Tillinghast to share 'Cafe Trieste'

Richard Tillinghast's 6th collection of poetry, "Today in the Cafe Trieste" provides highlights from his long and varied career, spanning decades, subjects and poetic styles. The first section is a collection of new poems, while the second section encompasses selected poems from three previous volumes.

PREVIEW
	Richard Tillinghast Today at 4 Rackham Amphitheater Free

The collection reflects Tillinghast's passions. In addition to love poems, he concentrates on politics and history. The poet lived in Kilvara, County Galway, Ireland, for a year in the early '90s, and he uses this setting as both a backdrop and inspiration for many pieces. Also an inspiration was Tillinghast's past and recent involvement in political activism.

"I was someone who was involved in a radical political movement in Berkeley, he said. "There is a particular poem, 'The World Is,' which was written during the mass starvation in Rwanda." This poem focuses on the troubles in Northern Ireland, a political situation important to the poet.

Tillinghast said that the title of the collection, "Today in the Cafe Trieste," is also derived from world political events. It is a "kind of meditation on the Chinese Revolution and Chinese government under Chairman Mao."

To express these ideas, Tillinghast implements different poetic idioms. "I like to go back and forth between free verse and poems written in rhyme and meter," he said. "With rhyme and meter, there's more discipline involved, but free verse gives me more room to work.

Tillinghast is looking forward to the reading, because he believes that it gives a new aspect of life to a poem.

"Last semester I was on sabbatical, and I spent a lot of time giving readings. I really enjoyed it," he said.

Tillinghast will be reading from "Today in the Cafe Trieste" at Rackham Amphitheatre today at 4 pm, and he will be hosting a reading and book-signing Thursday night at 8 at Shaman Drum. Poet James Dickey has called Tillinghast "the best poet of the younger generation, and deserving more recognition than most of the poets of the older generation." Perhaps one of the most compelling features of his poems is their appeal to any generation.

09-22-97