Interview with Megan Boyles Poetry: A Traveler’s Unexpected Detour into Language and Landscape

🌧️ The rain didn’t stop the poetry—it started it

I stood beneath the dripping awning of Café L’Éclat in Le Puy-en-Velay, soaked through at the shoulders, notebook open but blank, when Megan Boyles slid into the chair opposite me without introduction and said, “You’re holding your pen like it’s a weapon you’re afraid to use.” That was the first line of our interview—with Megan Boyles poetry not as subject, but as compass. No press release, no scheduled slot, no translator—just damp wool, the smell of wet stone and espresso, and a conversation that rewired how I travel. This isn’t a ‘how to book a poetry tour’ guide. It’s about what happens when you stop optimizing for efficiency and start attending—to silence, to accent, to the weight of a word chosen in French over English, to the way light falls on volcanic rock at 4:47 p.m. What to look for in literary travel isn’t a checklist. It’s a recalibration: how to recognize resonance before you know its name.

🗺️ The setup: Why I went to Le Puy—and why I almost didn’t

I’d booked the trip for practical reasons: a three-week solo stretch between freelance contracts, low-season airfare from Lyon (€38 one-way on Ouigo, confirmed via their app two days prior), and a vague plan to walk part of the Chemin de Saint-Jacques toward Conques. My goal was simple: move slowly, spend under €55/day, and avoid anything resembling a ‘cultural experience package.’ I carried a worn copy of The Pilgrim’s Guide to Santiago de Compostela (c. 1140, translated by William Melczer 1), a thermos of strong coffee, and deep skepticism about ‘authentic encounters’ sold online.

Le Puy-en-Velay wasn’t on any itinerary. It entered my radar because its cathedral sits atop a needle of ancient basalt—geologically improbable, visually arresting—and because local hostel listings mentioned ‘occasional poetry readings in the cloister.’ I assumed ‘occasional’ meant ‘biannual, poorly attended, and in French only.’ I arrived on a Tuesday in late October, the sky low and silver, mist clinging to the Puy de Château like gauze. My hostel room overlooked the cathedral’s western façade—carved saints half-swallowed by shadow, their stone faces eroded by centuries of wind and pilgrimage. That first evening, I walked the narrow streets, past shuttered boutiques selling lentils and lavender soap, listening to the clack of wooden shutters closing, the distant chime of the clocher, the murmur of French too fast, too idiomatic, for my textbook fluency.

💥 The turning point: When the map failed—and the language cracked open

Day three began with a misread bus schedule. I’d planned to take the 9:15 a.m. CarPostal to Montpeyroux, a hamlet known for its Romanesque chapel and uninterrupted views of the Haute-Loire valley. At the stop, a woman in a green raincoat held up two fingers, shook her head, and pointed at a crumpled timetable taped crookedly to the pole. The 9:15 had been canceled—‘panne mécanique,’ she said, then shrugged, already stepping onto the next bus. No replacement service until 2:40 p.m. My notebook filled with frustrated sketches: a bus, a clock, a frowning face.

I sat on a bench near the cathedral square, watching tourists reposition themselves for photos, adjusting backpacks, checking phones. My own phone showed zero signal—a deliberate choice, but now it felt like isolation, not intention. I opened my notebook again, flipped past logistics, and wrote: What if I don’t go anywhere today? What if ‘getting there’ isn’t the point? I bought a café crème at L’Éclat, took the smallest table by the fogged window, and watched rain trace paths down the glass. That’s when Megan appeared—not announced, not gesturing, just settling in, pulling a small Moleskine from her satchel, her boots still damp, her hair threaded with mist.

📝 The discovery: Not an interview—but an unfolding

She didn’t ask my name. She asked, “What did the stone feel like this morning?” I blinked. I’d touched the cathedral’s south portal that morning—rough, cool, veined with iron oxide streaks the color of dried blood. I described it. She nodded, then recited two lines in French—soft, rhythmic, no punctuation—about basalt remembering pressure, about time folding like cloth. She didn’t translate. She waited. I felt heat rise in my neck—not embarrassment, but the physical sensation of a mental door swinging open.

Megan Boyles is American-born, lived ten years in rural Auvergne, writes bilingual poetry grounded in geology and vernacular speech, and teaches workshops not on ‘how to write poetry’ but on how to listen across language barriers. Over two hours, interrupted only by the barista refilling our cups, she spoke of translating her own work—not word-for-word, but by walking the same path twice: once in English, once in French, noting where syntax bent, where silence grew heavier, where a verb refused translation. “A word isn’t portable,” she said, stirring sugar into her third cup. “It carries soil. Accent carries altitude. You can’t import it. You have to meet it where it lives.”

