terribly creative. I don't know why you count yourself out.

GERHARD NEUBECK: But in a different way than the creative arts are. And Mary Weigel, who's not with us, is a professor of English, isn't she?

JOSEPH VALENTINETTI: Mm-hmm.

GERHARD NEUBECK: So I think that there's some affinity in terms of your own creativity. For me, it's certainly been a second kind of, I wouldn't say career, but certainly a second kind of enterprise. Though I might have become a writer if I had had the opportunities in my youth. And this has to do with my immigration to the states and so forth, so that my primary career now may be a cop out of what I really had wanted to be to begin with. So maybe I belong into this group after all.

LOUIS SAFER: Well, let me go back to how we started or where we started.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: You anticipated my next question.

LOUIS SAFER: The thing that intrigued me was that as individuals, as I became aware that the individuals in our group were writing poetry, for instance, Eric, I had seen some of Eric's poetry, almost kind of a concrete poetry. It was visual as well as sound and meaning.

We got together and played around, toyed around with ideas of having it published, actually having it appear in print. And this encouraged me to look around at other people's work.

And one day Joe came into the office and, as a Christmas gift, left on my desk some poetry. And this amazed me that there was some-- he was coming out and actually presenting me with something, cherished in this case, of a creative nature. And I thought, how nice.

And here I had tucked away in, excuse me, in my mind that Eric and Joe. And then I saw some of Jerry's writing and each then was informed of the other's creative effort. And little by little, it all came out, not out of the woodwork, but it came out of the creative background. And I thought how wonderful it would be to put all of this together into some book form, published form. And that's essentially how we got started.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: And where did the title The Broken Glass Factory come from?

LOUIS SAFER: That story is kind of humorous in this sense. I'm notoriously a bad glass cutter. Every piece that I take, it seems to me I put this glass cutter to it and it seems to defy every wish that I have.

It's much like riding a horse. If you don't somehow indicate to the horse that you're the boss, it soon takes over. And for some strange reason, a piece of glass does that to me. It just takes over and it cuts itself the way it wants to.

I had discussed the title of this crazy book with a number of the poets involved, and there didn't seem to be a ready answer. We couldn't actually grab something that seemed distinctive and unique and original for us. We could come up with a lot of stereotypes, poems, poetry by Minnesotans and things like that. And I think it was one very early in the morning or late at night that the thought occurred to me, broken glass.

And it had so many possibilities. The glass was a factor, an element that transmitted light. It fractured, and it had an integrity of its own.

It could also mean symbolically that we were trying to break out of a certain situation. It reflected, refracted. It had fragments and a number of other things. So it seemed perfectly logical and perfectly appropriate to call the publication The Broken Glass Factory and all of the poets as people who were on the production staff.

ERIC STOKES: I think it's also interesting, though, Louis, if you don't mind I going further, because I know that isn't it true that you were working with some visual assemblages, or I don't know exactly what you would call them, using this perhaps found technique of breaking glass.

LOUIS SAFER: Yes, mm-hmm, that sort of ran hand in hand in timing with the creation of the book. So they triggered one another off.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: This book is a lovely little book. It's cleanly designed, and it's approachable and it's comfortable. It's very nice. It's very much like some of the recent publications that one finds when a bunch of young aspiring poets get together.

It pleased me very much. Not that this is a bunch of senior citizens by any means, but it pleased me very much to see the very modest, straightforward, unpretentious context that the poetry was set in. You understand the analogy I'm drawing. And I like that very, very much.

LOUIS SAFER: Yeah, I think a good reason for it. It was extremely interesting for me to work with five different people, five different personalities, and to somehow join that in some kind of a common denominator that would work in a book. And as we talked about the form and shape and the appearance of the book, it seemed that to keep the poetry, the layout, everything as simple and as uncluttered with visual imagery would be the best way, actually, to treat all these, the different individuals with their different kinds of poetry.

GERHARD NEUBECK: I think it's both the illustrations of the poems are very complementary. I think one doesn't wipe out the other, which sometimes happens in the print that you have two large print and then the illustrations amount to nothing or vice versa. And I think you really deserve a lot of credit for having produced this kind of volume in which it was possible to have them juxtaposed.

You were so single-minded about that whole enterprise. We all owe you big thanks.

