{"id":123,"date":"2004-02-19T02:38:00","date_gmt":"2004-02-19T02:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=123"},"modified":"2011-08-24T14:38:37","modified_gmt":"2011-08-24T20:38:37","slug":"a-cigar-for-ken-hanson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=123","title":{"rendered":"A Cigar for Ken Hanson"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Reed College alumni magazine came today, announcing the passing of several faculty members of my time there, including my thesis advisor, the poet Kenneth O. Hanson<\/a>. (I like the way the article calls Greece “the country that he discovered in 1963.” Land ho!<\/em>)<\/p>\n

Regrets: that I never gave his poetics and prosody class the attention it deserved.<\/em><\/p>\n

Hanson was something of a “Poundling,” an admirer of the poet Ezra Pound. I was much more under the influence of Robert Graves; it was in the summer between my junior and senior year, while helping to build a house in Talpa, New Mexico, for another of Hanson’s friends, Robert Peterson, that I read The White Goddess<\/em>, was swept away, embraced Her faith, and set out to read virtually everything Graves had written.<\/p>\n

Graves’ essays included much criticism of Pound, whom, among other things, he considered uneducated; Pound’s background in Latin was lacking, raw American that he was (both Pound and Hanson had roots in Idaho.)<\/p>\n

During one of our thesis conferences (held always in Hanson’s living room), he puffed his cigar, admitted Graves’ fine command of poetic diction, and then added, “But then there is that Moon Goddess nonsense.”<\/p>\n

I bit my tongue.<\/p>\n

The relationship with your thesis advisor always has multiple levels. While I did not ever become a great admirer of Pound (leaving his politics entirely aside), I did start smoking cigars. Because I was an impoverished student, getting food stamps, walking or hitch-hiking everywhere, the cigars were usually cheap ones, such as Swisher Sweets<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Today I bought a medium-priced cigar<\/a> at a tobacconist and smoked it, walking up and down the muddy drive, putting away the garbage cans at the cabin, listening to the rushing of Hardscrabble Creek, watching cloud-blurred Venus hanging in the western sky.<\/p>\n

My thesis was A book of poems titled<\/em> Queen Famine, after a line by Graves<\/em>. In a letter to Peterson that I sneaked a look at after my graduation, Hanson wrote: It was good, he said, but not as good as it could have been. That comment burned into my soul, of course.<\/p>\n

Hanson’s example also stopped my cigar-smoking. First, there was the experience of coming home to my little apartment, part of a tall wooden house by the southeast Portland rail yards, and smelling the reek of stale cigars.<\/p>\n

Second, I remember stepping into Hanson’s kitchen, where he had a wall-mounted white telephone–a rotary-dial telephone, as most of them were. Under the dial, going all the way around, was a brown smear, left by his cigar-stained fingers as he dialed. I was grossed out.<\/p>\n

But I still have my copy of The Distance Anywhere<\/em>. And I have reached the age that he was when he was my advisor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Reed College alumni magazine came today, announcing the passing of several faculty members of my time there, including my thesis advisor, the poet Kenneth O. Hanson. (I like the way the article calls Greece “the country that he discovered in 1963.” Land ho!) Regrets: that I never gave his poetics and prosody class the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[137,12],"class_list":["post-123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-academia","tag-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-1Z","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":563,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=563","url_meta":{"origin":123,"position":0},"title":"The White GoddessLee Gilmore writes\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 25, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"The White GoddessLee Gilmore writes of synchronistic experiences involving Robert Graves' \"historical grammar of poetic myth,\" The White Goddess.First published in 1948, it was for many people a \"gateway book\" to Goddess religion--it certainly was that for me. (Maybe we should devote a Pagan Studies session to it.)Lee also reports\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":751,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=751","url_meta":{"origin":123,"position":1},"title":"Who’s a Celt now ? – 5","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 29, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4While they wanted to present Wicca as the indigenous religion of Britain, the founders of contemporary Witchcraft were not so much caught up in the \"Celtic\" mythos. Some, in fact, favored the Saxon. By the 1970s, however, \"cardiac Celts\" were everywhere. Writers such\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11222,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11222","url_meta":{"origin":123,"position":2},"title":"Conference on Current Pagan Studies 2: Holing Up in Claremont","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 9, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Part 1: The Southwest Chief After killing time at Augie's Coffee, I faced a mile walk through bosky Claremont to the hotel, but because of the roller bag, I gave in and summoned a Lyft driver. No need to put extra wear on the little plastic wheels. That is my\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/claremont-sunrise-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":465,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=465","url_meta":{"origin":123,"position":3},"title":"Trance danceJason Pitzl-Waters links to\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 3, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Trance danceJason Pitzl-Waters links to an article arguing that \"house music\" and other descendents of disco are the true soundtrack of the Pagan movement. (There are some examples to be downloaded.)Like the writer, I too, am tired of \"boring stereotypes of what witchy, pagan music should be.\" And I can\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13","url_meta":{"origin":123,"position":4},"title":"Paganism: A Reader","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 13, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"What I hope was the last paper work for Graham Harvey's and my new anthology, Paganism: A Reader went into the campus mailbag today on its way to Routledge, the publisher. The book is a collection of mostly primary sources, so in that way it's somewhat different from Graham's earlier\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2409,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2409","url_meta":{"origin":123,"position":5},"title":"On Reading Merlin Stone for the First Time","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 27, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Jason Pitzl-Waters posted a notice of the passing of Merlin Stone, \"sculptor and art historian,\" yes, but best known in my circles for her book When God Was a Woman, first published in 1978. 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