Reviving the Unheard: Richard Hugo's poetry is now available on CD

Though Poet Richard Hugo died of leukemia in 1982, his work is now reaching forward through a newly released two-CD set of his readings, compiled by Missoula author Mark Ratledge.

The CD set brings Hugo’s words to a new generation, and introduces the poet’s voice to those who may have heard of him, but never heard him speak.

Hugo is an iconic figure in Montana poetry. He is a people’s poet, a man’s poet, who wrote of drinking and fishing and war. His work is renowned for its descriptions of place, the profound silence of prairies and constant talk, talk, talk of river’s babble.

Hugo was at his most prolific in the 1970s, living in Missoula with his wife Ripley and her two children while directing the University of Montana’s creative writing program. It was then he wrote and recited many of the poems considered today the epitome of Montana writing.

Ratledge, an English department affiliate, was working as an adjunct professor of literature from 1999-2001, trying to inspire his mostly non-English major students. He assigned Richard Hugo’s poetry, describing the tales of driving Montana’s long, gray roads as “familiar” to students not previously exposed to Montana literature.

Ratledge searched for sound-recordings of Hugo’s poems to use in his classes, knowing that “students can tell more about him and his works through hearing the poems,” than they could by merely reading them.

Ripley Hugo, the poet’s widow, heartily agrees.

“Dick’s words really should be heard,” she said. “When you hear his words, you hear a man who is so aware of the music in the words.”

Indeed, a universal humanity comes through in Hugo’s introductions to many of his poems. He tells stories that preface the poems not only with context, but a larger feeling for the poet’s mind.

The idea of compiling Hugo’s recited poems for a greater audience came to Ratledge when he was teaching. Asked to collaborate on the project, Ripley Hugo was thrilled with the prospect of returning her husband’s voice to Montana. “I was eager for it,” she said. “He was such a good reader.”

Through Ripley, Ratledge received legal permission to access the copyrighted works. In addition, he needed approval from the original sound producers. Tracking down the paper trail was difficult.

“One recording was made in 1962,” Ratledge said. “This was before the Internet. There was little record-keeping done.” It took Ratledge a full year to access one tape, but he eventually succeeded in finding every available known recording.

Much of what Ratledge found was in bad shape: old audio cassettes and scratchy sound recordings haphazardly stored in basements and living-room desk drawers. Nonetheless, Ratledge viewed them as treasures, and hit pay dirt when he located a reel-to-reel recording archived at the Library of Congress.

That tape provided most of the source material for the new two-disc set. All in all, he sifted through 150 recorded poems, many on audio cassettes, to glean the 38 poems and introductions that make up the new one-hour digital recording.

Using audio-editing software and his laptop, Ratledge worked for more than three years cleaning up the audio tracks to produce the master discs for the project.

Early into the project, Ratledge recognized it would be a labor of love. Because of various copyright issues, the discs cannot be sold.

Instead, Ratledge received a grant from the Montana Committee for the Humanities to distribute the finished sets to every public library and high school within in Montana.

“I’ve gotten a lot of nice, hand-written notes form librarians across Montana,” he said. “Every week, I run into someone who really appreciates them.”