Winter 2014 A MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT Dear Members and Friends of the Robinson Jeffers Tor House Foundation, We remain grateful for your outstanding assistance and support by which we continue the legacy of the Poet and attend to the care and upkeep of Tor House. Maintaining a near 100 year old property hard by the sea is an interesting challenge. Sadly, in 2014 we lost two dedicated servants: Jeffers Scholar, Trustee and President Emeritus Alex Vardamis and docent Sabina DeWit. The memory of their exemplary service encourages us all. Our two major public events, the Garden Party and Fall Festival, were very well attended. The Fall Festival Sunset Celebration and the forums enjoyed record attendance. At both these events we hosted several “first time” visitors to Tor House – many from the Central Coast. Our continuing challenge is making folks aware of Jeffers and of Tor House. Although we have a website and are on Facebook, YOU are our best advertisement. Take time to share your passion for Jeffers and Tor House with your circle of friends. Encourage your friends to visit – the poetry and the place will do the rest. MUSIC! Thanks to a generous gift from Paula Karman we will finally be able to renovate and tune Una’s 1905 Steinway. We expect this classic instrument to play “...as good as new – or better.” Work includes: new strings, felts, tuning pins, hammers, etc. We hope to complete this project by Christmas and find a way to showcase the piano at future Tor House events. At the least, we can play through open windows at Garden Party. On the horizon we are considering a project to renovate the four period melodeons. As is our custom at this time of year we continue to urge your needed financial support. Just like your household expenses, our routine operating expenses continue to increase. Despite this financial pressure we have not raised Foundation membership dues or increased tour prices. However, to stay on budget we NEED everyone to maintain their membership and, if possible, extend their gifts as you are able. Consider increasing your level of membership, gifting a membership, or gifting a few dollars this time of year or with your membership renewal. As mentioned above, maintaining “this old house” is a challenge. When we do receive special gifts we can do special projects. The renovation of the piano is a prime example. Save the 2015 dates: Garden Party May 3; Fall Festival Oct. 4. The theme will be “Jeffers and War.” Holiday Greetings from myself and our Administrative Assistant, Jonni. Your questions, comments and VISITS are always welcome. Vince Huth, President -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -Yes, I would like to support the work of the Robinson Jeffers Tor House Foundation. Please find enclosed my taxdeductible contribution of _______________________________________________. My gift is in honor of [optional] __________________________________________. Name:_______________________________________________________________________________________ Address:_____________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ E-mail address: ______________________________

Thanks to generous support, one of the many treasures of Tor House is in-line for restoration.

The Tor House Steinway Grand Piano by Elliot Ruchowitz-Roberts, Tor House Vice-President In How Buildings Learn, What Happens After They’re Built, Stewart Brand writes: “…Tor House is a poemlike masterpiece. It may express more direct intelligence per square inch than any other house in America.” Moreover, it has not been pushed around by what Brand calls “three irresistible forces—technology, money, and fashion.” Almost all of the “stuff” of Tor House, that is, its furnishings, is original to the house. The 1905 Steinway piano that Una brought to Tor House from her first marriage is one of the original furnishings. Now that it is being restored by Russell Brown, with careful attention to keep its exterior as is while restoring its exceptional musical qualities, we are gaining a greater understanding of the way the piano contributed to the “direct intelligence” of Tor House. Una Jeffers was not the only person to play the Steinway. The Jeffers’s friends Noél Sullivan and photographer Ansel Adams also played, as did Dieter Honscheid, husband of granddaughter Una; as well as pianist Lester Donahue (1892-1964), composer Samuel Barber (1910-1981), composer and librettist Gian Carlo Menotti (1911-2007), and composer George Gershwin (1898-1937). According to Paula Karman, Una Jeffers wrote, in a letter to Melba Berry Bennett in January 1944, that Steinway tuner Benjamin Keith had visited Tor House. Keith traveled with Russian composer, pianist and conductor Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) for ten years as his personal technician. As Paula and Jim Karman complete Volume III of The Collected Letters of Robinson Jeffers with the Selected Letters of Una Jeffers, perhaps more information will come to light which will further enhance our appreciation of what makes Tor House “a poem-like masterpiece.” A Few Words by Russell Brown The vintage Steinway O grand piano sat in the Tor House living room, noble and quiet. Lifting its lid, I was immediately transported back to a hotel lobby in the Yucatan. It was there in the humid rainforest where I first saw such rusty piano strings. Now, as I peered into the Tor House Steinway, I was looking at the rusty results of one hundred years of salty ocean breezes. This beautiful piano which had given and yielded so many notes to so many people now housed corroded strings, tired worn-out hammers and moving parts that had moved up and down, back and forth millions of times. Still, its Steinway voice spoke clearly, “See how wonderful I am now, but give me the chance to show you how I was in my full glory.” Pianos do speak. In fact, when we piano technicians work on the tone of a piano, we call it “voicing” the instrument. Indeed, in every aspect of restoring a piano, from restringing to installing and regulating new action parts, the piano technician is always asking, “How will this step improve the voice of the piano? How will gluing this little piece of felt affect the way this piano speaks? How will it allow the piano to be sensitive to the pianist’s fingers and respond with the requested whispered caress or thunderous finale?” Pianos do speak. When playing the Tor House Steinway in its present condition, it’s very easy to hear the piano asking to be returned to its full capabilities. As a piano technician trained in the Steinway factory and having lived and breathed Steinways for over thirty five years, it is thrilling to take this piano, give it new strings, a new action, and let it sing once again with an incredibly beautiful voice. This particular Steinway represents the best era in American piano manufacturing and has played such a unique role in American history at the Tor House. It is an honor to breathe new life into it and to honor the Jeffers family in this way.

