William Reichard
Bill Reichard holds an M.A. in creative writing and a Ph.D. in contemporary American poetry from the University of Minnesota. A longtime member of the Twin Cities arts community, Bill has worked with artists from a wide variety of disciplines, creating collaborative projects that push the boundaries of individual genres. He is the author of four collections of poetry: Sin Eater (Mid-List Press, 2010); This Brightness (Mid-List Press, 2007); How To (Mid-List Press, 2004); and An Alchemy in the Bones (New Rivers Press, 1999). Bill is he editor of the anthology, American Tensions: Literature of Identity and the Search for Social Justice (New Village Press, 2011) and the memoir, The Evening Crowd at Kirmser’s: A Gay Life in the 1940’s (University of Minnesota Press, 2001). He has also published a chapbook, To Be Quietly Spoken (Frith Press, 2001).
Recently Bill has been the subject of or writer for some online blogs and newsletters. Literature as Mirror: Tension and Transformation is a piece Bill published in October 2011 on The View from the Loft. The blog post, Literary Magpie, also featured An Interview with William Reichard in August 2011.
Teaching & Learning with HECUA Students
It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there.
William Carlos Williams
from “Asphodel, That Greeny Flower”
Lately I’ve been thinking a great deal about this poem. It’s one of my favorites, and the last two lines, in particular, resonate with me: “for lack / of what is found there.” Much has been written on Williams and his work, and I defer to the experts when it comes to the proper interpretation of his poetry, but for me, these few lines sum up what the City Arts and Writing for Social Change programs are all about. Of course we don’t “get the news from poems,” (or art in general), but during my time with HECUA, I have come to believe that people truly do “die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.” In his poem, Williams is talking about the urgent and ongoing need of all people to express themselves; to mourn; to celebrate; to rage; to comfort; simply to be heard and acknowledged by the world. When individuals or societies are not allowed this necessary means of self-expression, this affirmation of the value of their lives and experiences, they suffer. Some go mad. Some kill themselves. Some kill others. Sadly, the majority of the voiceless simply fade into oblivion. The real history of the world, the one not written by the victors, is full of the silent stories of such people and their cultures. Made invisible by hegemony, hatred, fear, or tyranny, their ghosts quietly haunt us. Every time one of us writes a poem, makes a sculpture or a painting or choreographs a new dance, this piece of work must stand in for the millions of books or pieces of art, the millions of voices, that were never made and never heard.
“For lack of what is found there.” Art and literature (both “high” and “low” if we must arrange them in such a hierarchical order) are the means through which most societies make sense of the world, give it a comforting or confounding order. Whether this making takes the form of mythologies we create to explain natural phenomenon, gives a palpable structure to the notion of the divine, or finds voice in a spoken word performance, the fundamental goal is always the same – the urge of the writer, the artist, the maker, to speak, to make sense, to create dialogue or monologue, to espouse a particular ideology or system of beliefs, to challenge, to ask the questions that most other people in the world are not yet ready to, or capable of, asking. Take this expression away and people do die miserably; they lose their sense of who they are as individuals and as a society.
Since I started my work as a Program Director in Spring 2001, I’ve made it my goal to constantly revise, even reinvent, the programs I teach. Some of the frameworks for my programs have remained unchanged: the critical and self-reflective examination of the role of art and the artist in working for social justice and social change; the evaluation of the link between economics and what art gets made (and what art doesn’t); the ascension of some voices within our American society, and the silence of others, and the myriad reasons why; the slippery difference between art and propaganda; and the effect of periods of crisis and calm on the production and evolution of various art forms. I know that this is a rather large laundry list of program frameworks, but when we start to critically examine one of the issues listed above, we’re inevitably drawn into an examination of all of these issues, and then some. City Arts and Writing for Social Change are about connections and integration.
So many of us live our lives in discreet pieces: home, work, school, friends, family. Often, one segment of life would seem to have no connection to the other, but this is a false construct. We’re taught to separate out the multiple threads of our lives as a means to order and control them. What we should do is learn to how to reweave these threads in order to make ourselves whole. I won’t deny that there is a practical necessity in following a hierarchal order so that we may set priorities in our lives. First, we must have food, shelter, and adequate medical care, those things necessary to keep our bodies alive so that our minds, our imaginations, our souls, can thrive. But once these basic needs are met, we need to consider the value of less tangible, more ambiguous, needs; needs no less necessary to our survival, but perhaps less measurable in a world that overvalues the concrete, those “products” that we can hold, trade, and sell.
