Life is my art; writing is an afterthought
By Fay Hart

Lecture
How to make love to a poem
Tues, Oct 2, 6:30–8pm,
followed by a pilgrimage to La Cucaracha
Sala Quetzal
Biblioteca Pública
Insurgentes 25

Writer residencies and retreats by the hundreds are all over the world, with more cropping up all the time. Most are associated with a university and require the writer to contribute to campus life. Or they are artists’ communities, such as the prestigious Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, which exist “to nurture the creative process by providing an opportunity for artists to work in a supportive environment.” A comprehensive list of current residencies in the US and abroad is posted at artistcommunities.org complete with criteria and application deadlines. 

Photo by Joseph Hayes

What sets the Kerouac residency in Orlando apart is that the writer gets to live alone in the house and work in the actual room where Kerouac wrote. It’s run exclusively by volunteers and is a true labor of love.

Photo by Fred Dewitt

I came to the Kerouac writing residency the way I come to most things in my life, by chance. The idea of going somewhere to write, of separating my life from my art had never occurred to me. I grew up in an Irish working-class family, where my introduction to the arts was not a highbrow affair. My father wove poetry and music through our lives with not much distinction from shining our shoes for mass on Sunday or putting up storm windows in winter. When I showed a marked literary talent as a youngster, my Dad told me that all the Irish are poets, some just don’t take it up. I didn’t think to ask him how I could go about taking it up. As a teenager I wrote bad poetry, which I tried to turn into songs.

In the seventies, as a young punk I went to London and got a job writing press releases for an indie label, where I met my musician husband. Taking on marriage and motherhood at a tender age, writing continued to be something I fit in between chores. I’d tuck the kids in at night then hightail it to a reading or spoken word gig. Retreats, workshops, writers’ colonies were a world away from anything I understood. It’s only recently I found a mentor who shed light on the craft of making poems and helped me hone my talent.

Leaving London without much of a game plan, I bought a Greyhound Ameripass and hit the road. In St. Louis I sat next to a young Scottish kid reading a copy of Desolation Angels. He said he had the address of Kerouac’s house in Orlando and why don’t we go down there and drink a beer on the lawn? The prospect of going all the way to Orlando to drink a beer didn’t appeal to me, but I was interested in finding out more about Kerouac’s Orlando connection.

I did an internet search and learned about the residency. That sounded appealing—three months in the house where Kerouac wrote Dharma Bums and eight hundred bucks for groceries. I sent off an application with ten pages from the novel I’d just started. I asked for the March–May residency, my three favorite months in Florida. I was stunned when a few months later a guy from the project rang to say I’d got it. It was pretty perfect. A beautiful blonde heiress picked me up from the bus station, gave me a quick tour of the neighbourhood then took me to 1418 Clouser Avenue. She gave me the grocery money and keys to the house then left me to get on with it.

It was remarkably freeing to not have to worry about bills or anything. Really, for the first time in my life all I had to do was write. It was pretty heady. I didn’t, as I’d planned, get right to work and finish my novel. For me the space and freedom allowed me to get the measure of myself as a writer and as a woman. The unexpected outcome of my residency was that I decided I didn’t want to be a writer. 

I concluded that my life is my art and I like it that way. I felt a bit like Cody in Big Sur, “becoming a writer holds no interest for him because life is so holy for him there’s no 

need to do anything but live it, writing’s just an afterthought or a scratch anyway at the surface.” Well, we’ll see.

Fay Hart is a poet and life coach now living in San Miguel. To contact her regarding poetry workshops, etc., gonegrrl@gmail.com ; for enquiries about her coaching practice, faycoach@gmail.com.