THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 2, 1995 TAG: 9502020021
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Profile
SOURCE: BY TERESA ANNAS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 174 lines
ON A BRIGHT, BITTER morning in late January, Robert P. Arthur - poet and tough guy - climbs into his big white van and heads north from his home in Virginia Beach.
His destination is the Eastern Shore, a place that has lured him since childhood.
He drew from the Shore in great measure while writing ``Hymn to the Chesapeake'' (1994, Road Publishers), possibly the longest poem ever written about the Chesapeake Bay.
The book practically mythologizes the Shore. But this is no ode built on remote remembrances.
Arthur, 51, goes there often. Though born and raised in Norfolk, he also lived on the Shore and visited there regularly as a child. And now, with his wife Gray and five kids of his own, Arthur has his own cottage on tiny Silver Beach.
``I have a hundred relatives there,'' said the bearded, bear-sized writer.
Hampton Roads poetry fans can hear Arthur read from his book at noon Saturday at Norfolk's Kirn Library. Arthur also writes novels, short stories, plays and theater reviews, and teaches English and creative writing at Tidewater Community College.
In many ways, his January day trip parallels the journey of his book. He will head north along the Shore, as does the book. And he will take side trips comparable to the passages he calls his ``cross currents'' - atmospheric stanzas that flow across time lines.
His book includes personal memories as well as general histories - tales of pillaging Blackbeard and of Jefferson Davis locked up at Fort Monroe.
All the rest, he said, ``is sense of place.''
He squeezed Bill's shark until its
guts came busting out
Then smacked my shark against the
boat to break its back
Arthur's family on both sides came from the Eastern Shore. His father's father died at age 29, he said, leaving six sons to handle his sizeable estate.
``They were all just meaner than hell,'' said the writer. ``My Uncle Bill (Turlington) is still a legend on the Eastern Shore.''
In Fair Oaks, a hamlet near Melfa, the family had a track for training trotters, the horses used in harness racing. The track was ``where I hung out as a child,'' he said.
The uncles ran the family enterprise. ``And they were very, very hard. As a child, I was afraid to say a word,'' said Arthur, a 290-pound athlete with two black belts in tae kwon do.
``It wasn't like you could appeal to the authorities. They were the authority.''
Even the women in his clan were ``big and tough,'' he said. ``And the men were all violent.''
Arthur and his three brothers were all superior athletes. He was Athlete of the Year at Granby High School in football and basketball.
He earned a football scholarship to the University of Richmond, where he eventually earned a master's in English. But in his freshman year he broke his neck.
The injury took him out of sports, and stole his dream to play professionally. He is still physically very active - weight lifting, white-water canoeing.
He believes the early injury triggered the onset of epilepsy, which runs in his family.
``So I spent my youth in useless preparation for a sports career.'' After the injury, however, he began writing.
He dislikes the popular idea that poets are delicate, and not of this world, a profile far from him. Or that poetry is high-flown text requiring rare knowledge of its readers.
``I hate precious poetry.''
He rolls up at his close friend Dave Poyer's house on a tributary in Machipongo that runs to the Chesapeake. The successful Naval novelist was getting his pants hemmed in preparation for a writers-in-residence gig he and his novelist wife Lenore Hart had accepted.
Arthur and Poyer have young daughters - Eudora and Naia - who are also pals. Arthur was returning Naia's doll, which she left at his house the last time she visited.
Poyer gave Arthur a 24-foot sailboat to be used for a sailing club he started at TCC. He also gave the poet a review quote for the back of his book: ``The most evocative writing about the Chesapeake since `Beautiful Swimmers.' ''
Arthur's poem, Poyer said, ``is deeply rooted in the culture. More deeply rooted than I shall ever be.
``What else can I say about Bob? Good sailor. He's dependable in heavy seas, which you can't say about everybody.''
At The Trawler Restaurant, Judy Beck, co-owner with her husband Carl, gave Arthur a table by a window, and took her seat beside him.
The Becks have presented dinner theater for 10 years in this setting. In recent months, Beck has gotten caught up in the idea of translating Arthur's poem into a multimedia theater piece, complete with music and dancing.
She urged Arthur to rewrite the poem, fleshing out characters that are merely implied in ``Hymn.''
``I really want to know who he is,'' said Beck, a flamboyant, expressive woman who worked in New York theater before moving to the Shore.
At lunch, Beck catches fire about the project, which could be on the boards as soon as August. ``The magic of music! The magic of poetry!
``Not realism,'' she stressed. ``Not like a man eating and having a conversation. Something more stream-of-consciousness.''
Arthur said he was working toward a true balance among the theatrical elements.
``I want them all coalescing,'' he told Beck. ``I don't think it's ever been done the way I want to do it.''
Along the road leading to Silver Beach, Arthur points to landmarks.
``See here,'' he said of a bend in the road. ``I almost died here.'' He and a brother were leaning out of their uncle's car with the back door open. They fell out, the door slammed shut, and the uncle drove nearly a mile before he missed the boys, Arthur said.
Nearby, he spies a pier where he used to fish, a peacock farm and a weathered old motel and restaurant that have since closed.
The little orange sloop in Arthur's ``Hymn'' is kept in the yard by Arthur's cottage - deep woods on one side, the mighty Chesapeake facing the other.
A few doors down, he passes the burnt remains of one of his family's cottages. The place had been hit three times by lightning; the last bolt set the place afire.
``Some of the greatest storms are on the Eastern Shore. Lightning will roll right across the water - and into your house.''
It just amazes me he has put it all together, and knows all this,'' said Elizabeth Ann Arthur, the writer's mother. After 45 years in Virginia Beach, she recently moved back to Onancock, where she grew up.
She gave him a Coke and Pepperidge Farm cookies, and sat down to talk to her boy.
Arthur was ``a quiet little boy. And when we went to his grandmother's (in Melfa), he was interested in listening, I guess,'' she said.
``Let's face it,'' the son interjected. ``When I was a kid, I was terrified.''
His mother nodded. ``You don't talk so much around them,'' meaning the uncles. ``They're all so dynamic. And not in such a nice way.''
So how did Arthur turn into a poet?
``Well, I think I'm a sensitive person,'' she said. ``I used to read about a book a day. And I brought them up reading.''
Most of the family members scattered throughout the Shore have purchased a copy of Arthur's book, she said. ``But I don't believe there's a soul who would appreciate it.''
The writer grinned. ``They would appreciate it if I walked into a pasture and punched out a cow.'' ILLUSTRATION: BETH BERGMAN/Staff
Robert P. Arthur drew from the Eastern Shore in writing "Hymn to the
Chesapeake."
IN PERSON
ROBERT P. ARTHUR WILL GIVE A POETRY READING AND TALK AT KIRN LIBRARY
SATURDAY AT NOON. DETAILS ON E5.
POETRY READING
What: A reading and talk by Virginia Beach poet Robert P. Arthur,
author of ``Hymn to the Chesapeake.'' Sponsored by Friends of the
Norfolk Public Library.
Where: Kirn Library, 301 E. City Hall Ave., Norfolk
When: Saturday, noon to 2 p.m.
How much: $12.50 to $15, includes lunch
Call: 627-2058; deadline for reservations is 3 p.m. Friday
FIRST LINES OF ``HYMN TO THE CHESAPEAKE''
In the morning mist of the Choptank
down the scuttling sea
to the Chesapeake and its tunnelling waves
to the slam dance of sea and stars
in the stick of board and tar
the groan of hawser
yowl of jib and spar
in the long bay wind
I sail in my orange boat and the day begins
KEYWORDS: POET INTERVIEW by CNB