The Penny Poet of Portsmouth: A Memoir of Place, Solitude, and Friendship

by Katherine Towler

The Penny Poet of Portsmouth is a memoir of the author’s friendship with Robert Dunn, a brilliant poet who spent most of his life off the grid in downtown Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The book is as well an elegy for a time and place―the New England seaport city of the early 1990s that has been lost to development and gentrification, capturing the life Robert was able to make in a place rougher around the edges than it is today. It is a meditation on what writing asks of those who practice it and on the nature of solitude in a culture filled with noise and clutter.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Poetry, Biography

275 pages, Paperback

First published March 15, 2016

About the author

Katherine Towler is author of The Penny Poet of Portsmouth: A Memoir of Place, Solitude, and Friendship and the novels Snow Island, Evening Ferry,and Island Light. This literary trilogy is set on a fictional New England island and takes place between the early 1940s and early 1990s, chronicling the lives of two generations in two island families and the impact of war on the island community. Katherine is also co-editor with Ilya Kaminsky of A God in the House: Poets Talk About Faith, a collection of conversations with poets. All three of her novels were Indiebound selected titles. Snow Island was also chosen as a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers title. Katherine grew up in New York City and attended the University of Michigan, Johns Hopkins, and the Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College. She teaches in the MFA Program in Writing at Southern New Hampshire University. She is happy to hear from book groups and to arrange Skype visits.

Reviews

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

For those of us who were there, to read this book is to go back in time to when Portsmouth, New Hampshire, was alive with eccentrics and possibilities. The sound of different drummers reverberated in the alleys. The bag lady who slept with her cat near Strawbery Banke could be seen in Ceres Bakery some mornings talking opera with local intellectuals. Impoverished writers and artists congregated at Cafe Petronella upholding their inner voices and eschewing compromise. It was elegant and struggling, and congenial to gentile poverty. Robert epitomized this alternative lifestyle and value system. His persona was manifest in his poems. He lived for them. He was always unusual, but then, not so much as he would be today.

We called Robert the Poet Laureate of Portsmouth before there was such a thing. When he was formally honored with the title, I think he felt an unexpected validation, achieving the only success that meant anything to him. Robert also had to acknowledge that he was loved by many people in his many separate social circles. When he needed his friends during his last illness we got to know him by lavishing him with little amenities that made his last years more pleasant. Robert was indeed rich then, as were we who got to know him.

Katie's memoir of Robert's last illness shows how the caregiver becomes engulfed by the disease almost as much as the patient, and is suddenly, painfully released at the end. Sharing this rite of life's passage is a rare form of love, not much discussed, still mysterious, but her honest portrait will be recognized by anyone called in this way to care for a friend. Her book portrays the last days of a remarkable man who came to represent a magical place where silence and solitude conferred benevolence and grace. I thank her for writing it.

[Ivana · Rating 5 out of 5]

I never heard of Robert Dunn. Equally, I never heard of Katherine Towler before. I don't remember why I wanted to read this book, other than the fact that the blurb on the sleeve read about books, writing, coffee, and solitude; all these things my infinite weakness.
It is precisely books like these that are such gems to find. I've never been to NH, and so I doubt I'd ever really run into Robert Dunn's poetry. But after reading this book, I feel an intimate kinship to the author, and the deceased poet, and I have become involved in their story.
Katherine Towler's writing is simply beautiful. As a voracious reader and an aspiring writer (at least I want to be), her words resonated with me in a very personal way. Through this book we come to know the elusive figure of Robert Dunn, a strange poet, a stranger among friends, a solitary figure seldom understood. But at the same time, we follow the trajectory of Towler's life, her journey through writing, her personal growth as a woman and an author. It's a beautiful story about solitude and writing, about fear, about friendship, and about the fact that, in the end, we all need each other very much.
It's a heartwarming book, and I highly recommend it.
Here are some of my favorite passages from the book:

"His happiness, and I do believe he was happy on the most profound of levels, came from his ability to stay focused on what feeds the deepest center of the self. Although he maintained a moat of silence around his days in which the words could surface, he was very much in his world, present and attentive. He did not miss the changes in the sky or much else. I am vowing that I won't now, either"

"Robert's secret was that he wrote for the pure pleasure of it, as a sort of Zen exercise, with no thought of where the poems would end up or how they would be received. He did not particularly care if they ever were read by anyone at all. Their purpose was in giving a shape to his days, offering a path for his mind to walk. They were, first and foremost, a form of play. He never lost sight of this".

