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Twenty years ago, Kendra Kopelke was teaching creative writing at the Waxter Center and marveling at the creative energy in her eighty- and ninety-year-old students, when it came to her: why not start a literary journal to give a creative voice to older writers? She thought it might last two years if she was successful.
She was successful, all right. Passager celebrated its 20th year of publication in 2010, publishing issue #50. And the labor of love is still going strong, with a Best of Passager anthology already in progress and a writer’s conference scheduled for June 17 & 18 at the University of Baltimore
The literary journal is co-edited by Kopelke and good friend Mary Azrael. It has changed a bit since its black-and-white beginnings, with a color cover now, but the editors still use a square format that gives the pages room for long lines of poetry. The 50th issue features the prizewinning poems and honorable mentions from their annual poetry contest, and an interview with the winner, Sharron Singleton, who at 72 has been writing for the past 17 years.
“I realize it doesn’t matter when you start, you’re going to get old anyway whether you write or not. So you might as well begin,” Singleton writes.
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For both Kopelke and Azrael, the satisfaction of publishing the magazine led them to feature several of their writers in books, where beautiful old voices can speak at length.
“I really want people throughout their lives to feel that they can be creative artists,” Kopelke said. “If they didn’t get a chance the first 25-50 years, and they want to, I want there to be a place where they can take themselves seriously.”
One of their early successes is Vermont poet Jean Connor, whose first book of poetry, A Cartography of Peace, was published by Passager Books when she was 85 years old.
“She had a really fulfilling career as a librarian, but the book took her out and got her doing new things,” Azrael said. Among those new things were having a poem selected by then-Poet Laureate Ted Kooser for his series An American Life in Poetry, interviews on public radio, and a book review in the Washington Post. Connor’s second book, A Hinge of Joy, was published by Passager Books when she was 92.
Their passion for older voices has led Kopelke and Azrael to publish a series of six books they call “Six over Sixty.” Four books in the series are already out. Each book is a compact, square volume with an eye-catching cover printed on smooth, high quality stock. The most recent, Perris, California, is by Norma Chapman, who just received an individual artist award from the Maryland State Arts Council.
The other books in the series are Everything Is True at Once, with cover art painted by the poet, Burt Galle; A Little Breast Music by Shirley J. Brewer; and Connor’s Hinge of Joy. Another book in trade-paperback format is Improvise in the Amen Corner, which contains drawings and poems by Baltimore poet Larnell Custis Butler. Butler draws using sticks dipped in ink instead of pens. To display the distinctive character of her work, Kopelke and Azrael even had a typeface designed to mimic Butler’s handwriting.
“The whole question of older people and imagination is utterly not talked about,” Kopelke said. “It’s when you are moving out of your house into a condo and your life becomes smaller in some ways, but it’s when the imagination goes on fire. There’s so little we understand the value of the imagination in one’s life. But if you don’t write about your life in your 70s and 80s in an artistic way, how are we ever going to learn how it feels to be human?”
When Kopelke and Azrael speculate about how far they can take their book series, they look as excited as kids opening presents. Seven over Seventy? Eight over Eighty?
All the way to Nine over Ninety? Why not?
For more information about the journal Passager and Passager Books, see:
http://www.ubalt.edu/passager/
Top photo: The Journal is co-edited by Kopelke (right) and good friend Mary Azrael (left).
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February 21, 2011 12:39 pm