By: Gracey Murphy
@graceyelyssa
20 years of travel, poetry, and teaching cannot prevent a writer from returning to the allure of Prairie Lights, 15 S. Dubuque St.
Acclaimed poet and Writer’s Workshop graduate Rick Barot will read at Prairie Lights tonight at 7 p.m. He is eager to return to Iowa City, as this will be his 20 year anniversary since beginning his time at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. Barot will read from his most recent poetry collection, Chord (2015).
“[Chord] has a lot of political elements to do it. Issues with society, and war, and identity. It’s a different book from the others [I’ve written],” Barot said, “I think writers evolve over time, and what they write about evolves over time.”
Each of Barot’s collections has had their own theme. As an undergraduate, Barot started writing The Darker Fall (2002) which is more about looking at and discovering beauty, Barot said. Want, published six years later, is more about love and desire.
Barot’s work over the last 20 years has paralleled with both his personal life and with current events in the country.
“Poetry for me is really driven by inspiration—I can’t sit down and write poetry,” Barot said, “I have to be struck by an idea, or an image, or a sound that sparks a poem for me.”
Barot’s love of writing initially occurred in middle school, after receiving accolades from teachers as a result of his work. However, he didn’t pursue his gift until college, with the help of a mentor.
“I started out as a nonfiction writer,” Barot said, “I desperately wanted to be a reporter/literary reporter, someone like John McPhee”
Instead, the allure of poetry seduced Barot into changing genres. The emotions and the economy of poetry caught his attention, he said. Creative nonfiction is part of Barot’s writing, but poetry is the main focus.
In addition to writing, Barot teaches at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, WA. Barot went to a small, liberal arts college in Connecticut for undergraduate and PLU reminds him of it.
“It gives students education and identity as well-rounded as possible,” Barot said, “This is a school that really cares about its students as whole human beings. I admire the school and love the students.”
But Washington is only one of the many places Barot has lived and wrote. Barot was born in the Philippines and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. He went to school in both Connecticut and Iowa, and even used to work at the Daily Iowan for a couple of years.
“I think there are poets and writers who are very focused on regions of what they are from. I think my work is more of collage of different experiences of parts of the country I’ve lived in and have visited,” Barot said, “I think I consider myself as a West coast poet, even if my poetry doesn’t use the West coast theme.”
Despite being a West coast poet, Barot is excited to embrace an air of nostalgia by seeing friends, students, and colleagues back in the Midwest.
“Iowa City is such a town of people who care about the arts,” Barot said. “Reading to the enthusiastic and well informed is really a gift to the writer doing the reading. It’s nice to know the audience is on your side.”
READING
When: Tonight, 7 p.m.
Where: Prairie Lights, 15 S. Dubuque
Cost: Free