Man on the Beat: Clare Cavanagh

Professor Clare Cavanagh is an Irish-Catholic Harvard graduate student turned Polish poetry translator who migrated from California to Boston and then to the Midwest to work as a teacher of literature. Her dedication to her chosen professional subject — the English language — is such that she hopes it spreads to others on the NU campus. Even if it doesn't quite pay the bills, Cavanagh says she hopes that even our Tech rats find the time to get their "humanities fix."

What's the short story of how you ended up here at NU?
I was actually a professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison for ten years, and I got a great offer and accepted. My main field is actually Russian — Polish was something I got into during graduate school (at Harvard) since it was a language requirement. I also had this great professor, Stanislaw Baranczak, who really turned me on to the Polish poetry. (Cavanagh has since translated several works with Baranczak.).

Which poet do you think would be the best lover?
Oh, I have this funny story about this. When I was in high school or maybe even junior high I really, really loved Frank O'Hara (the American poet who died in 1966 and a fellow Harvard alum). I didn't even get that he was gay and all of his fabulous love poems were to men. They were just so beautiful! I mean, even if he was alive he would never have loved me. I just remember this great feeling of shock that he was gay and there was no way it would have worked out between us.

Do you think that modern music is poetic? Is pop music, rap or hip hop poetic?
I think a bridge that we don't make naturally in the United States that they do in Poland is that music is deeply related to poetry. People are still using verse forms. I say "elegy" and my students look at me like they don't know what it is, but then I say "that Eric Clapton song, ‘Tears in Heaven'" and they immediately recognize it. And with rap, it's all about spontaneous rhymes on a steady beat, which is definitely poetic. In the U.S., poetry isn't really part of the culture like it is in Poland, but so much of popular culture is constructed with the same devices.

Any words for an English or literature major who might be convinced they're going to live in a box after graduation?
I think that it's tough out there for all majors, and not just for literature. I know finance majors who had their jobs all lined up and now are panicking. The thing is, literature doesn't make you a living, it makes your life richer, more complicated, and better I think.