James A. Emanuel’s Sense of Place

The American poet James A. Emanuel passed away in Paris on September 28, 2013 at the age of 92. I was given the great honor of officiating at his funeral at Pere Lachaise Cemetery.

Two and a half years ago, in the spring of 2011, Janet Hulstrand, an American writer and teacher of literature, asked me if I’d be interested in publishing a profile of James A. Emanuel, a longtime American expatriate resident of Paris, on the occasion of his 90th birthday.

Publishing such an article would be a strange choice for most travel magazines. The poet wasn’t well known as a resident of Paris. In fact, when Janet first approached me about the article and I asked her if there were any particular poems about Paris, or France, that I might run along with it, she said probably not. I liked the idea of introducing readers to this consummate poet—both to the man and to his work—but it wasn’t until I read Janet’s article that I understood why it truly belonged in France Revisited.

France Revisited, beyond its focus on travel and culture, aims to explore the notion of place—best translated into French as terroir—which includes the products, the ideas, the culture and the people who are anchored, whether deeply or loosely, in a given place. It seemed to me that the life and work of James Emanuel expressed a deep sense of place even though that place wasn’t necessarily Paris or France.

When Janet interviewed James for the profile she asked him what he most appreciated about living in France, what it had given him. He replied, “Nothing visible or tactile, ugly or beautiful, can do more for me than leaving me alone, free to recreate my environment in ways that I can understand. France has been silent when I had no questions; and it has been wise and ultimately generous, even poetic, when I needed counsel to walk on, or surf to carry me toward some shore.”

I ran Janet’s article with James’s poem “Christmas at the Quaker Center,” one of her favorites, and one that the poet would consent to. It is a poem grounded in three places:  Nebraska, where he grew up; Paris, where he came to live; and the childhood memories which he carried with him everywhere.

James Emanuel’s funeral was held on October 4 at the crematorium at Père Lachaise Cemetery. Before the pine box in which he lay we read some of his poems, listened to music he loved, shared our memories of the man and heard a saxophone solo played by his friend Chansse Evans. An account of the funeral ceremony and the inhumation three days later has been written by Monique Wells for the website Entrée to Black Paris. James, through the presence of his ashes at Père Lachaise Cemetery, is now even more firmly anchored in the place,  le terroir, of Paris as he joins so many other remarkable writers, artists and musicians, both French and foreign, who made Paris their home.

Following James’s death I asked Janet Hulstrand if she would write another article about him, this time focusing on the man as she knew him through his visits to her class during her summer program “Paris: A Literary Adventure” nearly every year from 2000 to 2013. Thanks to Janet and to James, I’d attended one of those classes in 2011, when James gave me permission to film him reading his work to the class and answering their questions. Though my recording leaves much to be desired from a technical point of view, I’ve excerpted portions of it in order to give readers a glimpse of his remarkable presence, the quality of his reading, the confidentiality of his introductions, the precision of his thought and the universality of his poetry. Those clips accompany Janet’s beautiful and heartfelt article, Remembering James A. Emanuel, 1921-2013, Poet, Teacher, Humanitarian.

For those who haven’t yet taken the fabulous journey into James Emanuel’s work, or never had the chance to hear him read, this may be the perfect place to start.

© 2013, Gary Lee Kraut