James Hearst: A Reading at Drake University

Length: 25.35 minutes

Hearst appears on a weekly Drake University program called “Poetry Corner” with moderator Dr. E.M. Mayo, Associate Professor of English. Mayo introduces Hearst as “a poet of the land” as well as a teacher at Iowa State Teacher’s College (UNI) and a “good farmer.” Mayo notes that Hearst’s colloquial speech, natural rhythm, and poems about everyday things evoke “talking with a friend” and seem specifically Iowan. Mayo describes Hearst’s work as “poetry of content” with ethical and social overtones” at a time when poetry was more concerned with form. Hearst reads the following poems divided into three categories:

• Farm Poems: “Vigilance,” “Meadow Lark,” “Farm Hand,” “Movement Towards Spring,” “Truth,” “The Question,” “See How the Wind,” and “Quiet Sunday.” 
• Just Poems: “Animal Tracks,” “Phrase, “The Shadow,” “The Waster,” and “Weed Solitude.” 
• Love Poems: “The Old Admirations,” “Homecoming,” “The Red Flower,” “See How the Wind,” “Surprise” “Autumn Love,” “Beggar,” “Scatter the Petals,” and “Love.” NOTE: Hearst writes of Mayo in the poem "Listen."

James Hearst: A Reading at Drake University