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By The Window by Howard Brunn

Jeffers Took the stars One by one Then by the Hand full, Threw them Beyond the sky Into the universe. Condor, Hawk, Stone, The great sea below And his promise to Una Fulfilled. His grief and His mortal life Complete In their Bed By the window.

Four Poems by Laura Christopher Newmark The Otherworldly Sea Between a distant fog bank and the slope of village trees, in summer twilight softly glows the pale gray, gossamer sea. Sea Colors Storm clouds in the western sky reflect late-afternoon sunlight that scatters on the celadon sea flickers of ornamental cream. Spring Rain As spring rain falls, soft light gleams from the satin surfaces of leaves. Color Composition, Carmel River Beach Along the curve of Carmel Bay blue-green waters wash the dune and, studding spits of river sand, white gulls emboss the dark lagoon. The Glinting Sea a collection of Ms. Newmark’s poetry, illustrated by members of the Carmel Art Association, is available for purchase at Carmel’s Pilgrims Way Books and at River House Books.

*********** NEWS FROM THE ROBINSON JEFFERS ASSOCIATION The RJA, the university-based organization devoted to Jeffers, will hold its 21st Annual Conference on February 21-23, 2015 at The Carmel Woman’s Club, Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA. The Conference Topic will be “Humanizing Jeffers: Father, Son, Neighbor, Friend, Lover.” The RJA website notes that Jeffers detractors perhaps misinterpret his concept of “Inhumanism” as an “aloof, superior-seeming stance, intentionally distanced from his time and culture” and note his “‘cold’ tone…[and] his perverse-seeming fascination with rocks and trees when men, women, and children were suffering from economic crisis and catastrophic war.” However the Jeffers “who emerges from the recently published Collected Letters appeared to be a passionate, considerate, loving man, one responsive to major events in the world as well as those in his own backyard, a fallible and deeply human man with both a sense of humility and a sense of humor.” Relevant Papers are welcome. Proposals for presentations, not to exceed twenty minutes, should be 250-500 words and e-mailed by 15 December 2014 to incoming RJA Executive Director, Dale Stieber, at [email protected]. For further information on the RJA and/or the conference see http://www.robinsonjeffersassociation.org/. 3

NEW AND RENEWED MEMBERSHIPS (September 2014 - November 2014) LIFETIME MEMBERSHIP ($1000 for Individual or Couple) Charles W. Downer, in Memory of Maggie Downer Jim Frank PATRON MEMBERS ($250 for Individual or Couple) Gere & Laura DiZerega SPONSOR MEMBERS ($100 for Individual or Couple) John & June Armstrong Brian Cronwall Eric Bolt/Georgia Hughes Ingrid Deiwiks Leland & Ollie Collins John & Jeani Ferrari MEMBERS Bob & Ann Allen James Armstrong Della J. Bossart Diane Bower C. Boyer P. Kay Burbidge Julianne Burton-Carvajal Patricia B. Childs Peter Clark Alma D'Aleo Mike Dillon Dale Ditsler Diana Dunn William & Barbara Flanagan Cynthia Folkmann Cathleen Gable Regina Godfrey Jeffery Gray Julius & Peggy Guccione

Mary Heider Belinda Holliday Jerry Huling Eric & Alison Jager Lindsay & Myoung Jeffers Malia Mac Killop Ingrid Lacis Allen Lee John & Ann Lonstein James & Cristine Maguire Dominick & Evelyn Maio Christie Maxwell Michael McClintock Lisa Meckel Esther Medina Frank Olson M. Pacey John Petraglia James Phillips

