College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University

Fiddling about the country

Mary Swander is traveling America in search of unqiue artists for a new collection of poetry.

Mary Swander's last book chronicled her journey after a car accident left her paralyzed and in chronic pain.

The Desert Pilgrim wove together history, herbal medicine and Swander's physical and spiritual healing.

For her next project Swander wanted to do something completely different.

First of all, it's a book of poetry - her fifth volume - with a working title Fiddling on Top of My Head.

"After my last book I wanted to do something fun," said Swander, Distinguished Professor of liberal arts and sciences and professor of English.

This will be fun. The collection will include painters, junk sculptors, quilt makers, instrument makers, cowboy poets and musicians, ranging in age from 30 to 94.

"For the past couple of years, I've tried to figure out a way to write about these talented people in a way that would be new and different," Swander said.

Her poems will be based on interviews on these folk or outside artists throughout the United States. Many of the artist have been profiled in newspapers or magazines, but Swander says the stories rarely provide much depth.

"Each of these people is self-taught," Swander said. "None has a Master of Fine Arts or higher degree from a university in his or her discipline. But some are the smartest, most creative, most humorous people I've ever met."

Swander plans to profile the artists in interweaving dramatic monologues.

"I hope to capture the creative impulse and processes," she said, "with each artist giving voice to his or her life and vision.

"Many of these artists are from humble beginning and they have led lives of great challenge. Others are from relative privilege."

Most of the artists, including a Arkansas lady who makes fiddles and plays them on top of her head, and a Missouri gentleman who makes junk sculpture from old hot water heaters and propane tanks, come from rural America.

Swander plans to include urban artists as well in her poetry collection.

"The textures of place will accent their speech and couch their profiles in the history and culture of their locale," she said. "Some of these artists focus solely on the here and now. Others are true visionaries."

After interviewing her subjects, Swander plans to write long monologues for each character. She will then "cut up" the monologues interspersing them throughout the text.

"This will allow the character to ‘talk' back and forth in the book," she said. "This artistic dialogue will create a higher level of irony within the monologues themselves and in the book as a whole.

"Poetry is very elastic, inclusive genre. I think that people are beginning to tire of the ‘I look out my window and see a tree' type of poetry and hunger for something that is more engaged in the world."

Other characters Swander plans to include in Fiddling on Top of My Head are an Alabaman man who lives on an old family plantation and makes round hay bale sculptures, and a retired Nevada doctor who writes cowboy poetry.

The book will be made possible in part because Swander has been named Iowa State's Distinguished Arts and Humanities Scholar for 2006. The Distinguished Arts and Humanities Scholar spends a semester without teaching responsibilities to work on his or her scholarly research. The recipient presents a lecture to the university community upon their return to campus.

Swander's lecture is scheduled to take place during the 2006 fall semester.