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A professor’s love affair with poetry
■ From rubbing elbows with
poetry guru Allen Ginsberg to
helping students find their
muse, Robert Long has
covered the poetry board
By Sarah Bartlett
for the Emerald
University creative writing pro
fessor Robert Long sat behind his
cluttered desk, in an office cov
ered with black and white photos
of family, Einstein and alligators.
He wore a jumble of second-hand
clothing, a floppy baseball cap
and a knowing smile.
“The only interest in a story like
mine is what makes a poet not just
an odd person, but an odd, isolat
ed player with words,” Long said.
Sitting comfortably in his office
in Columbia Hall, Long admitted
that he never expected that he
would become a liberal poetry
professor — a far cry from where
he began his life.
“My whole life has been about
tolerance, inclusiveness, and not
judging people based on differ
ences,” he said. “That way I’ve
participated in the main story of
my generation.”
Long’s story began in Wilming
ton, N.C., where he was raised in
a community that thrived on dis
criminating against Jews, homo
sexuals and blacks.
“That was the air I breathed,”
Long said. Something in him re
belled as he was exposed to music
groups who addressed social is
sues.
“I grew some of the ethical di
mensions of my heart by listening
to songs that had to do with jus
tice and injustice,” he said.
Long hadn’t considered poetry
as an outlet until a friend brought
some to class one day.
“One of my friends, a girl I
liked, brought in a poet or two
that she was reading. We started
sitting together and reading po
ems,” Long said.
Her influence changed the
( i The only interest in a
story like mine is what
makes a poet not just an
odd person, but an odd,
isolated player with
words.
Robert Long
professor, creative writing
course of his life.
“She came in and she said,
‘Look, the Duke-Carolina basket
ball game is coming up. Let’s
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j
make a bet. If Duke wins, I’ll write
you five poems. If Carolina wins,
you have to write me five poems.’
Carolina won. I started writing po
ems at [age] fifteen. They didn’t
make her fall in love with me, but
writing them made me fall in love
with poetry,” Long said.
While studying at Davidson
College during the Vietnam War,
Long heard that Allen Ginsberg
was visiting his school, and that
he wanted a student to play the
guitar for him. Long jumped at the
chance.
Ginsberg held a free-form politi
cal discussion and singing session
while sitting on the carpet of the
student union.
“He sat cross-legged and extem
porized about the ills and injus
tices of American society. About
us being a nation of petro-chemi
cal junkies,” Long recalled.
Later in the evening, Long
played at Ginsberg’s formal read
ing.
“What I learned as a singer and
as a young poet from that meeting
with a gay, Jewish poet affected
the way I’ve behaved in my life
since then,” he said.
During college, Long participat
ed in several anti-Vietnam rallies
in North Carolina.
“When President Nixon came
to North Carolina, I was in the
contingent of students that went
to hold up signs that said ‘Get out
of Vietnam, get out of North Car
olina.’”
One day in a poetry workshop,
the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet
Gwendeline Brooks stopped into
his class, and Long read one of his
poems out loud for her. She told
him that he would be a great
writer.
“I can’t say enough about how
being recognized even slightly by
a Jewish poet and a black female
poet helped complete the driving
out of the part of me that was part
of the racist status quo,” Long
said.
Long graduated from Davidson
College and earned a master’s de
gree in creative writing in 1983.
After working on the East Coast
for years, he moved to Oregon and
began to teach at the University of
Oregon.
ins iiiai uuuk, lilt; ruwer 10
Die” was well-received by the lit
erary community.
“Robert Hill Long’s poems have
the feel of land and history seen in
moments of personal definition,
seen through the lens of a family,”
said poet Robert Morgan.
Long has published several
books since then, including “The
Work Of The Bow.”
It isn’t only published poets
who appreciate Long and his
work.
“Never in my writing career
have I met any teacher so willing
to spend a good deal of time with
a student poem. After a long dis
cussion, the student goes away
from a session with Robert excited
to rework the poem and make it
the best it can be,” said poetry stu
dent Bryan Gates.
Long’s poetry workshops are
known for a focus on social and
political issues, where he shows
students that poetry isn’t just an
emotional outlet.
“Writing social and political po
ems has given me a different per
spective on life,” said student Kira
Diner.