"Through him, I saw that the hunger for recognition and success as it is defined in contemporary America is a hollow hunger, seldom satisfied. What I have truly hungered for is a harmony between my self and my writing and the living of a daily life. Robert achieved this harmony as no one else I have known".

"Each of the book's five pages contained a single, handwritten word on the front and back. Together they read: "even so some things remain unbroken. Any stone however small is whole".

"There's no denying gender here. As a woman, I have a hard time claiming time for myself. Putting writing first? That's even harder. I have not been able to kill the angels in the house, as Virginia Woolf said women who are writers must. I have become good at fitting the writing in around laundry and cooking and cleaning; around earning a living, taking vacations with my husband, and visiting family. Robert had never needed to make such concessions".

[Jackie · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I travel to new places I love to go to the local town bookstore and find a book written by a local author. When we traveled to Portsmouth, NH for the first time recently I found this treasure at the River Run Bookstore in Portsmouth. Not only did I find a book written by a local author but it is a non-fiction book written about her and her unlikely relationship with a local poet. Jackpot for me! It appealed to me also as I have been writing poetry off and on since I was a teenager and have started focusing on it more seriously again now as well as writing a book since the loss of my only child 11 years ago. This authors observations and life lessons she learns about herself spoke to me deeply at this time in my life.

[Marcia Matthews · Rating 4 out of 5]

The narrative has a flow and an ease that comes from long practice. Katherine Towler describes New Hampshire poet Robert Dunn: “He has succeeded in disappearing and leaving the poems behind as the only evidence.” Towler writes painterly description. “The brick sidewalks gather the sunlight in their warm hues.” She brings out the beauty in the commonplace.
She struggles to maintain the interior life of a writer while interacting with her husband Jim, poet friends, and townspeople. She sees a wraith of a man walking into town and assumes he’s homeless. Robert produces little chapbooks which he sells for a penny. When he insists on the price of only a penny, she rethinks her understanding of being a writer.
When Robert is named poet laureate of the town, Kate discovers that she is his best friend. The greatness of this minor poet dawns on her when she hears him recite at the “poetry hoot.” One of his poems is posted in a public art project:
From here you can see the tide
Turn like a door on its hinges
We’re just going out. Do you want
Anything from the ocean?
His visual, quirky, and profound Valentine to Portsmouth condenses the view to a postcard.
For International Poetry Day, Robert suggests inviting poets from other cultures, and the townsfolk turn out to hear Russian, Turkish, Belgian, and Haitian poetry that transports them to faraway places.
Towler succeeds in chronicling the life of a poet, and a city, along with valuable insights on what it means to be a writer.

[ameya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set along the New England coast, The Penny Poet of Portsmouth is a gem of a memoir that I had the good luck of discovering at a Little Free Library in the Midwest. Katherine Towler tells an honest and detailed story of her friendship with Robert Dunn, a longtime resident of Portsmouth whose life revolved around poetry. She gets the pace just right, the slow nature of the narrative fitting for the small-town seaside setting. In all, a beautifully written memoir, but I would think Towler has begun to learn from Robert that validation from strangers on Goodreads is meaningless in comparison to the act of writing itself.

[MountainAshleah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an important book that transcends the subject matter of Robert Dunn and his solitary life, and I applaud the publishers for bringing this book--and others like it--to the public.

I discovered this memoir through a search on the word "solitude" in the library system, which I do about once or twice a year. So I had absolutely zero previous knowledge of the poet, the location of Portsmouth--nothing. I was really just a random reader intrigued by the title and the basic premise of the memoir.

