Ellington

The UW’s poetry legacy inspired the creation of a place where writers can thrive — and perhaps carry on that legacy themselves.

A few of the accomplished poets to come out of the UW include Richard Hugo, Theodore Roethke, and Tess Gallagher. College of Education and honors program lecturer Frances McCue hopes to be the next catalyst in this ancestry while teaching future poets.

“I think it’s unusual to have that sort of lineage, and this place really has it,” McCue said. “The creative writing program and English department here have always been incredible. That’s why I came.”

Since she moved to Seattle in 1986, McCue has been spreading her love of poetry around the community in various ways, thanks in large part to Richard Hugo.

More than 20 years ago, McCue attended a literary symposium at the UW in honor of Hugo.

“The real secret was that Hugo didn’t have the cultural makeup to be a poet — he was born in poverty,” McCue explained. “He was sort of a hardscrabble tough guy who worked at Boeing. He drank too much, fished a lot, and wrote beautifully about people and places that most poets would pass by.”

This later inspired her to start the Richard Hugo House, a writing center where people could practice the craft of writing. She co-founded the Richard Hugo House in 1996 with Linda Breneman, a student, and Andrea Lewis, a friend.

After hiring staff, raising money, and finding a building, the Richard Hugo House quickly became a reality.

“It was like chasing a bucket of spilled marbles on the floor,” McCue said. “You have no idea. … You pencil it out on a napkin, and then, all of a sudden, it becomes real very fast.”

The Hugo House is now an urban writer’s retreat that holds events and classes for writers of all ages. The staff tries hard to tailor its offerings to keep up with today’s youth.

“It has a really youthful vibe, as it should, because I think, in many ways, the field of literature, like opera, can age out,” McCue said. “The crowd can get older if you’re not cultivating cool programming.”

Kate Lebo, who is now in the UW MFA creative writing program, was the volunteer coordinator at the Hugo House from 2006 to 2010. She was also the development coordinator and helped run creative writing classes. Lebo moved from Bellingham to Seattle partially because she wanted to get involved with the Hugo House.

“It was one of the only clear places I knew about where I could go if I wanted to meet other writers,” she said. “I got to meet this great network of professional writers.”

Lebo also spoke about the “scrappy can-do” attitude that made the house special and helped the staff deal with the recession.

“One thing I loved about working there is that we were always trying to figure out what to do with what we had,” Lebo said.

One of Lebo’s jobs as coordinator the House was to recruit, but said recruiting was not necessary because people wanted to be a part of the Hugo House.

“It was exciting to be in a place where things were constantly being made,” Lebo said.

Senior Chloe Yeoh frequents Castalia, a monthly reading series at the Hugo House with grad students and other writers.

She will never forget the time her favorite poet and UW professor Heather McHugh did a reading at Castalia.

“It’s pretty nice because you get to meet a lot of people, hear great readings, figure out what’s modern, what people are writing about and what their styles are,” Yoeh said.

The house hosts poetry, literature readings, a literary series that brings together writers and bands, a writing program for teens called “Scribes,” and a vast array of creative writing classes for low prices. There are currently about 1,200 students enrolled in Hugo House writing classes.

“We wanted to figure out how creative writing — poems and stories — could get people inspired to have a voice,” McCue said.

Amy Bloom, Billy Collins, Sharon Olds, and Jonathan Raban are among the writers who have come to speak at the Hugo House in the past. Award-winning American author Sherman Alexie spoke at the Hugo House on Nov. 18.

The Hugo House also has the biggest “zine,” or homemade magazine, archive in the country, comprising more than 20,000 zines.

Being involved with the Hugo House only further increased McCue’s fascination with Hugo himself. Hugo was a big part of McCue’s inspiration to become a writer, and one of his books, “The Triggering Town,” changed the way McCue thought about writing.

“Instead of being in an elite little tower poking away at Yates, I realized that you could open literature to a much bigger world,” McCue said.

McCue’s involvement with the Hugo House also motivated her to travel the country after the center was established. She gallivanted around the Northwest and visited many of the towns in Hugo’s poems.

Visiting these towns inspired McCue’s own writing. She wrote about what was happening in the towns from environmental and social standpoints and also captured “quirky little stories” she heard while visiting.

McCue went back to some of these places with 84-year-old renowned photographer Mary Randlett, who took photos for McCue’s book, “The Car That Brought You Here Still Runs,” which was published last year.

McCue also wrote “Dreaming Richard Hugo,” a short fictional narrative based on true people, places, and events. The piece appeared in The Georgia Review in May 2009.

“I think I’d always written because I wanted to have a voice, and I liked the things I could make up,” McCue said. “I liked the sing-songy nature of writing poems. It was like being a musician without the talents.”

One town McCue visited on her trip around the country was Wallace, Idaho, a place that appears in Hugo’s poem “What the Brand New Freeway Won’t Go By.” It was there where McCue learned why I-90 was built just north of the town.

The women of Wallace knew I-90 was going to tear down their town, so they quickly put all of the buildings on the historic register, and the engineers were forced to build around Wallace. To this day, you still drive north of Wallace on I-90.

During her exploration of Hugo’s writing, McCue became very involved with Hugo’s family, and particularly with his wife, Ripley. McCue spent time traveling with Ripley and reading Hugo’s poetry.

In the midst of McCue’s Hugo obsession, she was starting grad school in the MFA program at the UW. She taught freshmen English, and went on to teach many other writing and English courses. McCue has also taught at Seattle Central, a local independent school, a local art school, and the Richard Hugo House, as well as in the UW honors department and Morocco.

Currently, McCue spends half her time working for the UW as the writer-in-residence and the other half outside, writing books and working as a consultant. She has a business as an arts instigator, where she helps people in organizations start projects and make their current projects more creative.

McCue’s most recent project is with the Gates Foundation, where she is working to create new curriculum for language arts classes in order to make them more engaging for students.

Although McCue moved on from the Hugo House five years ago, she still attends events and tries to stay involved. Her interest in the poet is still thriving, and, like Hugo, she hopes to inform the world through experience, close attention to detail, and, most importantly, writing.

Reach contributing writer Lily Katz at development

@dailyuw.com.