~by Chuck Offenburger
After lunching with Debra Marquart in Ames one day last week, I’m ready to call my pals in other states and say, “Our Iowa Poet Laureate is cooler than your state’s poet laureate.”
You can check me on that next Sunday afternoon, Nov. 20, in Jefferson. Marquart will join 10 Greene County poets and 10 Greene County artists in a program called “Ekphrasis.” Being held here for the second time, Eckphrasis is a performance in which poets read poems based on the works of artists, or maybe an artist will do a piece illustrating a poem. This time, the poets wrote and the artists are responding.
The free event is set for 2 pm at the History Boy Theatre, a block south of the Bell Tower. It is sponsored by the Tower View Team, the arts facilitators for the organization Jefferson Matters: A Main Street & Chamber Community.
“I’m planning on reading some of my poems and doing some songs, too,” said Marquart, an acclaimed poet, writer, singer and teacher.
She’s a very smooth and inspiring entertainer after doing hundreds of readings, earlier in her life touring five years as a lead singer for rock ’n’ roll bands, and still singing with a 3-member jazz-poetry rhythm & blues group “The Bone People.”
“I heard her sing and recite her poetry at the Iowa Art Summit last summer,” said Tower View Team coordinator Deb McGinn. “I thought she would really be a wonderful addition to our ‘Ekphrasis’ event.
“So many times, poets don’t get an outlet to perform or the recognition they deserve,” McGinn continued. “So, I’m glad the Poet Laureate and our Greene County poets will be able to recite their work and hopefully inspire all of us to look at the world around us maybe a little differently. And maybe other poets will come forward to share their words in the future.”
The 66-year-old Marquart is a professor in the Iowa State University “Master of Fine Arts program in Creative Writing and Environment.” She is currently in the second year of her second term as Iowa poet laureate, after being appointed and renewed by Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds.
She’s the author of six books of poems, essays and her award-winning 2007 personal memoir “The Horizontal World: Growing Up Wild in the Middle of Nowhere.” Two more books are in the works in the next year.
That memoir is a very readable reflection on her roots, childhood and coming of age in her native North Dakota. She was born and raised in the town of Napoleon (“our teams are the Imperials”), pop. 1,200 in the south central part of the state. She is related to the legendary North Dakotan Lawrence Welk, the late-great internationally-known band leader who was raised in the nearby town of Strasburg. “He was something like a second cousin, once removed,” Marquart said.
She has written and spoken eloquently about her worries over her home state’s environment, with the rapid development of the petroleum industry, primarily in the northwest quarter of North Dakota. That has also brought tremendous economic expansion and waves of new residents coming from across the country and around the world.
“Three different times I’ve gone up and done writing and poetry workshops in North Dakota towns that have been affected by the boom,” she said. “The people who show up for those workshops come from across the spectrum, from an 85-year-old grandmother to a truck driver for one of the oil companies.
“I talk to them about poetry, help give them some ideas, give them some encouragement, and assign homework – to write something and bring it back to our next session,” she continued. “They’ve written some wonderful pieces, with lots of different views of what’s happening in the state. Doing those workshops has changed my whole perspective on the boom and what it’s done. Of course, there are environmental concerns, but a whole lot of very interesting new people have come to North Dakota because of it.”
Marquart did her undergraduate studies at Minnesota State University in Moorhead, majoring in social work.
“I was two classes short of my degree in my senior year when I decided I just wasn’t sure I wanted to be in that field, so I dropped out,” she said,
That’s when she began touring with rock bands over the Upper Midwest, from 1977 into 1983.
A late-night wreck of her band’s equipment truck resulted in a fire that burned all their instruments, sound equipment, luggage and more. There was a long round of unsuccessful litigation against the rental truck company.
“I was left with almost nothing,” she said. “I didn’t know what I wanted to do next, so I went to the public library in Fargo, checked out a big stack of books, took them back to my basement efficiency apartment, sat in my waterbed and read, read, read.”
“What came out of that was a growing feeling that maybe I should be a writer,” she continued. “I felt like I should be doing something a little more stable and permanent than music. When you put words down on paper, you understand those are going to last a long time – maybe out-live you. Music is much more ephemeral.”
That led her to go back to Moorhead State, finish her social work degree, remaining there for a master’s degree in liberal arts, then move on to Iowa State as a graduate student for another master’s, in creative writing.
That’s when I first met Marquart, as my late wife Carla Offenburger was also studying at ISU then for a master’s in literature. I rallied the spouses and significant others of a small group in their class to form our own support group “HOGS” – “Husbands Of Graduate Students.” I’ve been a Marquart fan ever since.
After she completed her graduate work, Marquart had a year at Drake University in Des Moines as a visiting writer, then in 1995 joined the faculty at Iowa State fulltime. She’s been there in a golden era in the university’s creative writing programs, with such noted faculty as Michael Martone, Jane Smiley, Mary Swander and others.
There have been retirements, budget squeezes and other challenges, but the programs still thrive on both the undergraduate and graduate levels.
“We’ve survived, like a sunflower in a sidewalk crack,” said Marquart, with a smile.
She still teaches at least two classes a semester, travels considerably for readings and workshops, performs occasionally with The Bone People, and does presentations all over Iowa as the poet laureate.
“It’s so dumb that I push myself like this,” she said. “I’m old. I should be retiring. But I’ve decided to stick around a little longer.”
You can write the columnist directly by email at chuck@offenburger.com.
