An Interview with Jonathan Galassi, Poet and Author of ‘The Vineyard’

We are thrilled to share storied Farrar, Straus and Giroux chairman emeritus Jonathan Galassi’s Quick Takes today. The roster of writers he’s discovered and championed over a publishing career that spans five decades is legendary (Scott Turow, Anne Sexton, Jonathan Franzen, and Jeffrey Eugenides are just a few of the literary luminaries he’s edited). Less well-known is that he is an esteemed poet, too. Jonathan has penned four books of poetry, the latest being The Vineyard: A Poem, which hit bookstores earlier this week.

We were sent an early copy of his new book, and its titular work “The Vineyard” is a delicious long-form poem that asks the reader to slow down and look closer at the here and now. The poem largely takes place in his garden in Long Island’s North Fork, where he ponders the life cycle of his beloved plants and witnesses the goings-on of his neighbors. Nothing lasts forever and the only knowable is THIS moment, he seems to say.

Here, a few particularly poignant lines from the poem. 

“It’s no secret everything we had
is slipping away—last night, this morning,
before you noticed, because you noticed.
I go out and survey what got eaten,
what needs pruning, not to mention
everything that’s on my conscience:
those I didn’t love or loved in error;
those I hurt, the endless gyre.”

And below, Jonathan’s Quick Takes, in which he shares a few images from the star of “The Vineyard,” his North Fork garden, and reveals the shrub that makes him shirk away in horror (us, too!), his favorite indispensable gardening book, and more.

Photography courtesy of Jonathan Galassi.

Above: The Vineyard is published by Knopf; $28.

Your first garden memory:

I grew up in an old house where someone who lived there before had been a real gardener (unlike myself). So the old peony beds and apple orchard and plum thicket and myrtle and asparagus that came up like magic in the back field and, above all, the shaping of spaces were unconsciously ingrained in me. Is this the garden that I’m working toward, working unconsciously on me?

Garden-related book you return to time and again:

Dirr’s Hardy Trees and Shrubs.

Describe in three words your garden aesthetic.

Cultivate sight lines!

Plant that makes you swoon:

Red crocosmia. It feels as primordial and majestic as the dinosaurs. And Bruggmansia!

Plant that makes you want to run the other way:

Domesticated azalea. Bodacious ones allowed to run wild are another story.

Favorite go-to plant:

All kinds of salvia.

Hardest gardening lesson you’ve learned:

Perennials die! Everything is constant flux. Which is wonderful and terrible.

Unpopular gardening opinion:

I love poison plants: datura, Bruggmansia, monkshood.

Gardening or design trend that needs to go:

Jonathan Galassi Garden

Things should not be too neat. The garden belongs to the plants, not you.

Favorite gardening hack:

Tear it out! (Why am I so reluctant to do this?)

Favorite way to bring the outdoors in.

My favorite view of borders is their backside from inside the house, with lawn and other planting in the distance. Magic!

Every garden needs a…

Not just water, but the idea of water, sight or sound. And rooms. Private spaces.

Favorite hardscaping material:

Slate, graystone.

Tool you can’t live without:

Knee pads!

Favorite nursery, plant shop, or seed company:

Heritage Flower Farm, in Mukwonago, Wisconsin.

On your wishlist:

More bearded iris, hardier hollyhocks, hardier monkshood, cardinal flower. More time. Time to see what does and doesn’t happen.

Not-to-be-missed public garden/park/botanical garden:

Huntington Gardens, in San Marino, California.

The REAL reason you garden:

Above: Photograph by Tenoch Esparza.

I’ve found gardening to be the best way I know to encourage the illusion of an alternative universe. It’s a slow process, but eventually your little world becomes yours, and tranquility and delight reign there, at least for a moment or two. And it keeps changing. There’s always something to look forward to.

Thanks so much, Jonathan!

For our full archive of Quick Takes, head here.

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