‘Rhythms of people’ inspire author
By DAGMAR OBEREIGNER
Of the Emerald
“I love voices, lingo, the
rhythms of people. That's part of
the reason why I’m a poet,” says
feminist author Judith Johnson
Sherwin. The award-winning wri
ter spoke about contemporary
poetry, drama and fiction and
gave a poetry reading on campus
this week.
The sounds of a picket line or
the speech of an angry man in a
bar excite her. “His anger just
seduced me,” she beams.
...better tell no man how you
rolled right over on your rock bot
tom flapjack buttered side for
those mammal-dripping, stick-pin
eyes in a two-button suit with
computer ears...”
Sherwin writes about political
subjects. Initially, she found that
editors, then predominately male,
Small business
vital to economy,
stresses Martin
Roger Martin, Republican
gubernatorial candidate, punc
tuated his speech pledging sup
port to Oregon’s small businesses
with swipes at former governor
Tom McCall at Thursday's Lane
Rubicon Society noon meeting.
Martin feels the Straub ad
ministration has been largely a
continuation of McCall’s policies.
“If you don’t like the carbon copy
the last three years have been,
why buy the original?” said Martin.
Unemployment was not as
minor a problem under McCall’s
administration as the former gov
ernor is presenting it, maintains
Martin, who is state house Repub
lican speaker. He feels the real
campaign question in May and
November is, ‘ Who is going to re
ally do something about the
economy?"
Martin feels that ''foreign"
businesses, such as the Hewlitt
Packard Corporation in Corvallis,
are not the answer to Oregon’s
unemployment. While such large
corporations do employ large
numbers, the people they hire are
those with specific skills or who
are highly educated.
‘‘Those firms do not employ the
unemployed,” said Martin. In addi
tion, big companies tend to locate
in populations centers in the state
and near the state’s universities,
Martin said.
“Westfir, John Day, Oakridge,
La Grande, Coos Bay, Pendleton”
— these are the places where big
outside corporations make no
dent in the unemployment figures,
said Martin, and where other
Swiss study
announced
An opportunity to study this
summer with Nobel Laureate Kon
rad Lorenz, psychoanalyst Erik
Erikson, and Robert Penn War
ren, two-time Pulitzer Prize
winning writer, was announced by
the Washington, D.C. office of the
International Institute for
Humanistic Studies of Geneva,
Switzerland.
Students may take the courses
either for credit or not. Enrollment
for credit in one of the courses is
$300 for three undergraduate
credits or two graduate credits;
enrollment as non-credit student
is $230. Participants going to
Bennington will be provided with
week-long room and board there
for $110, while those going to Al
tenberg will live in Vienna.
Inquiries may be sent to the
Summer Program Office of the In
stitute, 5530 Wisconsin Avenue,
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20015.
measures are needed.
“The real solution to unem
ployment lies in helping the small
businessman,” Martin claims.
“The small employer is the back
bone of the state.” Martin, who
owns an electrical equipment
sales business in Lake Oswego,
criticized excessive government
red tape for hindering the small
business owner, when he feels
the government should take a
more conciliatory attitude towards
small employers.
“Our mission in the next four
years is to make that part of gov
ernment you have to work with
more co-operative,” said Martin.
Martin came out against full
time equivalency funding of higher
education, saying the state’s uni
versities need more than “bare
bones budgets.”
“We've got Trojan — I don’t
agree it’s going to be plausible to
dose it,” Martin said when asked
about nuclear power. However,
he feels that if Pebble Springs is
built, it will be the the last nuclear
plant in Oregon. “Nuclear power is
not cheap energy at all,” he said.
He feels that the federal gov
ernment must find an immediate
solution to the disposal of nuclear
wastes. The federal agencies
have “transferred the responsibil
ity to the state,” and Martin feels it
is time they deal with the problem.
“It’s Tom who went around the
country talking about the “Oregon
Story,’ making us well-known from
here to Denmark," said Martin,
working in a few final jabs at the
former governor. “Let’s stop
hootin' and hoolerin’ about
Oregon outside the state.”
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urged her to write about emotions,
families and subjects such as
what’s it’s like to have a child, she
says.
“Today, my work is the same,
my mind is the same,” she con
tinues, “but now feminist authors
say What are you doing writing
about patriarchal subjects — why
aren’t you writing about women's
feelings?’” Sherwin calls those
people “formula thinkers” and
says they wind up with a tired out
look.
She rewrites her works several
times, going from play to drama
format and back again.
“Each reshaping gets rid of one
level of bullshit —there is less and
less of ‘she felt she had to be...’
and more comes in of things show
ing you that feeling,” Sherwin
says.
“Just yesterday, sitting with you
eating grapefruit
a word I stuck too hard or on the
wrong angle
squirted tart into my face...”
“You learn more of a work over
time. A work has its own organic
life,” she says. “Part of my learn
ing has been listening to the work
and not me.”
After a while, Sherwin says, she
began to have a feeling about
what a work had to tell her, and did
If
not try to impose anything on it.
She compares herself to a sculp
tor gently exploring an object until
he finds its shape.
Sherwin often employs audi
ence participation in her poetry
readings, and says the audience
helps directly in the shamping of a
poem.
She has worked with dan
cers, and says they teach her
“rhythm of the mind and voice
which I didn't know of before.”
“New York woman with my
safety glass
with my broad-beamed head
lights
I talk of death...”
Poetry or prose — she has no
preference for writing one rather
than the other. “I listen to a work
and see where it’s going to take
me,” she says.
If one form of a work is a true
statement, she added, it should
lend itself to another form if it is
listened to.
“Hey brassy baby with
switched-on hair
made them glow in the dark
call for a brand new smile to
wear
in the long nights when the
geiger counters praise you...
...Lady of spending in dreams
when I see under your put-on
costume the intellect
how rich, delicious you were
made
madonna of money...”
(The earth speaking to Marilyn
Monroe after her death.)
Dylan Thomas, Samuel Beck
ett, Emily Dickinson, Robert
Greeley, Adrienne Rich and
Elizabeth Barrett Browning are
some of the artists she admires
and says have shaped her work.
'The greatest force as a crea
tive artist is writing as homage to
the great artists,” says Sherwin.
Sherwin began to publish her
poetry at the age of 18 in the Atlan
tic Monthly. Her work has ap
peared in numerous magazines
and anthologies. She has pub
lished three books and is the au
thor of four plays. She won the
Playboy Fiction Prize in 1977 and
the Male Younger Series award
for her first book, “Uranium
Bombs.”
Sherwin’s appearances at the
University were sponsored by the
English and Speech departments,
the University Assembly and Lec
tures Committee, and the
Women’s Studies Program.
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