Passing the Word: Writers on Their Mentors

by Jeffrey Skinner (Editor), Lee Martin (Editor)

Overview

"Discipline, humility, kindness. These qualities cohere in the best mentors, bundled into an overarching approach to the art of writing. It is not, I think, coincidence that the writers in this collection remember these qualities best when speaking of their mentors as people, as fellow pilgrims who helped them on the way. In some sense, whether consciously or not, we seek out mentors who learn how to live—as an artist, and as a human being."—from the Introduction by Jeffrey Skinner

Lee Martin is the author of a collection of stories, The Least You Need to Know (Sarabande, 1996), a memoir From Our House (Dutton 2000), and a novel Just Enough Haughty, also forthcoming from Dutton. He teaches in the creative writing program at the University of North Texas where he also edits the American Literary Review.

Jeffrey Skinner is currently Director of Creative Writing at the University of Louisville. His published collections of poetry include The Company of Heaven (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992), Late Stars (Wesleyan UniversityPress, 1985), and A Guide to Forgetting (Graywolf Press, 1988), which was a National Poetry Series selection.

Contributors include:
Michael Collier on William Meredith
Jay McInerney on Raymond Carver
Tess Gallagher on Theodore Roethke and Stanley Kunitz
Reginald Shepherd on Alvin Feinman
Dana Gioia on Elizabeth Bishop
Maura Stanton on Vert Rutsala and John Berryman
Elizabeth Graver on Annie Dillard, Angela Carter, Stanley Elkin, and others
Sylvia Watanabe on Dorothy Vella
David Huddle on Peter Taylor
David Wojahn on James L. White
Erin McGraw on John L’Heureux

CONTENTS

PREFACE by Lee Martin, vii

INTRODUCTION: The Scrupulous Philanthropy of Expertise by Jeffrey Skinner, xi

MICHAEL COLLIER
An Exact Ratio, 3
The Farrier, 12

JAY MCINERNEY
Raymond Carver: A Still, Small Voice, 15
Getting in Touch with Your Child, 24

TESS GALLAGHER
Two Mentors: From Orphanhood to Spirit-Companion, 39
Behave, 45

DAVID HUDDLE
What about Those Good People?, 51
Backstory, 57

REGINALD SHEPHERD
T

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781889330594
Publisher:	Sarabande Books
Publication date:	07/01/2001
Series:	The Writer's Studio , #3
Edition description:	1 ED
Pages:	231
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

Table of Contents

	Preface	vii
	Introduction: The Scrupulous Philanthropy of Expertise	xi
	An Exact Ratio	3
	The Farrier	12
	Raymond Carver: A Still, Small Voice	15
	Getting in Touch with Your Child	24
	Two Mentors: From Orphanhood to Spirit-Companion	39
	Behave	45
	What About Those Good People?	51
	Backstory	57
	Thirteen Ways of Looking at Alvin Feinman	79
	Interglacial	88
	Complicate. Simplify	91
	Ax of the Apostles	95
	Berryman and Rutsala: Two Prototypes	115
	Ode to Berryman	119
	A Double Kind of Knowing	125
	Surtsey	131
	Looking	153
	Where People Know Me	157
	A Cavalier and Doomed Lot: James L. White, A Memoir	173
	Excavation Photo	199
	Studying with Miss Bishop	203
	The Litany	225
	The Editors	227
	Acknowledgments	229

Editorial Reviews

This cleverly arranged anthology, edited by poet Skinner (The Company of Heaven) and memoirist Martin (From Our House), pairs personal essays by established writers on their mentors along with an original work of fiction or poetry by those writers to illustrate the qualities they have discussed. This volume makes a significant contribution to our understanding of how an older generation of writers most of them college teachers has affected its students. Some of the essays have been published previously, such as "Studying with Miss Bishop," Dana Gioia's vibrant portrayal of Elizabeth Bishop's somewhat eccentric teaching of modern poetry at Harvard, as well as "Raymond Carver: A Still, Small Voice," Jay McInerney's description of "fall[ing]under Carver's spell," of learning to treat words "very, very gingerly." In "A Double Kind of Knowing," Elizabeth Graver analyzes her two-tiered relationship with Annie Dillard, and mentors in general: "to encounter writers as teachers in the classroom, and then also to go deeper, sitting, solitary, with the pages they have written... the language of their souls." At times we see direct links between the creative work presented and the mentor previously described, such as Tess Gallagher's poem "Behave," in which she describes "Roethke, my other long gone father." Other pairings are more opaquely connected. Most of these discussions attest to some conflict between welcoming the influence of a mentor and maintaining the integrity of one's own voice. As Reginald Shepherd writes, "I confess that I've never been much of a prot?g?... I have opinions and convictions, or at least obstinacy and willfulness." Readers of this work, especially those who are writersthemselves, will enjoy the many memories presented here with subtlety and admiration. (Aug.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

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