James R. Scrimgeour

 

JAMES R. SCRIMGEOUR ( 1938 - ) is Professor Emeritus of English at Western Connecticut State University, where he taught from 1979 - 2011. He has served as Poet Laureate of New Milford, Conn., edited the Connecticut Review, published ten books of poetry, been nominated for four Pushcart Prizes and given over 250 readings of his work. He has conducted poetry workshops in New Milford and in Rockport, Massachusetts, where he and his wife Chrissy have lived at the ocean for many summers. “There is something about the eternal conflict between wave and rock that draws us back to the sea.”

James Scrimgeour likes to be outside - and write outside en plein air. He has poems about Rockport in The Route (1996), We Are What We Have Loved (2001), Brushstrokes of the Millenium (2005) and On Thatcher Island (2008) is all about a small island with two lighthouses one mile off the Rockport coast. Balloons Over Stockholm (2005) contains poems written while walking around in that city.

James’ enthusiasm for writing in the open air led him to write about his many walks in Dogtown, a location not far from his summer home in Rockport. His exuberance for the outdoors and his goal of writing a poem every week lie at the heart of Voices of Dogtown: Poems Arising Out of a Ghost Town Landscape. His research into the art and literature of Dogtown and the time he spent exploring Dogtown are the driving forces behind the book’s poems. In 2019, the Massachusetts Center for the Book named Voices of Dogtown a Must Read, one of the state’s best fifteen poetry books of the year.

The three poems from that book on this site represent two important aspects of Dogtown - its many erratic boulders and the way it can be experienced as a scavenger hunt. “Dolphin’s Jaw” is about the discovery, while trying to locate Whale’s Jaw, of Dolphin’s Jaw, a more “modest” boulder. In naming it, Scrimgeour creates a personal bond with Dolphin’s Jaw, and by extension, to all of Dogtown. “Finally Found” is prompted by the joy of a successful Dogtown search, in this case for Whale’s Jaw, the most famous of Dogtown’s erratic boulders. The poem climaxes with James invoking the spirit of Gloucester epic poet Charles Olson while posing for a photograph that will commemorate the moment. “Whale’s Jaw, 2012” briefly describes its disappointing current state: the jaw fallen from a careless fire, its dramatic visual impact diminished. As a group, these three poems embody the art of writing poetry en plein air and illustrate how doing that fosters a relationship between poet and place.

 

FINALLY FOUND Lo and behold! The long sought after Whale’s Jaw-- but different from the book--this large lump of rock decorated with spray-painted graffiti now serves as a public square in the wilderness where the weary traveler can rest and watch “the parade of joggers, hikers, dogs and their walkers, berry-pickers, [and] lovers” (Pope, p.74) that is likely to wander by-- see the tourist trampled grass all around, and the lower jaw spilt off from the upper, the dark coffin shape lying in shadow on the ground-- the result of some camper’s fire, they say, but I wonder--did Olson’s father really weaken it . . . yet it remains a huge mournful mammal-- rising grey out of woven green sea--suspended in time as the line of sunlight so slowly climbs and descends its granite flanks-- in the photo--I am not that young or springy, but I am well-sneakered and standing atop the head where a spout might be-- thinking of Olson,                             of human contrast to the rock--just existing, just living in or off nature is not enough, he says, he wants new creation--new additions to the scene . . . and looking down on well-trodden grass, no ocean in sight, I admit he’s got a point, but to fix things, to remember, to restore, to bring the dead back to life is O.K. too, I add, while looking over a moraine of boulders, some red cedar trees, and my son with a camera pointed at me.