“Our fathers die,” Greg, my brother man, the beekeeper, said through the static on the cell, “and when they do, it opens us up to something else, as it must.”
Tomorrow I go back into the workshop. Tomorrow I put on my professor clothes (well, sort of) and go in to give the same speech about [...]
Archive for August, 2007
“And that’s from one white trash kid to another.” Liam Rector
Posted in Bennington, Building, Community, Hope, Liam Rector, Loss, Poetry, Teachers, The Beautiful Work, Thresholds, Writing on August 27, 2007 | 5 Comments »
Center of My Sorrow
Posted in Community, Liam Rector, Loss, Teachers, Transitions, Uncategorized on August 25, 2007 | 3 Comments »
“Once there was a shock
that left behind a long, shimmering comet tail.
It keeps us inside. It makes the TV pictures snowy.
It settles in cold drops on the telephone wires.”
From After a Death by Tomas Transtromer
I grew up in the way of hurricanes, the coastal plains, in a county that even miles inland, sat actually below [...]
The Gospel According to…
Posted in Books, Fiction, Loss, Teachers, Truth on August 23, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
“I was born in a family of landless peasants…” Jose Saramago, 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature
The day I lost my friend, I had just finished reading Jose Saramago’s The Gospel According to Jesus Christ. A dark parable, the novel examines Jesus as man, as Son of Man, rather than the Son of God. God is [...]
Grief and the body
Posted in Fiction, Losing, Transitions, Uncategorized on August 21, 2007 | 7 Comments »
I’ve been thinking about grief and how it manifests in the body.
I keep pulling out in front of cars, four since last Wednesday night. I’m generally an excellent multi-tasker, a little manically good at it, if I’m going to be truthful. But in the face of this loss, my insides, both literally and metaphorically, feel [...]
Beginning at an end: Liam Rector 1949-2007
Posted in Building, Losing, Poetry, Transitions on August 21, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
I swore I’d never blog. I’m afraid it will cut into what little time I already have for writing. But the passing of Liam Rector, my mentor, my friend, has driven me here, and I’m not even sure why yet. He coached me through the nuance and nuisance of academic job interviews my last semester [...]