ERIC STOKES: Indeed, yeah.

LOUIS SAFER: Thank you.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: I'm curious about the reaction of your friends and your colleagues. Were they surprised that out of all these busy people came a collection of very credible, sensitive poetry? Did they come out and say, gee, I do some writing, too. Do you think maybe I could get published? Tell me. Tell me some of the reactions.

GERHARD NEUBECK: Well, I had shared some poems with both graduate students and colleagues, but I did get the kind of response that you mentioned before where people were surprised that I also produced poetry. And they were surprised and almost stunned.

Now, poetry is such a private and personal matter that you, I don't think, ever get a real good evaluation or really good feedback of how people really feel because they have no words really to express. They can say that was interesting or that moved me or some people said they cried over a poem or something of the sort. But I have the impression maybe I'm projecting my own reaction to other people's poetry that I have no words to describe that experience. Really.

ERIC STOKES: No, that's true. I think often, Jerry, the people are very inept at responding to any art form for that matter. And what most often comes your way in reference to whatever you may have done, whether it's music or architecture or whatever, I suppose is a response that is couched in safe language pretty much, don't you think? It says something like "that's interesting," or "it intrigued me," "I was puzzled by it."

And then you get the opinions also, which are usually in terms of I like it or I like this part of it very much, or that. You don't often get a response that says, I like the ideas that are in it or that are working there. Or I suppose idea is a secondary consideration for most people when they--

GERHARD NEUBECK: In poetry.

ERIC STOKES: --approach poetry.

GERHARD NEUBECK: Mm-hmm.

JOSEPH VALENTINETTI: A lot of people get on liking poetry more for its rhythm than for its idea, I think, the way words sound together.

GERHARD NEUBECK: Sound and mood, yeah, I'm sure that's true.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: What kind of an investment did you have in feedback from your friends and colleagues? Did it matter what they said.

LOUIS SAFER: No. Did we rely on it heavily? Yeah, I suppose our egos wanted some response and we got some. I think by and large, most of it was favorable. And I would agree with Eric that many people just don't know what to say about some forms of art, and it's difficult for them to say things and respond to what they think is a correct response or--

CONNIE GOLDMAN: Well, as part of the problem here, that we just don't get much exposure to expression through poetry. We talked earlier. We started in our discussion by talking about how poetry is so common now in the public schools, the reading of it, the writing of it. Maybe the next generation will be more comfortable with it. But what about us?

ERIC STOKES: Well, I sometimes question whether that it's really necessary to have much of a response. I'm thinking of the story they tell about Debussy, whose comment was that there was a great deal of applause after a performance of Beethoven's "Ninth." And he said, it seems to me absurd. No one applauds when the sun goes down, when he sees a magnificent sunset.

And yet applause is a form which because it is so conventional, that it comes easily to people, especially in reading. So that I suppose a reading of poetry gets around the whole problem we're talking about. People aren't put on the spot and having to say something, and they can fall back on a convention like applause.

GERHARD NEUBECK: It's interesting. We had the reading at the Saint Paul Student Center. I don't know if you felt that way too, Joe. The applause was very sparse.

After we had read a few of our things, it seemed almost polite or that people couldn't come to grips with it. And I think there was some conflict. Should we applaud or shouldn't we? I think I'm remembering this, your comments about this right now.

But I do think that we are appealing to a very special audience. People who have bought the volume or don't we have given it, are the kinds of people who we think will appreciate poetry to begin with or read other poets too. So you must assume that they are into poetry and not like a general run of the population who maybe wouldn't ever hear poetry. And if they heard it, they wouldn't appreciate it.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: How do you all feel about the reading out loud of your poetry? Do you feel that your personal voice added to your personal words gives it an additional dimension that you would rather present than putting it down on paper and letting the reader put his own internal voice to it?

GERHARD NEUBECK: Well, I have a theory about that. A poem has two different lives, one on the printed page and one as a spoken performance. I think they are almost two different creative-- two different experiences. And the words are supposed to convey the same thing, but I think the printed page has a different impact than a voice coming to you. How do you feel?

ERIC STOKES: Oh, absolutely, Jerry. I'm sure all of us have had the experience of hearing one of those few recordings of the Yeats in his old age, reading some of his own poems after having perhaps known the poems for years. And the poetry comes alive in a way which is, to me, astonishing. I've had the same experience with Stein.

