Purdue Profiles: George Kalamaras

George Kalamaras, professor in the Department of English and Linguistics at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne. (Photo by Jim Whitcraft) Download image

As soon as George Kalamaras walked into the classroom to begin his teaching assistantship at Colorado State University in 1980, it felt natural and right. He knew teaching was a profession he could see himself working in for a long time.

Kalamaras grew up in Cedar Lake, Indiana, and is in his 28th year teaching at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne. As the former poet laureate of the State of Indiana, he strives to push his students to a deeper understanding of the art of language.

What does your average day look like as both a poet and a professor? How do you balance teaching and writing?

That’s a wonderful question, as I strive (often unsuccessfully!) to find that balance every day. An average day finds me teaching or preparing my classes, as well as commenting on the writing of my students. Our course load in Fort Wayne is three classes per semester, so it seems that some teaching responsibility is always begging for attention. Add to this university and community service responsibilities, and you have a pretty full load right there. However, I’m a night owl, so I try to make time every night before bed to sit in a quiet place, normally with my little beagle-hound (Bootsie, and Barney before her) at my side, to read and write, even if just for a short time. Even if I don’t physically put anything worthy on paper that night, the act of showing up, having quiet time and paying attention, is still part of my practice as a poet.

By organizing the IPFW Visiting Writers Series, how do you hope students’ interaction with established writers will affect their growth and understanding of writing?

A colleague of mine started the Visiting Writers Series in 1992, and I assumed responsibility for the program in 1994. It’s been incredibly successful. We have brought 93 different writers to our campus for readings of their poetry and prose, as well as interaction with IPFW students and with the Fort Wayne community at large. On the most basic level, I hope that people will learn more about the art and craft of writing from a variety of perspectives. However, on a deeper level, it is my hope that people will absorb deeper lessons about what it means to be a writer. For example, how do writers think? What kinds of perceptions do they have? What kinds of connections do they make between themselves and the universe around them? In other words, being a writer has just as much to do with how one lives one’s life as it does with specifics regarding the craft of writing. We have been fortunate to have engaged the students and community over the last quarter-century with wonderful role models, encouraging people to step outside the box and embrace the world in creative, imaginative, and empathetic ways.

As the former poet laureate of the State of Indiana, how does your work tie to the state?

Being selected to serve Indiana as the state poet laureate was one of the greatest honors of my life. I saw my role as serving as “an ambassador of poetry” throughout the state, an extension, really, of what I’ve been doing at IPFW and in Fort Wayne for nearly thirty years now. Specifically, I gave countless poetry readings throughout the state, delivered lectures and keynote addresses, judged various poetry competitions including Indiana’s Poetry Out Loud competition, and instructed K-12 teachers and high school students in poetry writing. I sponsored a series of exchange readings throughout the state, the “Five Corners Poetry Exchange Readings” (I included Indianapolis as a “corner”!), in which I introduced a group of poets from one part of the state to another in order to promote community and interchange. I also spearheaded a website -- The Wabash Watershed: Where the Rivers of Tradition Meet the Rivers of Innovation. In it, I published bimonthly poetry features of Indiana poets, selecting poems for publication and conducting and publishing an interview with each poet.

I also initiated “The Wabash Watershed Indiana Poetry Awards,” a project I funded from my own laureate stipend, as I felt it was important that Indiana have a statewide creative and monetary award of this kind. In addition, I led poets in a statewide collaborative poem. One of my favorite activities was taping and broadcasting on YouTube a poetry video series of 75 videos, “A Gray Barn Rising,” in which I presented a 10- to 15-minute program of a poet each episode -- a reading and discussion of their work -- to bring poetry directly into the homes of those around the state. Each episode was filmed in my living room, with Bootsie, my adorable little beagle-hound, snoozing on the sofa at my side!

What do you find most rewarding about teaching?

I love the way I can expose students to the imaginative and connective ways of thinking that poetry nurtures, expanding their sense of what it means to be part of the cosmos and alive in the world.

What is the best advice you could give to your students?

I would probably say that they should expand what it means to be a writer -- that writing is not about publishing or having a career. It’s about how one lives one’s life. Poetry, in particular, is a practice -- an attentiveness practice -- and it should be treated as a way to deepen one’s consciousness, not as a means to fame or reward. In fact, one of the most important statements about poetry I’ve ever heard -- something I try to remember each day and that I often give to audiences throughout Indiana -- comes from Gary Snyder in his remarkable book, "The Real Work: Interviews & Talks 1964-1979": “[as a poet I] hold the most archaic values on earth … the fertility of the soil, the magic of animals, the power-vision in solitude, the terrifying initiation and rebirth, the love and ecstasy of the dance, the common work of the tribe.” 

As a professor at IPFW, what do you hope you have contributed to the Purdue system?

I hope that I have deepened the mission of the university, that I have extended its reach in Fort Wayne (and beyond), and that I have contributed to students being more alive and “awake” throughout Indiana. 

Writer: Kelsey Schnieders Lefever, kschnied@purdue.edu