Bruce E. Whitacre
Join the Journey
Enjoy this fascinating deep dive into a pivotal poem in Good Housekeeping, “Hunting and Gathering”. It explores the origins of that poem, and in many ways, the entire collection. Thank you Christal Cooper for this opportunity!
Listen to my interview on Nebraska Public Media’s Friday Live, September 12, 2024
Kearney native and poet Bruce whitacre returns Home to read from latest work
Kearney Daily Hub, September 5, 2024
KEARNEY — When Bruce E. Whitacre worked as the executive director of an arts organization called Theatre Forward, he struck up a friendship with actor Richard Thomas.
The nonprofit was an allegiance of regional theaters in New York and Thomas, who gained fame as John-Boy in the 1970s TV series, “The Waltons,” served as the honorary chairmen.
“He was there for about 10 years,” Whitacre said. “We worked a lot together and became good friends. He is, of course, a huge theater fan and a very eloquent spokesperson for theater.”
Whitacre, a former Kearney resident who now lives in New York City, retired four years ago from his role with Theater Forward. The poet began to talk to Thomas about working together on an audio book.
“At the time, he was doing a two-year tour with the Broadway production of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ which closed in June,” Whitacre said. “It was the most successful tour of a play, ever. We were kind of waiting for that to end. It turned out that Richard is in ‘Our Town’ on Broadway this fall.”
Whitacre, who has taken up poetry, published “The Elk in the Glade: The World of Pioneer and Painter Jennie Hicks” in 2022 and presented poems from that book a year ago during a
reading tour of Nebraska. The poet will return to his hometown with a new collection, “Good Housekeeping,” published in April by Poets Wear Prada. He plans to present a workshop at noon, “Structuring the Memoir, a Theatrical Perspective,” and free reading at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 10 at Kearney Public Library.
Registration for the workshop is $10. Please register in advance.
Whitacre’s publisher for “The Elk in the Glade,” Crown Rock Media, will release an audio book of that collection with Thomas as the narrator.
“He’s such a fabulous person,” Whitacre said of Thomas. “He’s an incredible leader and he’s so smart and so generous. I’m really, really grateful that he was able to spend the time on this project.”
To fund the audio book, Whitacre had to raise enough money for the production.
“I reached out to friends,” he said. “A lot of people who funded it had seen Richard on tour. He has a definite positive impact on the work he does. That’s one of the reasons I’m very grateful that he did it. I thought he was the perfect voice for this. It’s written from my point of view, an older great grandchild remembering his life in Nebraska — and remembering the adults in his life and their stories of childhood.”
Whitacre found himself getting emotional while listening to Thomas narrate his poetry.
“He has the perfect persona for this, as an actor,” Whitacre said. “He reads itso intelligently. Listening to him really brought back all those memories for me. There was such nice distancing when Richard read the poems so I could kind of enter into them again rom a different perspective. I hope that people who have read ‘The Elk in the Glade’ will enjoying listening to it. It is a different experience.”
Whitacre felt that Thomas brings a deepness and richness to the text.
“Just to hear someone who speaks so well, dealing with this language, deepened the experience,” he said. “I don’t think there were character discoveries or anything like that, but just the way his voice and persona works, it makes it come across with a different level of experience.”
Recently, Whitacre won the 2023 Nebraska Poetry Society Open Poetry Contest with a poem he wrote called “Murder, Mayhem and Me.”
“I’ll be reading that poem at these readings,” he said. “It all centers on Nebraska and stories like that. I’ve just been doing the ‘poet thing,’ sending out my poetry and getting 90 percent rejections. It’s really just a numbers game. It’s important to me that the poem got that recognition in Nebraska. I’m looking forward to sharing it with people.”
In April, Whitacre participated in a poem-a-day project where he wrote a new piece of poetry each day.
“It was shocking to me how much of Nebraska kept coming into my poems,” he said. “Memories of George’s Grocery Store or milking cows with my uncle or all of these things I remember, now many, many years ago — it’s a very key part of my practice, keeping Nebraska alive. The support I’ve received from the culture folks — the bookstores, the libraries, the historic centers and the readers — its so gratifying. Having not been in Nebraska for any working level for 50 years, to come back and find all of these cultural institutions thriving, it’s so rewarding.”
https://kearneyhub.com/life-entertainment/local/kearney-native-and-poet-bruce-whitacre-returns-home-to-read-from-latest-work/article_20ef9052-6ade-11ef-8636-3f6... 5/6
I recently participated in this fascinating conversation about identity, “You don’t tell me who I am”, with host Vijay R. Nathan and fellow poet, Jacob R. Moses. Enjoy!
Celebrating a tour of the Hamptons in July 2024 with Geer Austin, Lucas Hunt, Tyler Allen Penny and Leah Umansky, as reported by The East Hampton Star. Enjoy!
Thanks to all the poets who read at the launch of Good Housekeeping May 9 at Pineider New York: Patricia Carragon, Susana H. Case, Jada Gordon, Lynn McGee, Regina Taylor, Jason Schneiderman, and Megha Sood!
Find my poem at the Kew Gardens Union Turnpike F stop
So pleased to be part of this amazing project. My poem “Garuda in Forest Park” was inspired by an event very near this stop and captures the magic of our urban environment. Enjoy the poem, and click on other stations to see who else, or look up the wonderful other poets included. Thank you, Queensbound!
