Teachers fostered poet's calling

When Robert Abbate looks in the mirror, he sees a writer. It’s been that way since he was a kid. Looking back – he gives his teachers credit for encouraging him to become the writer that he is today. “I decided I wanted to be a writer in elementary school,” Abatte recalled. “My fifth grade teacher…encouraged me to write stories. But poetry came to me later in middle school and high school.”

A few years later, Abbate, followed the advice of another teacher -- and has since made poetry the focus of his career. “My high school creative writing teacher encouraged me to write poetry and serve on the editorial staff of the literary magazine,” he said. “I developed a thirst for having my poems published that endures to this day. I eventually studied creative writing at Penn State University with nationally renowned poet, John Balaban.” (Balaban is now the director of the Masters of Fine Arts program at NC State.)

Thanks in part to Balaban’s influence – and to Abbate’s studies over the past eight years with the New Formalists and New Narrative poets at West Chester University Poetry Conference, Abbate has developed an interest in something known as craft poetry. “Craft poetry,” Abbate explained, “pays particular attention to form, meter, and rhyme, the traditional modes of poetic expression.”

His poem “Advice to a Working Mother” was inspired in part by a colleague at Rowan Cabarrus Community College (RCCC) – where Abbate teaches English Composition -- who returned to teaching after twelve years as a stay-at-home mother. “I am often inspired by how she can work a full day at the college, and then go home to take care of children, grade papers, and complete lesson plans, essentially two full-time jobs,” he said. “…and all on four or five hours of sleep.”

He also got help on the poem last spring from, well, a little bird. “One day in April, Nature graced me with a metaphorical sign, two mocking birds in the courtyard, a mother and a fledgling,” Abbate says. “I started by journaling the event in prose, and then brought the narrative over to verse.”

It is actually pretty common for Abbate to turn to his natural surroundings for assistance with his poetry. “I am inspired by nature, especially birds and wildlife,” Abbate said. “I attempt to mine the metaphoric ore in what I see around me. I am also inspired by people's stories, the ethnographic poems that capture the voices of people telling their stories.”

Reading through Abbate’s poems, it becomes apparent that the stories people tell do not always have happy endings. Abbate does not shy away from addressing difficult subjects in his writing.

“My first collection of poetry, Courage of Straw, reflected on my decisions to donate a kidney to my sister,” Abbate said. “And to speak out about physical and sexual abuse.” Abbate’s thoughtful and artistic treatment of these types of issues has resulted in a number of writing awards. Courage of Straw, for instance, was a finalist for both the Bright Hill Press Poetry Award and the John Ciardi Award. (www.mainstreetrag.com/RAbbate.html)

Thanks to his vast experience in the field, Abbate recognizes that – for some -- poetry plays a significant role in the search for meaning and understanding our lives. “Poetry matters because it touches the human soul and transforms people's lives,” he said. “Since people continue to memorize the poems of Shakespeare, Donne, and Blake, the evidence of poetry's relevance for society takes on the stature of a spirituality akin to the religious fervor found in studying the holy scriptures. I often joke with my friends that I have joined the Church of Holy Poetry and that I have become a Knight of Poetry's Holy Grail.”

Knight or not, Abbate is certainly committed to poetry. But for a while it looked like he might pursue another sort of religious calling. In the mid 1980s, he felt called to the seminary.

“After graduating from Penn State, I joined a Catholic religious order for five years and pursued seminary studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, Calif.,” Abbate explained. “I left the Capuchin Franciscans in 1990 and decided to go into teaching.”

He’s been teaching ever since. Abbate studied for a Master of Arts (MA) in Education at the Jesuit University of San Francisco and eventually moved to North Carolina to teach middle and high school age students in both private and public schools.

Married for 19 years and the father of two daughters, Abbate currently teaches English Composition at RCCC and is working toward his MFA at Western State College of Colorado. In his spare time, he hosts “Concord’s Writers’ Night Out” a monthly open-to-the-public poetry reading at Dilworth Coffee House in the Coddle Creek shopping center in Concord.

Abbate, who enjoys the work of a variety of poets and includes Seamus Heaney, Fred Chappell and Kathryn Stripling Byers on his short list of influences, appreciates the opportunity to encourage aspiring writers.

“The best advice I can give for those who want to write poetry is to read the best poetry available,” Abbate said. “Immerse oneself in the whole scope and sequence of the English poetry tradition, not just the latest trend in contemporary poetry.”

Ultimately, Abbate believes poetry can make a significant difference in our lives. Whether re-telling the story of a talented working mother or a loving organ donor, poetry has the power to reach us – and inspire us -- in ways other language can’t.

“Poetry is a mirror of the soul,” Abbate said. “When the mirror is clear, its expression can be transformative for both readers and writers.”