40 years of poetic work

By JON HOCHSCHARTNER, Lake Placid News Intern
LAKE PLACID — Jack Kendrick, who was raised in Lake Placid, recently published a book called “Selected Poems,” made up of more than 40 years of his poetry.

In his early 70s, Kendrick is a member of the Lake Placid Hall of Fame and has acted on television, films and on stage. In addition to having competing internationally in a variety of sports, three of his plays, which won Edinborough and Dublin Festival Theater awards, premiered at the Lake Placid Center for the Arts and Pendragon Theatre in Saranac Lake.

Kendrick recently returned to the village to give the keynote address to the 2008 graduating class of the Lake Placid High School.

“‘Selected Poems’ is a lifetime of heart and soul, inspired I think by my beginnings growing up in Lake Placid,” Kendrick said. “Downtown Placid, where I lived for my first 10 years, is always in the backpack of my body and mind. It makes me write, because of the memories.”

The more than 300-page collection, which also includes the still photography work of Kendrick’s son Rhidian, includes themes of “athletics, spirituality, nature and the human condition,” Kendrick said.

Many of his autobiographical poems are set in Lake Placid, including “The Clock of Time,” which he wrote for Lake Placid’s Centennial celebration.

“James Rogers asked me to try to compose a poem for the Lake Placid Centennial, when the clock was first installed. The poem I wrote for that event is in this book. I came over from Stockholm and read it in front of a crowd of a couple hundred on that day. I was honored,” Kendrick said.

Kendrick said he started writing poetry in the mid-1960s when he was working as a teacher.

“I was teaching and coaching for about eight years. Eventually I realized I didn’t want to teach somebody else’s writing for the rest of my life. I wanted to write my own.”

Kendrick said he found inspiration in the work of William Butler Yeats and Edwin Arlington Robinson, and he appreciated the “immediacy” of poetry over that of over art forms.

“Poetry comes easier, because it’s so visible within us and around us in nature. It’s much more immediate than writing a play or a screenplay,” Kendrick said. “Poetry and music are the most immediate of the arts.”

Asked why he donated copies of his book to a number of local institutions, including the Lake Placid Public Library, Kendrick was reflective.

“I brought the book back to Lake Placid for my family, living and dead, the village, living and dead, and for myself still living,” Kendrick said.