Richard Hugo is an iconic figure in Montana poetry. He is a people’s poet, a man’s poet, who wrote of drinking and fishing and war. His work is renowned for its descriptions of place, the profound silence of prairies and constant talk talk talk of river’s babble.
Hugo was at his most prolific in the 1970’s, living in Missoula with his wife Ripley and her two children while directing the University of Montana’s creative writing program. It was then he wrote – and recited - many of the poems considered today an epitome of Montana writing.
Though Hugo died of leukemia in 1982, his work is now reaching forward to another generation through a newly-released 2-cd set of his readings, compiled by Missoula author Mark Ratledge. Ratledge first moved to Montana a year after Hugo’s death, when the poet’s words were still fresh in the air. "Everywhere I went, people were talking about Hugo's poetry," he said. The impact on Ratledge lasted.
As an adjunct professor of literature from 1999-2001, Ratledge was trying to inspire his mostly non-English major students, so he assigned Richard Hugo’s poetry to them. Ratledge believed the tales of drinking, fishing and driving Montana’s long, grey roads would be “familiar” to students not previously exposed to literature.
Ratledge searched for sound-recordings of Hugo’s poems to use in his classes, knowing that “students can tell more about (Hugo) and his works through hearing the poems,” than they could by merely reading them in silence. Ripley Hugo, the poet’s widow, heartily agrees. “Dick’s words really should be heard,” she said. “When you hear (his poems) you hear a man who is so aware … of the music in the words.”
Indeed, a universal humanity comes through in Hugo’s introductions to many of his poems. He tells stories that preface the poems not only with context, but a larger feeling for the poet’s mind.
The idea of compiling Hugo’s recited poems for a greater audience came to Ratledge while he was teaching. Asked to collaborate on the project, Ripley Hugo was thrilled with the prospect of returning her husband’s voice to Montana. “I was eager for it,” she said. “He was such a good reader.”
Through Ripley, Ratledge received legal permission to access the copyrighted works. In addition, he needed approval from the original sound producers. Tracking down the paper trail was difficult.
“One recording,” Ratledge said, “was made in 1962. This was before the internet. There was little record-keeping done.”
It took Ratledge a full year to access one tape, but he eventually succeeded in finding every available known recording.
Much of what Ratledge found was in bad shape: old audio cassettes and scratchy sound recordings haphazardly stored in basements and living-room desk drawers. Nonetheless, Ratledge viewed them as treasure, and hit pay dirt when he located a reel-to-reel recording archived at the Library of Congress.
That tape provided most of the source material for the new two-disc set. All in all, Ratledge sifted through 150 recorded poems, many on audio cassettes, to glean the 38 poems and introductions that make up the new 1 ½ hour digital recording.
Using audio-editing software and his laptop, Ratledge worked over three years removing scratches, flubbed words and background noise to produce the master discs for the project. Just a week after they were shipped to Portland for reproduction, his i-book died.
Early into the project, Ratledge recognized it would be a labor of love. Because of various copyright issues, the discs cannot be sold. Instead, Ratledge received a grant from the Montana Committee for the Humanities to distribute the finished sets to every public library and high-school within in Montana.
“I’ve gotten a lot of nice, hand-written notes from librarians across Montana,” he said. “Every week, I run into someone who really appreciates them.”
And that, after all, is the point.
“Everywhere else in the world,” Ratledge said, “literature and poetry are an integral part of society. In Ireland, people stand up and recite poetry in the pubs. In China, they sing opera in the parks. In this country, it’s losing footage.”
And that is something that needs to be remedied. Hugo’s poetry, said Ratledge, speaks to today’s world. “Look at the poems about Hugo’s bombing missions, and look at what’s going on in the world today,” Ratledge said. “His poetry is political. He wrote about war, Native Americans, environmental issues. They’re perfectly contemporary.”
And now they are available for every Montanan, for free. The two-CD set, “Eat Stone and Go On,” can be found in the English Dept., as well as the Mansfield and Missoula Public Libraries. The companion website, www.eatstone.org, has lesson plans, a Hugo biography, and links to related sites.
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