An author‘s life/Ken Wylie

Aug. 31, 2008

“I went to West Africa for two years. Those two years were a transforming experience for me, an absolutely transforming experience.”
Ken Wylie speaks like a writer, with detailed descriptions full of novelistic digressions, dramatic and sweeping. His big voice boomed out over the coffee cups in front of us during an interview about his Peace Corps experience, its impact on him as a writer, his recently published book of poetry, and his soon to be published novel. Ken spoke passionately of his two years in Sierra Leone in Africa between ’61 and ’63, as part of the Corps charter mission. He drew comparisons between Peace Corps founder John Kennedy’s 1960 presidential campaign and Barak Obama’s current run for the presidency.
“When the Peace Corps came along, I remember -- like a lot of young people today -- being excited about the current election, being tremendously turned on by the JFK campaign, and the fact that one of the things he campaigned on was this idea,” he said.
“Dick Nixon had been defeated in the election,” he went on, “and one of the things he did was he scoffed at the ‘Kiddie Corps’. He went out and gave these speeches about how absurd it was, how stupid it was and, just nonsense...so we felt a responsibility to our parents and to society.”

EYE-OPENER
In Africa, Wylie taught at the high school level and lived among a group called the Temne. His pay and housing were the same as it would have been for an African teacher at that time. It was an eye-opening chance to expand cultural horizons for the kid from Clio, Michigan.
“You see through absurdities where by we make judgments based on race or creed, so it was a liberating experience,” he said.
Wylie’s experience with Africa wasn’t finished. After two years in graduate school back in the States, he returned to the continent for another year between ’65 to ’66 to study towards a Ph.D. He relishes memories of driving a ’65 Volvo (purchased used from the Swedish embassy) from Sierra Leone to Nigeria.
Wylie went on to write two books on Africa: “The Political History of the Temne,” chronicling the history in the area he was stationed during his Peace Corps stint, and: “An Enchanting Darkness,” with David Hickey, on the westerners’ vision of Africa. He returned to Africa occasionally to study during his time teaching at Wayne State University and Lehman College in New York City.
In the late 1970s, drawn to Leelanau County from what he described as “a love/hate relationship” with New York City, Wylie finally decided to go freelance as a writer. His first project was a detour from his African studies, writing a book called: “Bigfoot: A Personal Inquiry Into a Phenomenon,” which was published by Viking Press.
Wylie laughed as he discussed the book. People, he said, still sometimes mistakenly group him with those who believe in the Bigfoot myth. “I thought the title would give away the fact that I was looking at this as a phenomenon, not as a reality!” he said.
In the book he interviews numerous Bigfoot buffs, professional and amateur, and discovers the hoax behind a Bigfoot print that was discovered in the Lake Ann area in 1976, which inspired three Record-Eagle stories and a few locally sold “Bigfoot” t-shirts at the time.

A TYPE OF ZEN
At the age of 70, Wylie still exudes a youthful vitality. The father of two and grandfather of one favors kayaking for exercise; on a nice day you’re more likely to find him outdoors than inside writing.
His recently published book of poetry, “The Land that Sunrise Washes,” is full of rich descriptions of nature, mostly taken from the area around his home near Northport in Leelanau County. He likened his writing of poetry (often written in haiku or lesser known Japanese forms like tanka and koan) to: “The practice of a type of Zen, living in the moment, so that you’re not aware of the ego.”
Likewise, his forthcoming novel, to be titled: “The Gunbearer: A Novel of the Great War in Africa 1914-1918,” from which he read an excerpt at a recent poetry reading at Horizon Books in Traverse City, comes alive with descriptions of African plant life and landscapes.
The novel centers around the adventures of fictional Mancelona
native, Teddy Hartman, during the World War I in Africa, using the history of the little-known African theater of the war as its backdrop.
Many historical figures are depicted in the novel, including Baroness Karen Von Blixen (best known by her pen name Isak Dinesen), Ernest Hemingway, and German officer Paul von Lettow Vorbeck, whose memoirs Wylie studied extensively for the book. Readers will find an intricate, dramatic narrative and a multi-layered story filled with adventure and heroism.
Ken Wylie’s recently published volume of poetry, “The Land That Sunrise Washes,” is currently available at local bookstores. Following are the two poems he selected:

“Young Eagle”

Wanting-to-be fisher
Young Eagle, perched high
watching her paddle his river

Running low in July
the river moves us north
it’s flow is our pace

“Haiku”

My dog does not know
cold and wet; his eyes reflect
summer in December

Unlike rabbit tracks, and
traces of bob-cat and coyote,
the dog tracks turn back

Fast the weeks fly,
like south going geese, the days
go faster, like falcons