The memoir is heavily weighted on the author's experience with the eccentric poet, her own struggles and challenges as a writer, and her life choices as opposed to his. Unlike some other readers, I found this a very effective technique. True, this technique of revealing the poet's life through the lens of her own is freighted with a lot of risk (although the technique worked brilliantly, if differently, for Mr. Boswell). But by the author addressing aspects of her more "normal" existence (she's married, gainfully employed, owns her home), we see Robert Dunn as others viewed him--a shadow figure--and that's how we should see him. A traditional biographic approach centering on Mr Dunn himself would have risked a ho-hum laundry list of details scraped together from research, birth records, family interviews, etc. That would have made this memoir a far less interesting read. It's the play between the author and Robert Dunn--the shadow figure, who we eventually come to know, but never very well (as we should not know him well)--that brings life to this memoir, including Ms Towler's honest assessment of herself as the reluctant caregiver to a rather difficult individual--ferocious in maintaining his independent life, but without any financial or practical resources to do so. There is so much meaning in what Ms Towler chooses not to reveal, chooses not to research to death. In this way she is mirroring the poet's art in his life, both of which rely on the pauses and the absences to convey the meaning, or at least the meaning we bring. Mr Dunn's poetic voice is never going to tell us what to think of his poems, just as the question of what we'd like from the ocean--my favorite of his pieces--is open-ended. Mr Dunn "haunting" the streets, cigarette in hand, musing on his poems, or not, in his second hand coat is a far more effective image than a mug shot of his life.

The memoir is also a cautionary tale to those of us who live on the fringes of society (as I do), without the infrastructure to sustain our solitary lives (as I have chosen NOT to do). By the choices he made, Robert Dunn very much had to rely on "the kindness of strangers," which he seemed not to mind, whereas many solitaries would object vehemently. (I imagine a similar memoir could be written about Patricia Highsmith--she was wealthy, but she relied heavily on acquaintances to support her life choices living in her "fortress of solitude" in the mountains.) Centuries ago, Dunn would have found a patron and lived in a hermitage on the feudal estate, but that system is by and large gone by the wayside unless Dunn had found himself a "sugar daddy/mama"--a choice he could have likely made, but didn't. Instead, he conducted his life on the fringes of society, and we admire him more for that, even as we acknowledge the risks he took and the reliance he sustained on his community to support his life choices. Overall, I found this one of the best books I've read on the subject of the artist and solitude, and I've read A LOT of them. More importantly, I went from knowing nothing about Robert Dunn to sharing his poems with my acquaintances--that says something about the importance of this memoir. Well done!

[Kevin Bergeron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even though I live not far from the poet Robert Dunn’s adopted home town of Portsmouth, NH, I’d never heard of him until I recently read an article in a local newspaper, “The New Hampshire Gazette.” The article also mentioned this book, and I downloaded a free sample of the Kindle edition, which interested me enough to get me to spend fifteen dollars to read the rest of it. The price seems somewhat high for a Kindle book, but the story fascinated me from beginning to end.

The book is a memoir and not a comprehensive biography. There is little about Dunn’s life before 1991, when the author, Katherine Towler, first came to Portsmouth, and although Dunn was a familiar figure on the streets of Portsmouth and had many friends, few were close and he kept much to himself. He had a brother and a sister, but they were not interviewed for the book. His life remains largely an enigma.

In addition to the biographical aspect, the author is also telling about the friendship between her and Dunn and how he influenced her as a writer and a person. Dunn was a very interesting character, a true poet who cared little for recognition or money.

The town of Portsmouth has a storied past, and the stories echo even today to anybody walking its streets. The book captures and conveys the character and flavor of the town, which from her perspective underwent a process of gentrification during the 1990’s. She is right about that, but I used to go into Portsmouth frequently during the 1970’s, would walk around on a Saturday night and imagine what it must have been like in the 1950’s before urban renewal. It’s probably always been a town in transition. Fortunately some of the old buildings and streets remain.

The book includes a few samplings of Dunn’s poetry, and should prompt readers to seek out more.

