Poets Among Us: History through the lens of poetry

Poets Among Us is a new column profiling writers working in Westchester and neighboring areas.

Jo Pitkin’s upcoming collection, “The Lake,” circles back autobiographically to growing up in Somers and Lake Purdys.  HOWARD GOODMAN PHOTO

By LEISHA DOUGLAS

Jo Pitkin’s poetry is rooted in and forged by her experiences growing up in the lake community of Lake Purdys where her mother still resides. A proud graduate of Somers High School, she credits her education and the literary influence of her parents, educators in the local school system, for exposing her to a wide variety of poetry. During elementary school, she helped produce a collaborative poem and a pamphlet of nature poetry. “I kept getting thrown poetry everywhere I went,” she says, laughing about her early poetic experiences. “It just was something I liked to do, and I started writing when I was about eight.”

Her interest led her to choose a major in poetry at Kirkland College, one of the few colleges in the 1970s offering a bachelor’s degree in creative writing. Two renowned poets on the faculty there, Tess Gallagher and Michael Burkard, helped her develop her poetic muscle and became lifelong mentors. When Jo pondered her future after graduation, Burkard insisted, “You’re going to Iowa,” referring to graduate study at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa, which was and continues to be one of the country’s most prestigious graduate writing programs.  Jo had no idea then what she was getting herself into. In Iowa, she joined a cadre of writers who became preeminent in contemporary American poetry and literature. 

Her postgraduate trajectory took her to the education division of Houghton Mifflin Company in Boston, Mass., where she created and wrote textbook passages used as grammatical teaching tools and unit tests for students in grades six to 12. The subject of one of these passages initiated a pre-internet, 10-year study of her hometown history and the role of Hachaliah Bailey, who brought the second elephant ever seen to the United States and imported other exotic animals in the early 1800s.

“I was trying to figure out what this whole thing was about,” Jo said. “This town had a whole lot of nonnative animals living here. I started writing a few poems about Hachaliah Bailey, which led to a book. That’s the creative process. You never know where you’re going.”

Jo’s dedication and poetic talents manifested in the 2012 publication of her first full collection, “Cradle of the American Circus: Poems from Somers, New York.” Jo says she took a poetic leap writing these poems because they are mostly persona poems embodying the imaginary voices of long-dead people who played a part in Somers’s history. The final product, her “wacky manuscript,” as she calls it, was a novel amalgam of historical notations, imagery and poetry, initially making it difficult to get published because it didn’t fit the proscribed genres of that time. Once published, the book became popular and remains the sole, full-length literary resource on the town’s menagerie history. Jo is regularly sought out to lecture and give readings on the topic. 

Three more books followed: “Commonplace Invasions” (Salmon Poetry, 2014); “Rendering” (Salmon Poetry, 2017); and the forthcoming “Village: Recession.” Jo’s affinity for mining history and overlooked topics using poetry continues. Her work often interweaves the tangible and intangible legacies of ancestry and place. For example, the poems in “Village: Recession” explore the personal and public effects of the 2008 financial crisis, as she says, “through the lens of money.” 

Makers of boots and shoes 

by hand, the first American 

pocket watches by machine.

Of felt, flour, snuff, cotton. 

Guns and gunpowder, iron.

Anchors, pipes, and boilers.

My father’s people, makers.

Makers of glass: olive-green 

and amber flasks and inkwells.

My skilled ancestors crafted 

silver forks, knives, spoons—

the kind set out on holidays.

Now with air I make this,

lighter than a grain of sand.

It won’t burn or shatter.

(Excerpted from “Village: The Makers” in the collection “Village: Recession,” with the author’s permission.)

Her upcoming collection, “The Lake,” circles back autobiographically to growing up in Somers, focusing on the unique culture and history of Lake Purdys, one of northern Westchester’s lake communities.

In addition to writing both prose and poetry, Jo enjoys teaching online workshops for the Poetry Barn on the craft of poetry and mentoring aspiring poets. 

For more information, visit jopitkin.com

Leisha Douglas served as poet advisor to the Katonah Poetry Series for 23 years. Her stories and poems have been published in many literary journals. She recently completed a fictionalized biography entitled “The First Nellie Kelly; Elizabeth Hines, Musical Comedy Star of the 1920s.”