GERHARD NEUBECK: And I have a record of Dylan Thomas, which I just love. Oh, god.

ERIC STOKES: Yes. And--

JOSEPH VALENTINETTI: I get the opposite feeling from that stuff. I think that the mistake that a lot of poets make is that they write their poetry and then they think that they can just read it and that the feeling will be there and if they don't rehearse. Like, Ginsberg, I can't listen to Ginsberg reading some stuff. It really bothers me. Yeah.

ERIC STOKES: Well, TS Eliot is a curious example there. I find his reading unappealing. It's an opinion which is worthless, but--

JOSEPH VALENTINETTI: Well, nothing is worthless.

ERIC STOKES: The poetry is by itself. And I think, again I subscribe to what you say, Jerry, that on the printed page, for me, Eliot speaks more eloquently than when he reads.

GERHARD NEUBECK: And Cummings, of course, you can't even read, I mean, out loud because it all is printed--

CONNIE GOLDMAN: The print form is actually part of it.

GERHARD NEUBECK: Yeah, really it is. I've tried to read Cummings aloud, and it doesn't work.

ERIC STOKES: An interesting thing about Cummings' poetry when some years back about, it must have been 12, almost 13 years ago, I wrote to him and asked his permission to use several of his texts for song settings. And I received a postcard from him, a tiny postcard. It was almost the size of a calling card, and it was typed on from the top to the bottom.

GERHARD NEUBECK: In his defense--

ERIC STOKES: And it began-- yes. And then I don't recall all of the precise wording of it. But the substance of what he said was, yes, you may use the poems provided that you do not change one tiniest jot of the punctuation or the format.

So I did go ahead, and I set them. And I made music for the parentheses and the commas and everything, and I put them in very carefully.

GERHARD NEUBECK: You saved the postcard?

ERIC STOKES: Yes. Oh, it's a lovely postcard.

GERHARD NEUBECK: Collector's item, I'm sure.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: Well, now that we've had this discussion about what the poet's voice can add or subtract from the poetry, how did you prepare for your reading? You're a group that you're not public speakers.

If this is the first poetry that you've allowed to be public, this is probably the first poetry you've read out loud. How did you feel about doing it?

ERIC STOKES: Well, let me speak first because I didn't participate. I was in California and wasn't here for the reading. And I have never read my poems in public. And I would think that it would be very important, as we were saying earlier, to be prepared to have rehearsed just as one would feel the same way about a musical performance or a theatrical performance.

Of course, a great deal of that goes into the writing of the poem. I believe it turns again and again on your own private readings hundreds of times over.

JOSEPH VALENTINETTI: I probably should have never said that thing about rehearsing now, right?

CONNIE GOLDMAN: I would have asked the question anyway? Well, Jerry. Joe, how did you--

JOSEPH VALENTINETTI: Yeah, I got some help from a friend of mine who acts-- Lou Bellamy, been in several plays around the city. And he helped me.

I came to understand some things about my poem, the poems that I didn't understand before or that I hadn't fully externalized brought out from inside myself. By the way, he told me to step on certain lines and say certain things about certain parts of the poem. So I thought that was helpful to me.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: So you actually did a dramatic kind of rehearsal.

JOSEPH VALENTINETTI: Well, yeah. I don't know if it came out like that, but that's--

CONNIE GOLDMAN: So you planned like the pacing and the expression to evoke certain experiences in your audience.

JOSEPH VALENTINETTI: Mm-hmm.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: And you hoped for that.

JOSEPH VALENTINETTI: Hoped for that, yeah.

GERHARD NEUBECK: Well, perhaps I could have used some coaching. I don't know. But as you know, I do a good deal of public speaking, and I have actually recited some of my poetry to my students in class. There were over 150 people there.

But this doesn't make me an expert. Certainly, as I say, perhaps I could use some instruction on how to bring out more out of the poetry than I thought I did. But it didn't faze me at all. I simply went ahead and did it.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: Let's go ahead and do it. Let's go through the book and pick out--

LOUIS SAFER: Could I add one little thing?

CONNIE GOLDMAN: Sure, sure.

