MSN111120-lowres

16 | November 11, 2020 | MALIBU SURFSIDE NEWS LIFE & ARTS
malibusurfsidenews.com
John Struloeff: Meet the third Malibu Poet Laureate
BARBARA BURKE
Staff Reporter
Pepperdine University
Professor John Struloeff was
appointed as the third Malibu
Poet Laureate by the Malibu
City Council on Oct. 12. The
director of the university’s
Creative Writing Program,
Struloeff is an associate professor
of creative writing and
English. His appointment
expires June 1, 2021.
Mayor Mikke Pierson
congratulated Struloeff and
discussed poetry’s unique
role in salving weary spirits
during challenging
times. “Poetry can serve as
a soothing, healing, understanding
voice of the community,”
Pierson said, adding
he commends the Poet
Laureate Committee and the
city’s first two poets laureate,
Ricardo Means Ybarra
and Ellen Reich, who, Pierson
stated, “have turned the
program into a valuable
educational and cultural enrichment
for Malibu.”
Malibu Surfside News
chatted with Struloeff about
his life, his distinguished career
and his plans for serving
Malibu as poet laureate.
“I grew up in northwestern
Oregon, near Fort Clatsop,
where Lewis and Clark
spent their (in)famous winter,”
he said. “Much of my
writing has been set in that
part of Oregon, but in my
recent years, my writing
has become historical and
biographical, set in other
parts of the world.”
An avid traveler, Struloeff
realizes that to write
about the world, one must
get to know the world.
“I have traveled internationally
on many occasions
to write and conduct research
for poetry and fiction
projects, trips to England,
Poland, Austria, Germany,
Prague, Bulgaria, Russia,
and Switzerland, among
other places, including
spending several weeks on
Leo Tolstoy’s estate near
Tula, Russia,” Struloeff
said. “I spent the 2017-18
academic year teaching in
Pepperdine’s Lausanne program
in Switzerland, where
I conducted extensive research
on Albert Einstein,
culminating in a book of
poems about the life of Einstein,
‘The Work of a Genius,’
which is scheduled for
release in February 2021.”
Stuloeff has been honored
with numerous literary
awards, including being
appointed as both a Stegner
Fellow (2005-2007) at
Stanford University and a
(National Endowment for
the Arts) NEA Literature
Fellow (2009). He has received
distinguished honors
worldwide, including
being the recipient of a
Sozopol Fiction Fellowship
from the Elizabeth
Kostova Foundation (Bulgaria),
and the Tennessee
Williams Scholarship from
the Sewanee Writers’ Conference.
Additionally, more
than 50 literary journals
and magazines have published
his works.
Struloeff’s first poetry
teacher and mentor was Ted
Kooser, the 13th Poet Laureate
of the United States,
serving 2004-06.
“He had a profound effect
on shaping my sense of what
poems were and how they
were crafted,” said Struloeff.
“My second mentor was Eavan
Boland, the internationally
renowned Irish poet who
directed the creative writing
program at Stanford University
for many years.”
Struloeff will host a series
of free monthly poetry
programs.
All programs will take
John Struloeff, above, says
his first poetry teacher and
mentor, Ted Kooser, the
U.S. Poet Laureate from
2004-06, “had a profound
effect on shaping my sense
of what poems were and
how they were crafted.”
SUBMITTED PHOTO
place virtually over Zoom
video conferencing and RS-
VPs are required. To make a
reservation or for more information,
go to malibuartsandculture.org/poetry.
ls rare gems engraving designed for you made with love make it yours your Malibu jeweler
silver platinum gold diamonds pearls rare gems engraving designed for you made with love make it yours your Malibu jeweler silver platinum gold diamonds pearls rare gems engraving designed for you made with love make it yours your Malibu jeweler silver platinum gold diamonds pear
What connec t s u s
Trancas Market
Fri-Tues, Noon-5
@albertina.malibu
albertina.com
Your Malibu
jeweler
info@albertina.com
310-457-8632
John Struloeff’s first published poem, “Knee-Deep in the Pacific,” is about his father, who
served in the 1st Marine Division during the Korean War. “He survived the war,” Struloeff
says, “but friends of his didn’t, and he brought that home with him. These wars carry on in
us children.”
Twenty years ago
my father described a picture
he’d taken in Korea,
the forests burning,
the crackling of gunfire
like branches popping in the wind.
He did not want to forget
the day so many friends had died.
But he had forgotten
the film, left it to burn
in the pocket of his uniform
in a fire meant to kill lice and disease.
Now he sees things he can’t describe,
no picture to show, or explain.
Thirty years after Korea,
he liked to split wood for days alone,
and he would try to answer
questions of a ten year-old son,
wanting to give
something I could hold onto
when he was gone.
Now I return this Christmas
from years away,
and he is old
and thinks he will take me
clamming once,
one thing he has never shown me.
KNEE-DEEP IN THE PACIFIC
He describes clams as big as
my forearm
as we drive onto the sand
and as we wade out into the ocean.
But my father has forgotten the lantern,
and the sun has just set,
the roiling water
calm for a moment, the sand
darkening like a blackened highway.
Our jackets flap in the wind,
our knees bend against
the drawing surf.
He purses his lips and shakes his head,
saying without words for
the hundredth time:
he has forgotten.
So when we can no longer see our truck
or our feet beneath us,
we still stand in the ocean.
A city of lights scatters
along the surf-break,
men, families, all waiting
for the surf to recede
so they can begin searching
this darkness
for life.