Bruce Grant/Paula DeAnda Jean O’Brien Robert & Diane Reid John Poet/Anna Ramirez S Seymour Susan Shillinglaw A. Shimoda Ray & Amy Sims Linda Smith Richard Sullivan Alec Sutherland Frank Takacs/Amy Essick Terry Thompson Victoria Torcolini Denis & Jo Van Dam Peggy Van Patten Bradley J. Vogel Margaret Wanda Ingrid Wekerle Mary A. Whitworth Barbara Wilkes Lynn Yaghoubian

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Fall Festival Poetry Walk, October 5, 2014

A warm Indian Summer Day Carmel Beach

Poetry What better? 4

CONTRIBUTIONS (September – November 2014)

Contribution from the Bennett Family Foundation - $20,000 Contribution $9,000 Paula Karman, for Restoration of the Tor House Steinway Piano Contribution - $2,500 Vince Huth, in Memory of Ripple Huth Contributions - $100 to $499 Barbara Babcock, in memory of Alex Vardamis Edwin/Fumiko Cranston, in memory of Alex Vardamis Ollie Collins, in memory of Alex Vardamis Gere Dizerega Carol Courtney, in memory of Kyuja Kafka Sean Flavin, in memory of Alex Vardamis Edwin/Fumiko Cranston, in memory of Kyuja Kafka May Waldroup, in memory of Alex Vardamis Additional Contributions – to $100 Mary Aldinger, in Memory of Sabina DeWit Diane Campbell Ollie Collins, in memory of Sabina DeWit Mary Heider Eric & Alison Jager Ingrid Lacis Dominick & Evelyn Maio Esther Medina

David Ohanesian/Susan Krivin Frank Olson Marina Romani, in memory of Alex Vardamis Lynn Stralem Taelen & Charlotte Thomas, in memory of Alex Vardamis Peggy Van Patten Renate Wunsch, in memory Alex Vardamis & Tom Van Saun Lynn Yaghoubian

Matching Fund Gift: The Sony Corporation [Please note: listings of contributors and new and renewed memberships reflect only those contributions and memberships received since the last issue of the Newsletter. Generally, the Spring Issue lists donations received during December, January, and February. There are no listings in the Summer Issue because of space constraints (Poetry Contest Prize winners are published in the Summer Issue). The Fall Issue contains donations received between March and August of any given year.]

In Memoriam A.V. by Edwin Cranston After long absence we came back again To see if the house and tower were still there. They were. The gate was locked. We looked. Despair Turned to amazement, gratitude, and then The full return of power beyond our ken. Poems filled the house; the very air In stillness sang. A hidden inner stair Wound through the tower past a poet’s den. And always a new friend was at our side, A man who welcomed travelers that came From far with hope, naught else, to bring Old passion to where wave and bird-cry sing… This man so newly met became our guide – This man, true guardian of an ancient flame. 14/10.2 5

The Robinson Jeffers Tor House 2015 Prize for Poetry The annual Tor House Prize for Poetry is a living memorial to American poet Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962) $1,000 for an original, unpublished poem not to exceed three pages in length. $200 for Honorable Mention. Final Judge: Marilyn Chin Open to well-crafted poetry in all styles, ranging from experimental work to traditional forms, including short narrative poems. Each poem should be typed on 8 1/2" by 11" paper, and no longer than three pages. On a cover sheet only, include: name, mailing address, telephone number and email; titles of poems; bio optional. Multiple and simultaneous submissions welcome. There is a reading fee of $10 for the first three poems; $15 for up to six poems; and $2.50 for each additional poem. Checks and money orders should be made out to Tor House Foundation.