LOUIS SAFER: Do you see on page 15, "Mary Brice" by Joe? It's a good example of the poet reading his poetry and then reading it in print. I had called Joe one day and asked him if he might supply me with another poem to fill out this one page in the book.

And Joe said yes, he happened to have one. And he spontaneously recited it to me over the phone. The reading was excellent over the phone. He had memorized the whole thing, and he went through the whole Mary Brice poem in a kind of a delightful singsong fashion.

And I thought that was terrific. And Joe said, well, there it is. And I said, no, no, no, but just send me the typewritten poem and we'll get that published later.

But I thought that difference was very marked, the way he in a very informal, relaxed, spontaneous moment and read it over the phone. Terrific without no coaching, without-- it's obviously--

JOSEPH VALENTINETTI: I'm going to go out of here and call up.

LOUIS SAFER: I just wanted to add that.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: Well, Joe, we do phone interviews for KSJN. But come on, will you read it?

JOSEPH VALENTINETTI: Mary Brice with a brain like ice,

An icicle myth for hair,

A strange guitar, a push-up bra, and feet that went nowhere,

We seek the light in the black of night,

Our eyes shut tight,

That didn't seem right,

So the next time the sun was sunning bright,

I was out of sight with all my might,

I never had the time to spend to make a lasting friend or foe,

But I gave $2 to the United Fund just a year ago,

And in a written order from Barry Goldwater,

Where he forgot to sign his name, he said, go make your buck,

I wish you luck,

You're a sane American man.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: Something makes me want you to set that to music.

LOUIS SAFER: Yes.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: Do you feel the same way?

LOUIS SAFER: Mm-hmm. I have that sort of lilting. It had a lilting quality to it. Whether it will Stokes you next.

ERIC STOKES: Yes, I got the leading one.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: We don't necessarily have to go in any order. Do you want to read another?

ERIC STOKES: Yeah, why don't you read another one of yours, Joe?

GERHARD NEUBECK: Get warmed up.

JOSEPH VALENTINETTI: That's "I Wrote a Poem" on number nine.

I wrote a poem that told you exactly everything,

The trouble was, I only had black ink and black paper on which to ink the score of another black day,

I wrote down anyhow, my poor effort call,

Took a walk, circling the block once in each direction,

Like a penny arcade target bear, wishing the next shot would send me straight up,

Took the pictures of my kids and crouching like a grasshopper,

Sent them sailing freely in the sewer and prayed a prayer from altar dais,

When will it end? When will it end?

Jesus, Jesus. I love you, dear, but I could pray away from here,

And tilting out the candles like some Lancelot fag in skirt and lace,

I stood again to circle the block again,

And then to hold my poem again to the light again,

And to look once more again for the words.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: Do you like to talk about your poetry or do you--

JOSEPH VALENTINETTI: I don't know. I've never tried it.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: Some poets I've talked to said, well, there's nothing to say. You've just heard it. And I don't want to offend you by making you talk about this. But I'm curious, what made you put this down on paper? I mean, when you wrote it, what was going on?

JOSEPH VALENTINETTI: Most certainly I only had white paper.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: Well, what was going on with you?

JOSEPH VALENTINETTI: Someone was trying to interest me in the idea of writing love poetry and wondered why I didn't or couldn't or never wrote anything that had a happy ending, I suppose. And that was my response.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: Have you been responding to each other's works at all, or have you been cautious about commenting to each other? Because if you have been, maybe now's the time.

ERIC STOKES: Well, I'm in a peculiar situation with respect to the book. Maybe Stacey Day is also, who is not here, in that while Louis was assembling the book and working on the visual format of it, we were somewhat scattered. And not all of us were here in the Twin Cities. I believe I met Joe only once very briefly before the book came out. Then I went off to California, and I've just gotten back. So really--

CONNIE GOLDMAN: This is your first chance then to talk to the poet.

ERIC STOKES: We haven't had much opportunity to meet in a group like this and exchange reactions. I think it's wonderful to hear you read your poetry. It makes a big difference. And--

JOSEPH VALENTINETTI: Thank you.

ERIC STOKES: --it supports my theory. It isn't even a theory. It's just an observation that the poem or what we have been saying is entirely a different animal through the voice as compared through the eye.