Like much good poetry, City Arts and Writing for Social Change deals in ambiguities. Though we examine and critique a wide variety of literature, artwork, actions, and theories, we never quite land on a final, authoritative “truth” of the matter. This is due, largely, to my own belief that there are many kinds of truths, based on myriad perspectives, belief systems, and experiences. We each look at our world through the “lenses” we’re given and the “lenses” we create. I may look at a painting and find it moving, thought provoking, while another viewer may find it dull, and another blasphemous. I might feel alienated by a novel that another reader finds engrossing. The point is that we each must learn what ideologies and experiences have shaped the way we interpret our world, and we must recognize that there are many “worlds” within this one world; some, we’d recognize, others would seem alien. Critical, analytical interpretation, and the various uses of rhetoric, are powerful tools. Governments rise and fall based on their ability to manipulate such tools. In Writing for Social Change and City Arts, we strive to train students to see how such tools are used in a variety of ways by a variety of practitioners. We want students to see through rhetoric, and be able to identify what lies under any particular piece of artistic and cultural production. Ambiguity. It’s a frightening and powerful thing. Perhaps this is why so many people dislike it, and seek out absolutes, “black and white” answers that leave no room for “gray.” In Writing for Social Change and City Arts, “gray” is our stock in trade.
There are many ways in which one can approach social change and social justice. Some people take to the streets to protest. Others use governmental structures in an attempt to legislate change. Some use community organizing as a means to empower people. And some, writers, painters, composers, choreographers, and photographers, use our art forms to work for change. We create work to give voice to our concerns, to embody our senses of fear, anger, dread, joy, and pleasure. We see our work in a non-hierarchal way, on a level playing field with activists, politicians, and organizers. We all have similar goals, but we each approach them using our own forms. City Arts and Writing for Social Change won’t “train” anyone to organize, to lobby, to agitate or legislate. It will introduce students to those within our community who engage in these actions, and it will encourage each student to take on one or all of these roles. Writing for Social Change and City Arts provide the critical and analytical tools for understanding how writers and artists work for social change, and each program strives to help students recognize the connections between one kind of activism and another, between all of the “strands” of their lives. Integration is always the goal.
“For lack of what is found there.” There is great value in being able to identify what is lacking in our society, and an even greater value in trying to understand why, and how, to remedy this lack. Each of us has a unique role to play in the shaping of our society, culture, and world. Writing for Social Change and City Arts challenge each student to identify where she or he sits along a continuum of creation, and to find what methods, approaches, or art forms work best to help every student with a passion for literature, art, and social change.
My Research and Current Projects
City Arts and Writing for Social Change are interdisciplinary seminars, and as the program director, I need to stay current in a number of humanities-based disciplines. Part of my ongoing professional development involves reading and researching widely across the humanities, following academic, artistic, and cultural trends, and investigating how these trends can or should influence the curriculum I design. The syllabus for each program changes a great deal from year to year. I try to base the critical framing questions we use to explore issues and ideas throughout each program on what’s happening in our world now. This can be a very challenging way to craft a course, but it’s immensely rewarding.
Presentations and Publications
My most recent publication is American Tensions: Literature of Identity and the Search for Social Justice, an anthology of poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction published by New Village Press in Spring 2011. The anthology grew out of the research I did while designing Writing for Social Change, which launched in Fall 2007. When I first taught the seminar, I looked for an anthology that could serve as a general textbook, a collection of contemporary work by living US authors that would help introduce students to powerful creative writing, writing that showcases incredible technical skill and offers valuable insight on our lived experience. I knew I didn't want polemical work, stories or poems or essays where the author's ideological agenda takes precedence over craft. I wanted work that's relevant to contemporary readers. After a great deal of searching, I realized that no such anthology existed, so I determined to edit and publish one. With the support of my colleagues here at HEUCA, I undertook the project, and I was fortunate to connect with New Village Press, a publisher in Oakland, CA that specializes in books on a wide variety of social justice issues. New Village Press offered me a contract, and in April 2011, the anthology was released. It's been adopted for course use at colleges and universities around the country, and it's now a core text in Writing for Social Change.
Upcoming projects include presentations at the Imagining America conference in Fall 2011 and the AWP Conference in Spring 2012. I'm currently at work on a fifth collection of poetry.
Here are links to some organizations, artists, and sites you might enjoy:
New Village Press
Minnesota Citizens for the Arts
Americans for the Arts
Arts & Letters Daily
Frank Theatre
Interact Center for Visual and Performing Arts
Susan Harbage Page, Photographer
Forecast Public Artworks
Why Do You Do What You Do?
Mid List Press
New Rivers Press
Composer Phil Fried's Homepage
The Animal Rescue Site
Goodreads
