News travels fast\u2014until it hits LA traffic. Which would explain why I only just learned about the death of Fred Chappell<\/b> last month. In all my years, I never met anyone who so fully epitomized the concept of the \u201cMan of Letters.\u201d I probably still have somewhere the letter of recommendation he wrote for me when I left UNC-G, touting my ineffable virtues\u2014he was, after all, a master storyteller. Because to be honest, I was a bit of an ass back then. OK, that\u2019s not entirely fair; I was a complete<\/em> ass back then. So much so that I squandered my access to such a brilliant mind. Partly due to scheduling conflicts, mostly due to my sense of inadequacy, I held off until my final semester before enrolling in an independent study with him. And being hands-down the least prolific member of my class, I did not produce much work to discuss in our weekly meetings. I should\u2019ve realized that discussing my own work would be the least instructive thing we could do—far better to discuss just about anything he cared to hold forth on. He was exceedingly generous. Following the publication of my first book, I finagled a reading at UNC-G. Naturally, he was there, even though he was on the cusp of retirement (\u201cNo more in \u201904\u201d was his boisterous motto).<\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n In an eerie coincidence\u2014the kind that makes you wonder if the universe is random after all\u2014I recently grabbed I am One of You Forever<\/a><\/em> from my local library, not knowing that Fred was gone. I hadn\u2019t read it in\u2014what, 30 years?\u2014but loved every word, even though I seemed to remember every word. Perhaps that\u2019s one of the hallmarks of epic writing: you know it by heart, and yet it always seems new. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For those unfamiliar with the book, it\u2019s not so much a novel as a collection of linked stories, all told from the perspective of a tween boy growing up in rural North Carolina, in a family visited by a succession of picaresque uncles. It merges magical realism with a Faulknerian connection to the Southern gothic tradition, along with some straight-up blarney. The result defies comparison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, I first knew Fred as a poet. If he is not generally listed among the ranks of New Formalist poets, it\u2019s only because he predates them, being, as always, ahead of his time. There is a structure, if not an obvious form, to all of his poems, even those that appear to be written in free verse. Perhaps because he wrote stories and literary criticism, and his poetry often seeks to accomplish what can not be done in any other medium. There\u2019s no better example than \u201cNarcissus and Echo\u201d from his book, Source<\/a><\/em>. According to myth, Echo could not speak on her own, but could only give back what others have said. Miraculously, Fred composed a poem that demonstrates this impossible constraint. There\u2019s simply no way to describe it without reproducing it here, in total:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, we are all Narcissus\u2014but Fred alone seems sufficiently aware of his narcissism to banish it. A poem like that results from two things: a stroke of brilliance to conceive of it, and the long diligent effort to make it work out (Fred believed that regularity was a writer\u2019s bread and butter). Fred could be dauntingly erudite, bouncing from Norse mythology to Grimm\u2019s fairytales without missing a beat; in fact, the title and epigraphs in his book First and Last Words<\/em> allude to or name-drop Vergil, Livy, Kant, Goethe, Tolstoy, Vermeer, Rubens, Einstein, Beowulf, and of course, the Gospels, to name a few. Nonetheless, he could be funny. His sense of humor is evident in poems such as \u201cRecovery of Sexual Desire After a Bad Cold,\u201d which begins \u201cToward morning I dreamed of the Ace of Spades reversed,\u201d or \u201cCharge,\u201d which looks upon a statue of a (Civil War?) general and muses that the \u201cBlack pyramid of cannonballs \/ by the pediment are turds \/ of the bronze horse.\u201d About the Confessional poets, he wrote (and I\u2019m going from memory here, because it appeared on community poetry bulletin board, not in any permanent publication), \u201cIf my peccadilloes were so small \/ I don\u2019t think I\u2019d want to show them off at all.\u201d Fred understood that poetry should encompass all human conditions, including humor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Further evidence of that sly humor can be found in the title of his collected poems, \u201cSpring Garden.\u201d The Amazon review describes it as \u201ca story of the poet classifying and selecting among his work while his wife, Susan, botanizes in their private garden.\u201d That may be true, but the real fact is, Spring Garden was the name of a bar near the UNC-G campus, quite popular with the MFA crowd (the beer was cheap). Fred would often join us for a drink at the end of the day. He always tried to be approachable, and down-to-earth. Perhaps it was his way of showing encouragement. He was well aware of the difficult challenges facing a young writer. He once remarked: \u201cBecause of the emotional wear and tear, and because of the uncertainty of success or of even making progress, many give it up and eventually take up something else.\u201d I think that knowledge was a burden to him. In fact, I suspect he identified with Vergil\u2014not just because of his pastoral lyrics, but because he led Dante through the depths of Hell and into the gates Paradise. Teaching a bunch of rag-tag would-be writers must stem from the same tradition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I can\u2019t begin to guess how many writers he mentored during the course of his lengthy tenure. Many have gone on to achieve renown in their own right\u2014but I’m sure they would all acknowledge their debt to him. He once joked, in typical humility, \u201cIf I am going to be remembered, I guess I\u2019d like to be remembered as someone who did less harm than he was capable of.\u201d Sorry, Fred, you will be remembered as someone who did far more than that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You are one of us forever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fred Chappell: In Memoriam News travels fast\u2014until it hits LA traffic. Which would explain why I only just learned about the death of Fred Chappell last month. In all my years, I never met anyone who so fully epitomized the … Continue reading Narcissus and Echo<\/h2>\n\n\n\nShall the water not remember Ember<\/em>
\n\n\n\nmy hand\u2019s slow gestures, tracing above of<\/em>
\n\n\n\nits mirror my half-imaginary airy<\/em>
\n\n\n\nportrait? My only belonging longing;<\/em>
\n\n\n\nis my beauty, which I take ache<\/em>
\n\n\n\naway and then return, as love of<\/em>
\n\n\n\nteasing playfully the one being unbeing.<\/em>
\n\n\n\nwhose gratitude I treasure Is your<\/em>
\n\n\n\nmoves me. I live apart heart<\/em>
\n\n\n\nfrom myself, yet cannot not<\/em>
\n\n\n\nlive apart. In the water\u2019s tone stone?<\/em>
\n\n\n\nthat brilliant silence, a flower Hour,<\/em>
\n\n\n\nwhispers my name with such slight light<\/em>:
\n\n\n\nmoment, it seems filament of air, fare<\/em>
\n\n\n\nthe world become cloudswell. well<\/em>.<\/div>\n\n\n\n