[Susan Schefflein]

I was beginning to get very irritated with the self-centeredness of the author when suddenly the book made a leap into something else. Instead of being a tribute to the author's kindness in taking care of the ill and aging poet Robert, it became an understanding of how Robert's life and experience could and did change hers for the better. I was moved by the last half of the book and laughed at the end. I will attempt to be more present in each day and my life will be better for having read it. What more could you ask from a book?

[Peggy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book. Local folks probably remember our former Portsmouth Poet Laureate, Robert Dunn. He was a man who wanted little, lived with practically no possessions, and ate even less. Those who didn't know Robert as a poet, certainly noticed him around town, a small man, hunched over, wearing a worn trench coat and a tweed cap. Usually, he was in possession of a coffee cup and a cigarette. Katherine Towler has shared her memories of Robert, of Portsmouth before it became gentrified, and her life as a writer. The book is inspiring.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book. Celebrates a life of "minor" poetry and the quiet depth of relationships possible in small town New England where community members support each other in pursuit of their writerly lives.

[Peter Biello · Rating 5 out of 5]

My conversation with Katherine Towler about her book is here: http://bit.ly/penny-nhpr

[donna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saw this book on a reshelving cart at my library and was intrigued. Put it on the top of my To Read pile and am so glad I did. I am enchanted by New England so enjoy books that are set there. Portsmouth was an interesting part of this book but the real story was the friendship between the author and Robert Dunn, the Penny Poet of Portsmouth.

Upon moving to Portsmouth after a life of wandering, Katherine Towler actually finds herself settling down with her new husband. She can't help but notice Robert walking the streets on her own daily errands. After discovering he is her neighbor and a very well-respected poet, she becomes interested in his story. Because he never really lets anyone in, it takes her a long time to get to know him. She reflects a lot on what it means to choose a life on solitude and what it means for Robert as he develops a chronic illness and has to rely on the help of others. He comes to depend most on her and that strain, in addition to the ever-present threat of death and what it all means, make up a majority of the story.

There are those people in our lives whose presence is so strong and whose hearts are so pure and whose minds are so brilliant that they make such a strong impact on their friends and communities. Robert Dunn was this kind of person and perhaps the enigma of who he really was added to this legendary status. As a reader, it was enjoyable getting to know him through the author's eyes. She herself learned a lot just through trying to understand him and their differences in their approach to life.

This is a wonderful book. I loved it. I will be tracking down Towler's other writing now.

[Carla · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am in love with the Penny Poet of Portsmouth, with the picture of the town he loved and, finally, with poetry in a deeper and more intimate way that feels like a Mount Agamenticus leap for me. I'm grateful for the way Towler drove for precision, lighting up all the corners of a poet who lived his days keeping his own story distanced from the art he practiced so passionately. That life and his art were in perfect tandem. His poetry was, in some part, a code to be deciphered by patient and close reading. Philosophical, insightful, playful and biting in turns, he explored the town he loved and it's humanity. He worked on presenting his observations about life as lived in his time, place, - (Portsmouth, NH where I lived for many years) - and with all the levels and niches of that society highlighting a culture particular to only one place in the world and in just a few decades. I'm so sad to think that culture is gone. To my knowledge I never encountered him. He sought to escape any personal spotlight, so he might count that escape as another win. But now, I'll never forget him or the debt I owe him for my new apprenticeship to poetry.

[Ellen Pilch · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am not into poetry, but I loved this book. It is about a friendship of 2 people that would probably not have been friends if not for their love of poetry. The author's friendship with this "loner" taught her much about how to live a good life. They were both writers, but he only wrote for enjoyment and didn't worry about anyone's opinions of his poetry. The author, loves to write, but did care how people viewed her work.
I like that this book shows you can't judge a book by it's cover. To look at her friend, Robert, you would think he was an uneducated homeless person. He was in fact quite educated and just chose to live simply. There is something for everyone to learn in reading this.

[Arun Lakshmanan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Robert makes you cry. Living in a place, knowing its people, writing small poems he loved, unconcerned with worldly success. I wished the book would end with him at Edgewood writing poems, sharing joy with doctors.

