March 26, 2019


Mother died on this day in 1974.

One of my first students, Keith Hall, writes:

Dear David,

“By some mercy the truth is kept from us” is a brilliant line, worthy of Shakespeare.

I am reading your book now for the second time, with joy, and in places, with tears in my eyes.

Engaging with you again over so much time is like a resurrection - of memory, of the imagination, of joy, including the joy I felt living in Asheville for 12 years, fond remembrance of life-altering moments I experienced at UNCA, of the vistas, the things The Voices told me to say, and the uncertain sense of power I felt over words back then. Thank you, (and thank you, Voices.)

All writers, whoever they are, bear the mark of their masters, their Big Ghosts, as William Stafford said. Anything I wrote after your poetry workshop that I attended - in 1984-ish, 85-ish (?) bears your mark. I had read The Glaciers Daughters, and stopped wanting to be T. S. Eliot, or William Stafford, or John Berryman, or James Applewhite, or Jim Wayne Miller, or Robert Lowell, all Big Ghosts to me. I wanted to be you. I had no surfeit of ideas; I was bursting with ideas but at that time had no concept of how to channel that slow, continual lava flow of images, impressions, ideas into some complete and coherent form. I read everything in the UNCA library that had a poem in it. I was looking for something. You gave me that direction, either verbally in class or in my reading and re-re-re-reading of your own work. God gave me the voices; you gave me the inspiration, the discipline, and the structure. Anything I have written since the day I met you is partly your fault! Bless you for that.

I learned that, as a poet, I am a sprinter, not a distance runner. I am good for short poems, maybe with breath enough for a sonnet or a full page, but I never mastered the longer, more discursive and intellectual forms. One reviewer told me I had a talent for the “gnomic phrase.” Fred Chappell once said in a letter to me that my poems had “a whittled quality.” Whatever that means.

Over the years, I have met or communicated with some significant poets, most of whom would be classified as “regional” – James Applewhite, James Still, Jim Wayne Miller, James Seay, Fred Chappell, RHW Dillard, David Huddle.

The book you sent me is named "Peniel" which is the title of one of the poems that I submitted for my final project at UNCA eons ago. I was thrilled to see that and wonder if that is accidental or on purpose. God lurks in my poems, like a face on a billboard you see only for a second when flying down the highway. He's there but in the wings, behind the curtain, watching but the audience doesn't see Him. Your engagement with Him is much more direct and open and eloquent.

The poems you sent in typescript are brilliant, a joy to read. I am reading your book for the third time. You have hammered the hot nail back into my head. Thank you for your inscription. “My first baby poet.” Yes, if that is so, then I am happy to be your first born.

God bless you for reaching out to me. I love your writing. I always have.

Let’s stay in touch, regularly and frequently.

Always,

Keith

The bloodroots are in bloom.