Smith Club of San Francisco
and Marin
Alumnae Profiles
Carolyn Brown Follett, '58
Winter 2003
Profile by Sarah Mills Cross '66
Part I
“,,,anything is fair game and great fun.” This is one aspect of CB Follett talking about her art.
“When she tackles universal truths, she expands our understanding of the world.” This is a critic talking about another quality of CB Follett, revealed in her poetry. “She had a sense of humor and was endlessly curious.”
This is what ‘Lyn, as she’s also known, hopes will be etched on her gravestone. And there is much more to Sausalito’s Carolyn Brown Follett, artist, poet, editor, publisher. ‘Lyn may be best known locally as editor and contributor to Beside the Sleeping Maiden, a book of poems about the flora, fauna, features and folks of Marin by over 100 Marin poets.
‘Lyn the artist is also strongly present here: her line drawings illustrate several poems, and the overall book design is in part hers. This hand-in-glove relationship of art and words permeates much of ‘Lyn’s work. Her own art appears on the covers and title pages for sections within two collections of her poems, Visible Bones (Plain View Press, 1998) and At the Turning of the Light (Salmon Run Press, 2001). Sayings, lines of poems, sometimes whole poems find their way into ‘Lyn’s richly colored and textured acrylics and mixed media pieces, giving strength to the mostly abstract images. Years passed before the arts of language and of images blended in the exciting interplay now showing in her work.
‘Lyn grew up in Connecticut, living with her grandmother and her mother, who was widowed when ‘Lyn was an infant. She began writing as a small child, because it was something she needed to do, but she was disinterested in poetry. Assuming she would be a writer, she majored in English at Smith, but read only required poetry. Then she suffered the confidence-crushing blows of a harshly negative visiting professor who seemed bent on destroying his students’ vulnerable desires to identify themselves as writers, and for more than thirty years this man’s words obliterated ‘Lyn’s inner calling.
Fortunately, the creative spirit is strong, so while raising three children in San Francisco, ‘Lyn explored fiber arts and clay. When someone asked her to make a small ceramic bear, a seed was planted for a company she founded in 1973. Had she been asked for a different animal, she says she might not have followed the same path at all. But bears had had their hold on her since she received her first Teddy bear at age seven. ‘Lyn sculpted and sold larger animal pieces and necklaces with small ceramic animals under the name The Peaceable Kingdom. For almost twenty years, she had little competition for her nationally distributed necklaces.
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Part II - Getting back to writing
For many people, a move from a familiar place to a new environment is accompanied by inner changes. For ‘Lyn, moving to Marin in 1988 occasioned her giving up the ceramics business and igniting again her passion for writing. She recognized that her need to write was strong, it didn’t matter whether she was good or not, it was time to write in spite of the pernicious comments of that professor in her past.
What good fortune it was that ‘Lyn found “Writing for Your Life”, a popular class taught by poet Tom Centolella. She began writing fiction, but soon turned to poetry, delighting in putting words together like a jigsaw puzzle. Here was a whole new world to explore! Further classes with Tom, then workshops with Ellery Akers who was “wildly encouraging, and critically invaluable,” says ‘Lyn, and CB Follett the poet was born. It wasn’t long before she saw her first poem in print; today she’s widely published in literary journals and anthologies.
A testament to the quality of her craft are the many prizes she’s won, as well as being nominated for five Pushcart Prizes and finalist and runner-up with poems submitted to the Poetry Society of America, where the best-established poets enter their work. Her latest book of poems, At the Turning of the Light, won the 2001 National Poetry Book Award, an honor that recognizes her considerable linguistic talents. For ‘Lyn, the exploration of her mind and spirit, seeing doors open and noticing what roads she takes and where they lead offer meaning to her work and her life.
Her greatest concerns are Earth’s ecology and how humans treat one another. She writes about family and nature, the beauty and fragility of the world and its events, the inner world of feelings. To these subjects she brings the music of well-chosen words, inventive and powerful images and, often, wit and idiosyncratic quirkiness. Going to freewrite groups for practice and honoring the unexpected gift of an image or phrase by recording it the moment it arrives are her exercise regimen. She’s never without paper and pencil, sometimes a pencil on a chain around her neck, always a pad attached to her steering wheel. Writing in longhand, ‘Lyn rarely revises the original form of a poem. She prints a computer-typed draft, cuts and moves words in longhand, always striving to preserve the freshness of first writing. It’s usually a process of paring down, finding even the one word that stops a poem cold with its meaning or meter, she says.
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Part III - Of poetry, art and public service
During the time that Robert Hass, another Marin poet, served as U.S. Poet Laureate, ‘Lyn envisioned a way to showcase the many good poets in the county who were not as well known. She would invite these writers to submit poems about the local area and she’d edit an anthology offering the poets-eye view of Marin. From this idea was born not only Beside the Sleeping Maiden but also her own publishing company. ‘Lyn knew how she wanted the book to look; publishing it herself seemed the best way to achieve this.
Bears that had led her in one direction nearly twenty-five years earlier met her on the path again. Arctos, the name of her press, means “she-bear” in Greek. When publishing took so much time away from her own poetry and art, ‘Lyn thought she might not publish another book. But bears will have their way. In 2000, Arctos Press published GRRRRR, A Collection of Poems About Bears, edited (and contributed to) by CB Follett. ‘Lyn says that “poets are bear people”, so she wasn’t surprised that poems poured in when the call went out for bear poems. Many well-known poets are represented in this wonderful anthology about “bears as they exist in the wild and in our minds”.
Runes, A Review of Poetry is an annual project of Arctos Press, begun by ‘Lyn and long-time friend Susan Terris in 2001. Each year they select 100 submissions on an announced theme, “Gateway” in ‘01, “Mystery” in ‘02, and “Memory” for ‘03. There’s a monetary prize for the best poem, which is featured on the Runes website (http://members.aol.com/Runes) . This year, 6,000 submissions came from almost fifteen countries. As much work as this is, ‘Lyn feels they are creating a community of poets all tapping into the collective unconscious of each theme; out of a solitary pursuit, poets have a new way to connect with other poets. Each review attempts to tell a cumulative story, every poem relating to the ones before and after it. Like all Arctos books, the content and design of these collections are of the highest quality.
About the same time ‘Lyn began to seriously explore writing, she also started working in acrylics and mixed About the same time ‘Lyn began to seriously explore writing, she also started working in acrylics and mixed media. Her large, well-lit studio at Art Works Downtown in San Rafael teems with materials for painting, collage, mixed media, handmade books, assemblage pieces. The volume of completed work and works in progress calls attention to an artist with vast inventiveness and joy in exploration. Her art is in national and international collections and can always be seen locally at Artisans in Mill Valley and in her “open studio” in San Rafael.
Besides these artistic accomplishments, ‘Lyn has also served on the boards of numerous organizations. She’s actively involved with Sight & Insight, a community-based art center in Mill Valley. She is very proud to have been a founding Trustee of San Francisco’s University High School, now in its 27th. year as an independent coeducational school with a national reputation for excellence.
In poetry, art and service to others, ‘Lyn strives to invite people in to the exploration of their own experience by distilling her personal thoughts and questings in fresh, inventive ways. In a world where we’re faced daily with new challenges as well as the sameness of globalized consumer choices, novel and imaginative insights that move from the personal to the universal can help us make greater sense of our lives. Through her love for people, for art, for all of life, ‘Lyn’s gifts make the world richer and more meaningful for us all.
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