The sea returns so many things - why assume tides are retreating? Katherine, thank you - you reminded me of "tuesdays with morrie". I cannot recommend this book enough.

[Lydia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kind of difficult for me to read this and see where the Penny Poet refused an air conditioner and a fan and basically help from those who cared about him. Not only reminded me of my grandfather whom I never met, but also of me.

[Mimi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This ranks as one of my most favorite books and one I will read again.

[Krystal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful prose. I wanted to highlight so many parts but it was a library book! I will purchase as this author is fantastic and I love to support others’ craft. Thank you Katherine Towler.

[Joyce · Rating 3 out of 5]

A candid memoir about befriending a somewhat cranky poet who was also revered as a town treasure. Enjoyed the depiction of Portsmouth, not so long ago.

[Jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great story about individuality, writing, introversion and end of life. Well-written and very thought-provoking.

[Nanaz · Rating 2 out of 5]

It spent too much time talking about Robert
The book was best when it discussed her as a person and Portsmouth

[Maineguide · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful story about a writer, a poet, and a small New England city. A good read about a fascinating character and the influence he has over a changing city and its artists.

[Pvfrederick · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautifully written tribute..

[Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed The Penny Poet of Portsmouth and appreciated Katherine Towler's willingness to be so vulnerable in her telling. A few favorite quotes:

“He stood outside the world while giving it back to us whole.”

“In this respect, he was something like the Chinese poet Li Po, of the Tang Dynesty, who wrote his poems on scraps of paper, folded them into little boats, and sent them down the river without caring whether they were read or not.”

“Our work as writers is that 'letter to the world,' in Emily Dickinson’s words, composed out of an intense desire to see our experience whole. Robert knew that this act of love that separates us from the daily commerce of living immerses us in it at the same time.”

[Susan Pope]

Madison Smart Bell calls this a "subdued memoir ...suffsed with a benign calm..." Quiet and smoothly paced Katherine Towler evokes her friendship with Robert Dunn, a poet who once walked the streets of Portsmouth composing poems in his head. A published poet, he often gathered his poems together into little books he sold for a penny. Towler also writes of her own journey befriending this difficult to know man and her life as it evolves in Portsmouth from the early 1990's into what it is today, a sort of glossy town for rich people (my words). Enjoyed.

[Carolyn Eastman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This feels to me like a book for those of us who knew Robert Dunn -- it captures his evasive essence so beautifully. It is also a profoundly sad account, reflective of the author's sense of pain and loss as she observed his later illnesses. It can be hard to read at times, because it's so hard to face again the physical pain he experienced given his general frailty; on the other hand, the bits of his conversation, notebook writings, poetry, and quotes she compiles from a range of experience and sources make me delighted all over again by his perception of the world.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A touching story about about a person who was so present to all of us yet such an unknown. I read this book remembering all the times I past Robert Dunn on my walks and wondered who he was. While Katherine shares their friendship with us there is still much we don't know at the end , which is synonymous with Robert Dunn. Her perspectives on the challenges of becoming his main caregiver show us the human side to the role of helping someone without knowing their wants . Katherine shows us the warm side of the Poet Laureate and brings back memories of Portsmouth when it was still new to me.

[Rosemary · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book paints a delicate portrait of so many lovely things and people -- mainly it is a loving remembrance of a beloved character in a town in a particular time, but it also about friendship, about writers, an admirable community of poets who rally around their dear friend as his life comes to an end. What a beautiful read!

[Morrill Memorial Library · Rating 5 out of 5]

A new book with wonderful descriptive writing of the relationship between a writer and Robert Dunn a poet living off the grid. As the years pass Robert comes to rely on Katherine and share his poetry. Very moving.

[John Moeschler · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't typically enjoy memoirs. I am not sure how much I would have enjoyed this if I were not a Portsmouth resident. I suspect I would. The writing is excellent. The sense and history of place interests me and the few poems included have made me seek out more from Robert Dunn.