In 1961, I started typing summaries of televised hockey games to leave on the kitchen counter for my father to read after he and my mother returned from their usual Saturday night on the town! It was an ancient Remington that was a blast to pound on. A year later, my ninth grade English teacher accused me of plagiarism after I waxed poetic in a composition, yet my enchantment with language has not waned, and I remain a freelance poetic reporter without portfolio!
I became acquainted with Donald Hall in 2012 and had the pleasure of three visits with him at his famous Eagle Pond Farm. I attended his last reading and poetry talk in Nov. 2017 at the University of New Hampshire, as well as his funeral seven months later.
Occupational poetry?
On my infinite to-do list is an examination of the place of poetry in the academy. I want to know how it came to pass that, when I told him that I had been a student in a creative writing program run by Lewis Turco in the 1970s, he let out a hearty laugh and said, “Oh, Turco hates me!” More about Donald Hall ->
I plan to use part of my upcoming MacArthur loot to get to the bottom of how, up to the time The Famous Writers School was chased out of the marketplace in 1970, there were little more than a handful of creative writing programs on American college campuses, and now there are more than 800!
We love e-mail
E-mail contact is via my business site: ReadWebco.com; if you’d rather send a check or a postcard: Dave Read, PO Box 920, Stockbridge, MA 01262