ELLIOT RUCHOWITZ-ROBERTS, PRESIDENT, TOR HOUSE FOUNDATION
Visitors to Tor House have come from as close as Carmel, Monterey, Pacific Grove, Seaside, Marina, and Salinas; and as from as far away as Beijing, China; the Czech Republic; Stockholm, Sweden; Ontario, Canada; and Switzerland; and from many places in-between: Mobile, Alabama; Rochester, Minnesota; Stockholm, Wisconsin; Calabash, North Carolina; Ironwood, Michigan; Greensburg, Louisiana; Clive, Iowa; and Hanalei, Hawai’i.
Some of the visitors have a more than a passing interest in Jeffers: the scholars from the Robinson Jeffers Association, which holds its annual conference in Carmel; and those who have discovered Jeffers on their own and have been taken by his work. Poets and writers as well: Terry Tempest Williams, Tobias Wolff, George Elliott Clarke (Poet Laureate of Canada from 2012 to 2015), Coleman Barks (poet and translator of Rumi), poets Ellen Bass, Dorianne Laux and Billie Collins (all of whom served as final judges for the Robinson Jeffers Tor House Prize for Poetry), and Dana Gioia (recent Poet Laureate of California) accompanied by composer Morten Lauridsen. Many visitors, however, come with little or no knowledge of Robinson Jeffers or his poetry, having discovered Tor House listed on Trip Advisor (#5 of 132 Top Attractions in Carmel) or Planetware (#7 of the 12 top-rated attractions in Carmel) or on Yelp (a 4.5 out of 5 rating).
So it was an absolute delight to have Sutton Casey, a school teacher from Galena, Alaska, and a long-time admirer of Jeffers’s poetry, as the sole participant on the first tour at Tor House in some three and one-half months, the first tour conducted under The California Department of Public Health and CAL/OSHA Covid-19 Industry Guidance guidelines for outdoor museums.
That meant we were both wearing masks and practiced social distancing; that she used hand sanitizer before and after touching the sanitized pen with which she signed the liability waiver; and that we toured the outside grounds with peeks into the parlor and through the guest bedroom window.
Galena, Alaska is both a far-away and somewhere-in-between place. Located on the north bank of the Yukon River, Galena, with a population of 463, is inaccessible to other parts of Alaska by road. Most goods are delivered via the river during the brief summer season. Almost all other travel is by air. To reach a major city in Alaska, one must take a flight either to Fairbanks, 270 air miles to the east, or to Anchorage, 350 air miles to the south. In the winter, when the Yukon River freezes over, people travel on it using all-terrain vehicles, snow machines and dog sleds. In January, the average low temperature is minus 16 degrees Fahrenheit; the average high, minus 2. In May 2013, an ice jam on the river 20 miles downriver caused flooding which affected 90% of the homes.
Sutton Casey’s love of the poetry of Robinson Jeffers dates back to a literature class she took at Mesa State College (now Colorado Mesa University) in Grand Junction, Colorado. As a high school teacher in Colorado, she introduced her students to Jeffers’s poetry. For the past three years, she has taught at Galena Interior Learning Academy (GILA), the longest-operating and largest residential vocational school in Alaska with a total enrollment this past school year of 237 students. It is, according to its website, “the school of choice for Alaskan high school students seeking a unique educational opportunity to better prepare for college and/or career.” It has a 96% minority enrollment, primarily indigenous peoples from throughout the state of Alaska. The student staff for Hawk Highlights, “the only newspaper in the world that cares about Galena, Alaska,” comes from Kotzebue, Dillingham, Tununak, Holy Cross, Noorvik, Marshall, Emmonak, Anchorage, Kivalina, Huslia and Galena, itself. The school’s mascot is the hawk.
Tor House Garden Path to Dining Room and Kitchen.
As Sutton and I walked through the gardens, we were both on journeys of discovery: I, having to refigure a tour I had been giving for some 20 plus years; she, experiencing the very place that inspired many of Jeffers’s poems: Tor House, Hawk Tower, and the “rock, wind and sea” of Carmel Point. Before the tour, we had arranged for her to purchase books she wanted to take back to share with her students: “Selected Jeffers’ Poems” (broadsides of six poems); The Building of Tor House by Donnan Jeffers; A Tour of Tor House, Home of Robinson Jeffers; and The Selected Poetry…(Vintage), the little volume that has never been out of print and which contains her favorite Jeffers poem, “Hurt Hawks.”
When she taught that poem for the first time to her students at GILA, their response was, “We’re hurt hawks, too.”
What a gift to those of us who find the poetry of Robinson Jeffers so compelling and so relevant today! At a time when Jeffers is being left out of the literary canon (he is no longer included in the Norton Anthology of American Literature and Introduction to Literature), to know that his poetry still has the power to touch people deeply.
This sacred place will continue to cast its spell over those who visit, even without going through Tor House and climbing Hawk Tower. Yes, it is a different experience, but one which is unique in its own way and transforming, as it was for me and for Sutton, and as I know it will be for all who find their way here during these challenging times, whether from afar or near, whether via Trip Advisor or their interest in Jeffers.
Waiting for them will be the docents of Tor House. We may not be the only group in the world that cares about Robinson Jeffers, but we are the only group that once again has the privilege and the joy of sharing the magic of this place.
Tor House is now open for outdoor tours on Fridays and Saturdays. The hour-long tours begin at 10 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 1 p.m., and 2:30 p.m. Tours are limited to a maximum of six people from the same household. Masks are required, as is social distancing. Tours are by reservation only. Outdoor tours will be conducted as long as they are permitted by the Monterey County Department of Health.
To make reservations for the month of July, call 831.624.1813 between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m., Mon-Thurs; or email requests to thf@torhouse.org.
To make reservations for August and following, go to the Foundation website: www.torhouse.org and click on the Buy Tickets button.
