From a blue-collar upbringing in Groton, NY, a small town near Ithaca, to Cornell University majoring in industrial engineering, to “Philly,” to the NYC poetry scene, to three cross-country poetry tours, back to Groton, now in Colorado, Hahne’s journey is not over yet. 

Marj Hahne

She’s traveling the road of discovery.  And along the way, she’s writing, teaching, and learning.  All seem equally important to her.

Thin and intense, Hahne is given to punctuating important points with angular gestures, like brackets. She admits she’s not quite committed to the hip area of

Downtown Boulder

Boulder, CO. What she is committed to is “language and inquiry.“  For herself, and others. Especially now, she says, for teenagers.

“Language is a creative act and it creates constructively and destructively,” Hahne said.  “And teens have constructed themselves out of what people have said to them.”  She wants to make a difference, and teach them they are the creators of their lives.

Hahne certainly has created her own.  She’s a published poet with her work in 13 literary magazines and included in nine poetry anthologies.  Soon to be 10.  She has also won numerous awards for her poetry – including 1^st Place in the 6^th Annual Writer’s Digest Poetry Awards of 2011.

Getting there

Hahne’s degree in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering is an unlikely major for a poet.  “My parents encouraged me to pursue something practical, something that would lead to a good job,” Hahne said.

After working for a food service management company for several years, Hahne realized she wasn’t enjoying her jobs.  “I took classes in poetry, creative nonfiction and education at UPenn,” she related.  “Then I scored a one-year position at a Quaker school in Philly teaching math.” She realized she loved teaching and writing.

Fueling her passion for poetry and the writer’s life, Hahne covered the poetry scene in Philadelphia for the About.com Guide to Poetry.  She went to New York to work on the People’s Poetry Gathering (created by City Lore, Poets House, and Bob Holman of the Bowery Poetry Club).  “I immersed myself in the New York poetry scene, reading poems at various open mikes and poetry slams in coffeehouses and bars.”

Hahne’s CD cover. Photo courtesy of Hahne.

She got both positive and negative feedback  – as all writers do. By now she had published a few poems and she set up a road tour and read her poems in 50 venues over four months, in Seattle, Galveston, Montana, and California, among other places.

Her “Plastic Igloo Poetry Tour” came complete with a CD of her poetry, “notspeak.”  The title is a reference to one of her favorite quotes by Macrima Wiederkher – “If it doesn’t improve on the silence, don’t say it.”

By now, she was clear that writing and teaching poetry were her calling…. as was being a perpetual learner.  In addition to her degree from Cornell, classes at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education, a certificate in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) and courses at West Chester University, she is currently enrolled in an MFA program at Pacific Lutheran University’s Rainier Writing Workshop, with an emphasis in Poetry.

Hallowed ground – “Writing Church”

Postcards as a method to stimulate ideas at a recent Writing Church

Hahne currently offers her own writing classes.  To prepare for the interview, I participated in her Sunday morning “Writing Church”  – a term that works in the university town of Boulder, but may not in a more conservative area.  I can attest that Hahne has a poet’s exquisite sensitivity to language.  She has an utter reverence for words – and in her class she encourages you to find your own beautiful words that caress your ear or taste sweet as you roll them around in your mouth; power words that dredge up strong emotions hidden in your heart; light words that float like petals in the air; concrete words that draw pictures in your mind; and telling combinations of words that touch your soul.

Hahne has taught workshops for many organizations including 11 years of workshops for the International Women’s Writing Guild.  “That was an awesome home for me as a woman writer,” she said.  Now she has started her own organization for women and girl writers, The Avocado Sisterhood.  She gives workshops through the Sisterhood, Writing Church, and her Denver-based Meetup group, Front Range Writers’ Room.  She also freelances as a copyeditor.

There’s not room here for all her accomplishments.

Yet, Hahne is still seeking…..  “inquiry” is a word she uses over and over.  Inquiry is the vehicle we ride on the road to discovery.  And Hahne is definitely on taking that ride.

Story and photos, except where noted, by Bojinka Bishop

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