Poetry Reading to Recall Work of Beloved English Teachers, Brewer and Pitkin

English professor Paul Crumbley teaches his students that poetry is “the art form that best communicates the triumphs and tribulations of the human spirit.”

If that’s the case — and who’s arguing? — then the poetry of two beloved English teachers paints a pretty complete picture of lives well lived.

Love, witticisms, love, birds, bees, sexual attraction — it’s all there in the words of Ken Brewer, Utah’s poet laureate from 2003 until his death in 2006, and Will Pitkin, a USU teacher of English. Readers at a memorial to Brewer and Pitkin, who died in 2013, will remind us all of the power of their words.

The Ken Brewer and Will Pitkin Memorial Reading on Thursday, Dec. 8, will offer readings of the two’s poems by their friends and colleagues. The event is hosted by Helicon West and begins at 7 p.m. at the Logan Library’s Bridger Room, 255 N. Main, Logan. Helicon West’s traditional open mic will follow. The event is free and open to the public.

Star Coulbrooke, Logan’s own poet laureate and director of USU’s Writing Center, said the event marks the 10-year anniversary of the first reading ever given at this long-running series of prose, poetry reading and open mic. Ironically, or not, the topic of that first reader was Brewer himself, who had died a few months earlier.

On Thursday, Brewer and Pitkin’s longtime friends and co-workers will read such favorite poems as Brewer’s “Why Dogs Stopped Flying,” “Curl” and “Flood,” as well as Pitkin’s “The Cranes Leave the Valley.”

Reading those poems will be Jerry Fuhriman, a nationally renowned fine artist based in Logan, USU’s Crumbley and Bill Strong, a former USU writing instructor who founded the Utah Writing Project at USU and directed it for 25 years. Strong is planning to read Brewer’s poem, “Oh, Careless Love,” about what Coulbrooke describes as “the divorce that fell apart.” Brewer, she explains, married the same woman, Roberta Stearman, twice.

That pretty much describes the life of Brewer, who Crumbley said wrote from his own experiences. “An underlying theme was the vicissitudes of love,” said Crumbley. Brewer “believed in the power of love and the power of friendship and the power of art to communicate that.”

Later, in the last year of his life, Brewer wrote “Whale Song” about the ravages of the disease that killed him, pancreatic cancer.

Emceeing the event will be Marina Hall, a lecturer in the English department, who was a reader at that 2006 event

Coulbrooke herself is on the program. She fondly remembers Brewer as her “mentor.”

Brewer was the first poet-critic-important person to ever get a look at the uncertain poetry of this just-divorced deli worker, said Coulbrooke. “He’s the reason I am where I am today.” He nudged her into teaching poetry and told her, she remembers, “’You’ve got a voice.’” Later they co-authored a book of poetry, “Logan Canyon Blend.”

Pitkin was better known as a composition teacher than a poet, said Crumbley. Still, his unique personality was reflected in his poetry writing, which he took up later in his life. Pitkin was direct, often caustic and extremely witty, said Crumbley. Pitkin may be best known in Cache Valley for the perhaps hundreds of letters to the editor that, according to his obituary, shone “a light wherever he saw thoughtlessness or hypocrisy or self-righteousness.”

Pitkin “was so amazing with language,” said Coulbrooke. “He’s fun and clever and interesting — and kind of naughty.” That’s one of the reasons that Helicon West maintains a “no censorship” policy at its regular open readings, she said.

“Language ought to be used,” she said. “And, boy, poets know how to use it.”

Contact: Star Coulbrooke, star.coulbrooke@usu.edu
Writer: Janelle Hyatt, Janelle.hyatt@usu.edu, 435-797-0289