Postmark deadline for submissions: March 14, 2014 The Prize winner will be announced by May 15. Include an SASE for announcement of the Prize winner. Poems will not be returned. For more information, visit our web site or contact us by email. Mail poems, check or money order, and SASE to: Poetry Prize Coordinator, Tor House Foundation Box 223240, Carmel, CA 93922 The Tor House 2014 Reading and Performance Series will include: a reading by the 2014 Prize for Poetry Award Winner Rob Carney a poetry writing workshop at Tor House by Patrice Vecchione a reading of Jeffers poetry and a moonlight walk at Point Sur Lighthouse a poetry writing workshop at Point Sur Lighthouse by Elliot Ruchowitz-Roberts. Details of schedule will soon be available at the Tor House website (www.tor.house.org). Members, contributors, and friends who provide an e-mail address will receive advance notification of these events (to add you name to the list, contact your editor at [email protected].) ************ Jeffers On the Road: During the weekend of October 24-26, 2014, the Swarthmore [Pennsylvania] College Drama Board presented, at Scott Amphitheatre, an outdoor production of Jeffers’ Medea directed by Joshua Wolfsun, Class of 2016. Of Jeffers’ free adaptation of the original Euripides play, the director says: “This desire to destroy pain and seek vengeance drives nations to war, but also moves each of us to choices. Medea is not a nation, but a human person, who kills her children not in blind passion, but consciously, intentionally. The play asks us about violence, hatred, and war, but it also asks us an even more disturbing and important question: How different are we from Medea? When we are abandoned and betrayed by the people who should love us, when we are pushed to the edge of what we can endure, when we find ourselves standing alone against the world, what choices do we make?” The production was well received. Joshua Wolfsun is the grandson of Tor House President Emeritus, Alex Vardamis. Please note: The editor of this Newsletter invites announcements of relevant publications and of Jeffers related events. Poetry and brief essays on Jeffers, Carmel and the Coast are also most welcome for publication as space is available. Mail to the office, Attn: Newsletter Editor, or email to [email protected]. 6

FOOTPRINTS The Foundation notes with sorrow the passing of four friends of Tor House. Sabina Dewit, of Carmel, for many years a Flower Docent, was one of those volunteers who, week-in, week-out, fill the rooms of Tor House with the beauty of fresh flowers. When the garden blooms proved insufficient for her creative and personalized arrangements, Ms. Dewit donated the flowers with which she worked. A true artist, she is remembered for her cheerfulness as well as for her creativity and generosity. Sabina Dewit died on August 24, 2014. Tom Van Saun, of Medford, Oregon, was a longtime enthusiastic, well-informed and loyal Tor House Docent, and a most generous donor. Even after he moved far away from Carmel, he continued to return periodically to give tours. His extremely generous financial support for the restoration of the Tor House roof remains a much-appreciated memorial. Tom Van Saun passed away on June 6, 2014. Cecil M. Wahle, antiquarian and retired book dealer, was both an admirer of Jeffers and a supporter of the Tor House Foundation. In Carmel, her love of books was legendary and her volunteer work to support the local library was exemplary. Her extensive collection of rare books was auctioned recently in San Francisco. Her love of books, the hardcopy kind, will remain an inspiration for those who knew her. Ms. Wahle died on August 24, 2014. She was 87 years old. Galway Kinnell, of Sheffield, Vermont, poet and translator, received both the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award for his 1982 Selected Poems. Among his contributions to Tor House was a signed broadside that today hangs on the walls. His many Tor House poetry writing workshops and programs included readings at Sunset Center in 1998 and at the Carmel Scout House in 2001. Mr. Kinnell died, at the age of 87, on October 28, 2014. ************

The Last Word from Jeffers THE BLOODY SIRE It is not bad. Let them play. Let the guns bark and the bombing-plane Speak his prodigious blasphemies. It is not bad, it is high time, Stark violence is still the sire of all the world’s values. What but the wolf’s tooth whittled so fine The fleet limbs of the antelope? What but fear winged the birds, and hunger Jewelled with such eyes the great goshawk's head? Violence has been the sire of all the world's values. Who would remember Helen’s face Lacking the terrible halo of spears? Who formed Christ but Herod and Caesar, The cruel and bloody victories of Caesar? Violence, the bloody sire of all the world’s values. Never weep, let them play, Old violence is not too old to beget new values. from : Be Angry at the Sun ,1941 [Hunt, vol. 3, p. 24] The editorial staff of the Tor House Newsletter welcomes a discussion of this poem. Please address comments to Newsletter Editor, Tor House Foundation, PO Box 2713, Carmel, CA 93921 or [email protected]. Space permitting, letters to the editor will be published in the next issue. All letters will be posted on our web site: www.torhouse.org. 7

Officers: 2014 President: Vince Huth Vice President: Elliot Ruchowitz-Roberts Secretary: Laura Courtney Headley Treasurer: Arthur Pasquinelli Legal Counsel: Aengus Jeffers Board Members: Lacy Williams Buck Simon Hunt Stuart Crymes Lindsay Jeffers Gere diZerega James Karman Sean Flavin George Lober Maureen Girard Jean O’Brien

Deborah Sharp Lynn Stralem John Varady Christopher Williams

Administrative Assistant: Jonni Craven Ngo Docent Liaison : Kathleen Sonntag Newsletter Editor: Fran Vardamis Webmaster: Alice Englander Tor House Office (831) 624-1813 - Fax (831) 624-3696 e-mail: [email protected] website: www.torhouse.org Office Open Mon.-Thurs. 9-1

Winter 2014

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