"The Worst of Them Many States"

I was talking to some new acquaintances at a family gathering in Minnesota this weekend, and I mentioned I live in Iowa. "Oh," they asked, "Whereabouts in Iowa?" "Iowa City," I replied. "Ah," they said; "well if you have to live in Iowa, that's the place to be." 

I have to admit, I didn't know what they meant. I like my recently-adopted town, but I always thought of it as a small outpost, not a center of civilization. Its "downtown" is made up of about two intersections, after all, and if it weren't for the university, it often feels there would be no one living there at all. 

I gained a different perspective driving back from Minnesota. My route took me on a southeasterly journey through the northern half of Iowa, and, seeing that part of the state in broad daylight, I began to understand what my new acquaintances meant. Iowa City suddenly loomed very large in my mental map of Iowa. For one thing, it has buildings. It has some of the only buildings I saw on the whole drive. 

That's right. I was on the road for four and a half hours—three of them or so in Iowa—and what I had always thought of as the tiny burg of Iowa City was actually the largest metropolis I encountered. The rest was just mile after mile of flat, empty farmland. There were corn rows, wind turbines, the occasional cow—but scarcely any human habitations beyond a barn or a tiny cluster of farmhouses until I neared home. 

Nothing and nowhere and endless, to borrow a line from Philip Larkin—that's what comes to mind in driving through most of Iowa. It is the emptiest state I've ever lived in; so empty, in fact, that even people in Minnesota can look down on it as a backwater. I mean, if people in Minnesota think your state is a boring flat wasteland, you have truly slipped a rung on life's ladder. 

I would still put up a defense of Iowa. It has the romance of the plains; the mythos of the prairies. Its very emptiness is a source of its sublimity. 

And I can't be the only one who thinks so—for why else would Iowa loom so large in American letters? Why would it be the setting of so many of those forgotten early Pulitzer winners? Why did such a disproportionate share of twentieth century masters pass through the University of Iowa—either as teachers or students? 

But I suppose that all of this can be true, and yet the state can still be empty and boring. These possibilities are not mutually exclusive. And for this conclusion, we have the testimony of some of those Iowa-based twentieth century masters themselves. 

It turns out that, just because someone was associated with Iowa at some stage of their career, alas, it doesn't mean they have only positive things to say about it. John Berryman, who taught at the University of Iowa for a brief period before reportedly being fired for public drunkenness and other misdemeanors, perhaps unsurprisingly has a bone to pick with the state. He thus describes it in one of the Dream Songs as "the worst of them many states."

I had purchased Berryman's volume at a great Iowa City independent bookshop in part because of his connection to the place. Plus, Berryman and I are probably among the few people out there who have lived in both Cambridge and Iowa City, so we have two things in common. 

But, it's clear that he liked one of our two home cities better than the other. He may have lived in Iowa, but he was not of Iowa. He was an Iowa anti-partisan. 

I found this slightly disappointing. I wanted to find my decision to move to this improbable destination validated in some way by reading his poetry, not further denigrated.  

But, driving across the state today and witnessing its vast emptiness, I had to admit I could see his point. I thought back to another passage from the Dream Songs, and it rang all the more true. "Detestable State," he writes of poor Iowa, reflecting back on it from the vantage point of distant Ireland: "Detestable State, made of swine & corn,/ rich & ignorant, pastless, with one great tree in it[.]"

Yet, as with all just and accurate criticisms of a place to which one already feels an irrational attachment, this one ultimately only succeeded in deepening my perverse affection. Perhaps, like lutefisk in Minnesota, the very emptiness and boringness of Iowa may become a source of self-deprecating pride among its natives. 

I embrace you, Iowa, for all I close my arms upon air. What I'm inclined to do now is to put the Berryman quote on a mug or bumper sticker, and market it (if I can get around copyright) to my fellow Iowa residents. 

"Detestable State, made of swine and corn"—it should be our unofficial motto. It has a nice ring to it. I'm picturing it already on a shirt or kitchen magnet. Maybe I'll leave off the "ignorant, pastless" part though. Too soon.