LOUIS SAFER: I think my feeling is that Joe is a very mysterious person to me. And I think his reading even heightens that sensation that I see a very complex personality. And this just gives me a little feel-- gives me even greater feeling about that mystery behind him.

[AUDIO OUT]

CONNIE GOLDMAN: --particularly to hear the emphasis that you put on certain words and the rhythm you read certain sentences. I felt the same way it was-- there was an investment that I could see that you had that I would not have picked up if I had read it silently, because then I would have turned it into my poem.

JOSEPH VALENTINETTI: Yeah.

ERIC STOKES: This is one of my favorite poems of yours, Joe, the one you just read, "I Wrote a Poem." And I like it especially because of the very strong, precise, and delightful imagery that informs it, so especially the penny arcade target bear image of someone on parade in life out in the streets.

I think it's very apt and it speaks well. It's a very strong visual image for me. And I love it.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: Now, if I were to ask you to read your favorite poem or the one that you feel you enjoy reading out loud, do you think I could guess which one it was?

GERHARD NEUBECK: Try.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: Well, only because I know that you love paradoxes might I pick paradox. But you tell me.

GERHARD NEUBECK: Actually, for this occasion I thought seeing the Bach posters all over KSJN. And I would enjoy reading the Bach poem.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: I would enjoy hearing it.

GERHARD NEUBECK: OK. It's called "Bach Enters Through my Skin."

Bach enters through my skin,

And now he's in my gut.

"Goot" in German is gut. Well or nice in English.

Handel went English, but Bach stayed German, germane to me,

So I flip the record and prostrate myself to elegance and intelligence,

To raw passion and blessings in D major,

Come lord, come mistress, come child, come dog,

Come floating down with me the river fugue,

Contrapoint and juxtapose,

Build, build climax upon climax,

Shake the in-between, the bottom of my feet,

And the top strains of my graying hair.

All of me is working, working itself into fusion,

All parts moving in unison, perplexed but together,

It never finishes,

It never does,

One is never done with Bach,

No satiation, only promises,

Always revival, oh, that "Magnificat."

CONNIE GOLDMAN: The reason we're not saying anything is one doesn't always want to respond in words to words like that.

GERHARD NEUBECK: I appreciate that. Yes. Should I do "Pad Access" for you?

CONNIE GOLDMAN: Yes, would you? Thank you.

GERHARD NEUBECK: I tell you of lovers who never made love,

And tell you of roofers with no roof above,

Of rivers that flow but only upstream,

Of mirrors reflecting not what they seem,

I know that today's soon obsolete,

Tomorrow has come,

Lost under your feet,

Hello and goodbye,

Goodbye and hello,

Ready to stay and ready to go,

Reversal is life,

Revision is trump,

No one is ever all over the hump,

We never cease to try our hand,

But cannot discover a promised land,

Though it's upside down,

Go and eat your cake,

And go to hell, for heaven's sake.

[LAUGHTER]

CONNIE GOLDMAN: Yes. [LAUGHS] Well, you don't have a chance to read your poems out loud, you said. You were out of town. This is your--

ERIC STOKES: Yes. This is my debut.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: This is your debut.

ERIC STOKES: I suppose it is, yeah.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: Yeah. All right.

ERIC STOKES: So you'd like to hear one? I would like to read the poem on page 26. "Poem After John Berryman"

Not running friend,

All along Baltimore against the edge,

Big, black boats come up at night and sings,

Some hungering hulls ajar, some cuts bait,

Saliva running thick and chains,

Some stevedores fixing teeth.

They conjugate bananas,

They eat strings,

Black boats at night,

They's thinking things.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: Oh, I guess that's for everyone that has had that personal association. That's nice.

GERHARD NEUBECK: As an apropos, I think they're looking for materials-- I saw a notice in the Daily earlier this week-- anybody who has any mementos or stories about John.

ERIC STOKES: Is that right?

GERHARD NEUBECK: And maybe this would be a contribution to that.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: There is somebody, I understand, in town doing some research, hoping to put, I believe it's a book, isn't it?

GERHARD NEUBECK: Yeah, he's doing a book.

ERIC STOKES: Yes, as a matter of fact, I heard about him in a strange way. He's an Englishman.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: Yes.