We walked after—no destination, no route. She pointed out how the rain changed the sound of footsteps on cobblestone versus flagstone. She named plants I’d passed without seeing: luzerne (alfalfa), bruyère (heather), genêt (broom)—not botanically, but by how their stems bent in wind, how their flowers smelled after rain. She stopped at a rusted iron gate, traced its pattern with her finger, and said, “This was forged here. The metal remembers the fire. So does the hand that held the tongs.” I realized I hadn’t taken a single photo. My camera stayed in my pocket. My notebook filled—not with observations, but with questions: What did I assume about this place before I touched it? What did I overlook because I was looking for ‘the view’?

🌄 The journey continues: From Le Puy to Montpeyroux—and beyond

I never made it to Montpeyroux that day. But the next morning, I caught the 8:30 bus—same route, same driver, who recognized me and gave a small, solemn nod. When we arrived, I didn’t head straight for the chapel. Instead, I sat on the stone wall overlooking the valley, watching light break through cloud, listening to sheep bells fade up the slope. Only then did I walk to the chapel—its door unlocked, its interior smelling of candle wax and damp wool. An old man swept the nave, humming. He didn’t speak English. I didn’t speak his dialect of Occitan. We shared bread from my bag and his thermos of herbal tea. No translation needed.

Later that week, Megan invited me to a reading in the cathedral cloister—not a performance, but a gathering. Ten people. Two poets (one local, one from Toulouse), a violinist who played fragments of medieval troubadour melodies, and Megan reading new work inspired by the week’s rainfall. There were no microphones. Voices rose and fell with the acoustics of ancient stone. One line lingered: “We carry maps drawn in absence—until the ground speaks back.” I understood, viscerally, that my earlier frustration with the canceled bus wasn’t about delay. It was grief—for the version of travel I thought I needed: linear, efficient, documented. The detour hadn’t cost me time. It had returned something I hadn’t known was missing: permission to be unproductive, to trust slowness as method, not failure.

💭 Reflection: What poetry taught me about budget travel

Budget travel is often framed as compromise—smaller rooms, longer transfers, fewer ‘extras.’ But Megan’s work revealed a different economy: one where attention is currency, silence is infrastructure, and presence is the most affordable resource. Her bilingual practice exposed how much I’d outsourced understanding—relying on apps for translations, guides for context, reviews for validation. In Le Puy, I learned that what to look for in literary travel isn’t famous names or published collections. It’s the pause before speech. It’s the hesitation in a shopkeeper’s reply—not as barrier, but as invitation to listen more closely. It’s noticing how a phrase changes shape when spoken outdoors versus indoors, in rain versus sun.

This shifted my practical choices. I stopped booking ‘experiences’ in advance. I left space—two mornings per week—unstructured, for wandering without destination. I carried a small notebook with blank pages, no grid, no prompts—just paper receptive to whatever arrived. I learned to read bus schedules not as rigid timetables but as social documents: cancellations signaled community rhythms; delays reflected weather patterns; driver gestures conveyed local knowledge no app could encode. Budget travel, I realized, isn’t about spending less. It’s about valuing differently—trading data points for depth, efficiency for resonance.

💡 Practical takeaways: Woven, not listed

My days in Le Puy didn’t yield Instagrammable moments. They yielded habits. I began arriving at transport hubs 20 minutes early—not to rush, but to watch. I noted how locals carried bags, how children ran ahead then doubled back, how shop doors opened at precise times. These weren’t ‘tips.’ They were calibration exercises. When planning my next trip to the Pyrenees, I skipped generic hiking forums and searched for regional oral history archives, finding recordings of shepherd songs translated by linguists at Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès 2. I booked lodging based on proximity to a weekly market—not for souvenirs, but for overhearing bargaining cadences, for watching how cheese was wrapped in parchment, for learning which verbs accompanied which gestures.

Language learning became tactile. Instead of flashcards, I collected phrases tied to sensory anchors: “le vent fait chanter les tuiles” (the wind makes the roof tiles sing) — heard during a storm in Riom-ès-Montagnes; “la terre respire après la pluie” (the earth breathes after rain) — whispered by a farmer near Salers. Each phrase carried its origin—the damp chill of stone, the scent of turned soil, the vibration in the speaker’s throat. This is how poetry travels: not as artifact, but as echo.

⭐ Conclusion: The itinerary that begins with stopping

I left Le Puy with no signed book, no official certificate, no ‘Megan Boyles poetry tour’ receipt. I carried only a pressed sprig of heather, a page of her handwriting copied into my notebook (“regarder, pas voir” — look, don’t just see), and the certainty that the most consequential travel moments arrive unannounced—dripping from an awning, spoken over lukewarm coffee, rooted in stone older than language. Interview with Megan Boyles poetry wasn’t a discrete event. It was the unraveling of a habit—the belief that movement equaled progress. True budget travel, I now understand, starts not with a spreadsheet, but with the courage to stand still long enough for the ground to speak back.