Lamont Poet Offers Inspiration, Advice

Pulitzer prize-winning Lamont Poet Vijay Seshadri shared poems from two of his collections, 3 Sections and The Long Meadow, with the Academy community last Wednesday night. In addition to reading his poetry, Seshadri detailed the inspiration for each of his selected pieces.

Senior Ellie Ward volunteered to introduce Seshadri after her poetry class analyzed his work. Ward appreciated his reading because she learned more about Seshadri’s inspirations, including English poet William Wordsworth and figures closer to home, like his father. “Everyone is inspired by those around them, but I’d only thought of the author in the context of his writing before hearing him speak,” Ward explained. Many students enjoyed the stories Seshadri shared that explained the meanings and motivations behind each of his poems, including where he got his ideas from and the process of publishing his collections.

Seshadri said that while the majority of his poems are devised from personal experience, he wrote his poem Light Verse as a requested prompt. “I was called up by the New York Times during September, and they asked me to write a poem about the end of daylight savings time,” Seshadri said.

Because his father immigrated to the United States from India in the 1950s, Seshadri wrote a number of poems that shed light on his unique and poetic viewpoint on immigration, which caught the attention of many of the people in attendance. “I liked how he talked about immigration in an artistic way, not politically,” English instructor Jane Cadwell said.

Throughout his presentation, Seshadri answered many students’ questions and highlighted the meaning of his poems in a greater depth. Lower Sarah Shepley had read and discussed several of his poems in English class, but she thought they were difficult to interpret. “Hearing him read the poems allowed me to understand the poems better,” she said.

Prep Elizabeth Williams thought his poetry reading was insightful; it underscored the inspirations for his poems and what characters or events symbolized his own life. “He had a very exquisite personality, and I liked how he was very conversational,” she said.

The Lamont Poet Committee invites two poets every school year to visit campus and share their works. English instructor Todd Hearon, who is teaching a senior poetry course this term, participated in the selection of Seshadri. “The committee chose Seshadri because of the quality of his poetry and the variety of style and voice it contributes to our range of other selections. That’s always a dominant aim,” Hearon said.

On the day following Seshadri’s reading, he hosted a question and answer period during department meetings. The previous night’s reading had sparked positive responses from the majority of students, and many of them attended this second session to connect with Seshadri on a more personal level. Students were able to ask about certain phrases used in the poem, why he chose to write about certain topics, how he decides on where to end his poem and many questions that would have been left hanging in the minds of students if not for the Q&A session.

At the start of the session, a student asked why Seshadri chose to use such complex words, explaining that while reading his poems in his class, the students didn’t understand much of his vocabulary. Seshadri, however, did not think that his diction was challenging. “When I was in school, I didn’t have friends. So I read a lot and wrote a lot, all the time.  I guess that’s why my word choice kind of comes naturally to me,” Seshadri said. “Also, poetry is ultimately about language, and the English language is an incredibly rich, complicated instrument, and I like to use its total range. I still think that some of the lines in my poem are paraphrasable and I think that is an important quality for my poems.”

Another question came from a teacher, who asked if Seshadri had any advice about poetry or non-fiction, to offer to young writers, and he broke down his response into two ideas. “First thing I would say is that a writer writes. In fact, most writers know how seductive it is to go around knowing that you’re a writer. Writing is really sitting down and putting words on the page and having the simple capacity to stick to that process, whether it’s fruitful or not,” Seshadri said. “The second thing is to read but read in a particular way; the tone. And try to publish. No matter how much of a beginner you think you are—show people your work,” he added, building upon his experience of discovering poetry writing while in college.

Overall, the community responded with great enthusiasm to Seshadri’s visit. The Lamont Poet program offers Exeter the opportunity for exposure to modern-day poets outside of the classroom. Besides the poet’s reading, the Q & A sessions provide, for many, more insight into the poet’s thinking and writing processes.  As Ward said, “The poet’s work resonates much deeper after learning more about details that they wouldn’t otherwise share with us.”