Poet's collection turns serious — about 'dying planet'

Knuckle-ball pitcher, boxer, cotton worker, seminarian, Milton scholar — take your pick. He's done it. And after writing "The Porcine Canticles" in the late 1970s, David Lee picked up another moniker — "Pig Poet of Paragonah."

Lee is a retired professor of English at southern Utah University in Cedar City, after 32 years, and Utah's first Poet Laureate. He served six years without any remuneration whatsoever. "I went to the state Legislature to plead for funds three times," Lee said by phone from his St. George home. "Once I got a standing ovation — but never any money."

Lee's extraordinary reputation is as expansive as his resume, but he just keeps creating poems, sometimes getting up in the middle of the night to write them down. "I think the words choose the people. Writing poetry is an addiction, and I'm stuck with it."

Now in his sixth decade, Lee just finished his 16th book — "So Quietly the Earth," a diverse collection of poems that celebrates the land and exhorts readers to protect it.

Lee called this book a departure from his best-known narrative poetry. "It's as much a diametrical, radical shift for me as Rod Stewart's new pop recordings are for him. I wanted to open a new chamber in my mind, and I had a cause. I could never be a Terry Tempest Williams. I love her, but I could never do what she does. She speaks to large audiences. I write quiet little poems."

There has been some criticism from people who remember his funny, narrative poems and don't find the David Lee they know in this book. "But I don't find a lot about the world that is funny right now."

What a lot of people remember is a David Lee who put a dramatic spin on a poem, a poet people understand, a guy who can fill a room with his personality, dialects and comic timing. He is also known for memorizing his own poems.

"I can't do that anymore," said Lee. "I used to know 50 poems by heart — but my memory and I have quarreled, and we're not on great speaking terms anymore."

Lee admits to "trying to bring poetry alive for an audience. I try to get to know the audience a little at the beginning, then I choose the poems for them. By nature, I'm shy, a bit of an introvert — but when I'm reading poems, I'm allowed to be an extrovert. Too many people today see poetry readings as cerebral exercises. The poet's job is to present the heart as well as the brain of a poem."

He applied the same principle to his college teaching. "Some academics are as dull as a cup of cold coffee. I've always tried to teach people." Lee could usually fill his classroom at SUU.