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GALLAGHER, Tess

Born 21 July 1943, Port Angeles, Washington

Daughter of Leslie O. and Georgia Marie Morris; married Lawrence Gallagher, 1963 (divorced 1968); Michael Burkard, 1973 (divorced); Raymond Carver, 1988 (died 1988)

Tess Gallagher was born and raised between the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Olympic Mountains in northwestern Washington, the oldest of five children of a logger turned longshoreman. Her early writing was born during the rise of feminist awareness and the emergence of feminist literature in the United States. Gallagher's writing, however, moves beyond feminine words to express the journey of what it means to be merely human. Like many authors, her poetry reflects back to her childhood memories of the natural beauty of Washington and fishing with her father on the ranch the family owned.

Gallagher began her writing career at an early age, working as a reporter for the Port Angeles Daily News at the age of sixteen. She wanted to continue her career as a journalist and enrolled at the University of Washington. Yet while attending a poetry writing class taught by Theodore Roethke, she found this kind of writing very satisfying. She left school to marry Lawrence Gallagher, a sculptor, in June 1963, but the marriage ended in 1968. That part of her life sparked new poems, many of which are included in her most well-known collection, Instructions to the Double (1976).

Her first poem was published in the Minnesota Review in 1969. She received her B.A. in English from the University of Washington in 1968 and her M.A. in 1970, then graduated from the University of Iowa's Writers Workshop with an M.F.A. in 1974. In 1973 she married Michael Burkard, a poet, but this marriage also ended in divorce. In 1979 she began living with writer Raymond Carver, whom she married shortly before his death in 1988.

Instructions to the Double reflects a woman in transition and change, just as Gallagher's own life was going through a change. The four sections of the book are rather autobiographical, defining four distinct phases of growth in her life: her traditional upbringing, her uncertain rejection of the traditional values of her youth, the new offerings the literary world can offer, and her new identity as a poet. The book is divided by many doubles, the first being the kind of poems: at once very literal and written in a testimonial or confessional manner, reflecting on childhood to adulthood memories; and later very philosophical and abstract, more surreal and focusing more on the inner self. Another example of a double is her use of discussing general subjects versus more real subjects from her past. Poems such as "Breasts" and "Black Money" explore her youth, specifically her blossoming into womanhood and her relationship with her father, respectively. The title poem of the collection, "Instructions to the Double," brings the author to her acceptance of her role as a poet. It is symbolic of her liberation from her past and a fitting theme to the collection.

Gallagher wrote six other volumes of poetry, including Under Stars (1978), a further exploration of discovery through the relationships of the writer. This volume is divided into two sections. The first, "The Ireland Poems," finds Gallagher writing descriptions of the Irish landscape, searching the land of her ancestors for identity in a land she really knows nothing about. The second section, "Start Again Somewhere," lays a foundation for examining her relationships with men in later poems and collections.

In subsequent volumes she studies the themes of morals, death (in Willingly [1984] following the death of her father), travel, and again, family memories. Her poetry is mostly a reflection of herself, yet it is a reflection of self through the love of others. In this way she is able to emphasize the human experience.

At one time Gallagher admitted, "I feel most at home writing poems, but not now." She shifted to fiction, short stories, and essays as a way to "get out into foreign and surprising waters." After Moon Crossing Bridge and Portable Kisses, she began to dig deeply into writing short stories, realizing that writing prose has a very different "tempo" than writing poetry. She had to become more acutely aware of human nature. And she did, and finds she feels at ease writing both prose and poetry: "Writing fiction is more like sitting in a clearing and waiting to see if the deer will come.… Poetry to me is lightning of the moment. It's second nature."

Gallagher has had a long, noteworthy career as both a writer and a teacher, teaching at both St. Lawrence University and Kirkland College, among others. She said, "It is wonderful to be able to go into a classroom and talk about what you love. To read poems and to listen to young people recite them from memory. In that way I'm like the Poetry Baron—I make students memorize poems. But they love it." "The Poetry Baron" is part of her short story collection, At the Owl Woman Saloon (1997).

Gallagher's career and life as a writer of prose and poetry has been recognized through a number of awards, including a Creative Artist Public Service Grant from the New York State Arts Council (1976), the Elliston Award (1976), National Endowments for the Arts Grants (1976 and 1981), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1978-79), and the Chancellor's Citation from Syracuse University, where she also taught.