ERIC STOKES: And that's a curious thing that you bring it back to my mind. Because when I was in San Francisco, I met an old friend who also knew John when all three of us were here in town. And he told me of this man who had come to Minneapolis and has been here since June or so.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: Yes, I didn't realize that long, but yes, I know. And he'll be here a while more collecting materials to write this biography.

LOUIS SAFER: Yes, I met him through Kate Berryman. He's indeed an Englishman. And he's collecting all this data. And I called actually yesterday at Berryman's house and he answered. And we had a delightful conversation, welcomes any bits of information.

ERIC STOKES: Has he seen your portrait?

LOUIS SAFER: Well, he was to come over to the studio and see it. That was the purpose of my call, because both he and Kate wanted to come over when he was here last, and that was quite a while ago. And so at their convenience, I suppose, they'll come over.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: Well, Louis, would the designer and publisher of this volume of poetry like to make some comment on your children here that are reading?

LOUIS SAFER: Yes, yes. Well, like the rest, this is my first attempt, too. And I have a variety of reactions to the people who joined in this venture. It wasn't a mutual admiration society by any stretch of the imagination. I felt some had a lot more substance than the others in the book. And I won't, of course, reveal the names.

But curiously enough, it changed. My opinions changed as I kept reading and rereading the poetry. Some of the poems that I liked in the beginning began to fade in interest, and others that didn't come on as strong began to gain a little more depth and momentum as I reread them.

I'm actually curious in your reactions, Connie. You're somewhat in the position that I am, a non-objective viewer of the poetry itself. And what are some of your reactions to these poems as you browse through the book we sent you?

CONNIE GOLDMAN: Well, I hope this answer doesn't sound like a cop out because I don't want to talk about any one specific poem. First of all, our listeners haven't had an opportunity to go through them all and make their own appreciation of them. But I'm very enamored of the whole effort.

The whole thing, when I heard about it, I got really very excited. And I know exactly what got me excited. I mean, I hadn't seen the poems. I didn't know the worth of them. That didn't even matter to me.

What was really exciting to me was to know that these people, that these college professors that work so hard at what they do, that are so involved in a particular discipline, and have accepted all the pressures that are there with that particular direction of their life, had the energy and the insight to deal with a separate part of themselves and to care enough about it so that they don't just write it and feel relieved or absolved but care about it as literature and care to work with you in making this book happen.

It gave me a very good feeling because so many people I've known have put all their energy into one direction and shortchange the rest of their lives. And I was very excited that these people that I knew personally or knew of and respected had had that self-respect of themselves.

LOUIS SAFER: And at our age, too.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: Your age, my age, I guess I take it all as an inspiration. So thank you for that.

LOUIS SAFER: We rushed into it rather naively, as college professors are used to doing, not knowing all of the details and the headaches one can acquire in the venture, but it was well worth it. It's quite similar to something we tried about 10 or 15 years ago. As a group of college professors, we got together and built a house, my house specifically. And we knew which end of the hammer to use, to be sure.

But none of us had any experience about building a house. And we put it all together and got something up that's still up, incidentally. And it's much like this book, the naivety of saying, oh, sure, let's put it all together again. And then when you crunch up against all of these many problems of dealing with printers and distribution and mailing and haggling over price, not to speak of the six personalities that have to be joined, it's quite an experience.

So you might very well ask, well, are we looking forward to the next edition? And I don't know what the answer to that would be.

GERHARD NEUBECK: Is it possible to do a commercial? You mentioned the reader's not having seen this. The book is available in Twin City bookstores. If that's the end of the commercial.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: I'd like to call that a public service announcement.

GERHARD NEUBECK: OK. Thank you. It's a compliment.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: Well, I appreciate very much having an opportunity to not only share the book, but share the people that created the book. I'm as excited about the idea now as I was when it first came to my attention. Thank you all very much.

LOUIS SAFER: Thank you. Take care.

GERHARD NEUBECK: Thank you so much.

BOB POTTER: Connie Goldman in conversation with three authors of The Broken Glass Factory, a book of poetry by University of Minnesota faculty and the publisher and designer of the book, Louis Safer. You heard Joseph Valentinetti, Gerhard Neubeck, and Eric Stokes.

The preface to The Broken Glass Factory reads "To all those windows you have not yet broken." The epilogue, "Picking up the pieces is more than half the fun." This is Bob Potter speaking.