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James Whitehead
- University of Arkansas Press
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James Whitehead In 1965, James T. Whitehead (1936–2003) and his friend, William Harrison, founded the nationally prestigious Creative Writing Program at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. He taught in that program for the next thirtyfour years, from 1965 to 1999. He was recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in fiction and a Robert Frost Fellowship in poetry. In 1981, Whitehead presented Jimmy Carter with a poem to honor his presidency and welcome him back to Plains, Georgia. Whitehead’s sports novel, Joiner (1971), was listed among the New York Times’ Noteworthy Books of the Year. While winning acclaim as a novelist, Whitehead published widely as a poet; his many, well-received collections include Domains (1967), Local Men (1979), the chapbook, Actual Size (1985), and Near at Hand (1993). qQ The Opinion of an Interesting Old Man It’s plain damned hard to lose yourself these days . . . or at least you can’t the clean way you once could . . . gone for a week without boiled water and food, then turning up in town misunderstood with the whole place mad because they’d planned to say nice things when sure you wouldn’t come their way 183 again. It’s a crying shame the way they’re rude enough to hunt you down within a single day and just before you get that taste of fear and just before you feel you’re about to pray. You hear them thrashing through the brush, when you’re nude with love of being lost. They think you’re crude if you plead you’d like to stay. They always intrude like parents who are appalled by curious play, and they trade with the oldest lie: “It’s for your good, dear friend. We’ve come to help you out,” they say. And out you go. Be sure they knew you would. Be sure they’d rather have you alive than dead. Just North of Sikeston One night just north of Sikeston I had a vision, or at least an insight, Driving at fifty where before the worst Was eyestrain. (It was within the legal limit.) The season was spring and every truck and car Had perfect manners, held To their side and blinked their headlights To keep from going blind— A lovely thing when you think what could easily happen On an eighteen-foot road with a lip If people get a little out of line. That brought the horrors, the vision, 184 James Whitehead [54.210.143.119] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 10:25 GMT) or what you will . . . You see, I realized some mean to die— Some, too much aware Of spring and how the earth Begins to hate them less, will fling themselves And families across the median. With the weather getting better, these winter men Will cram one lane with life To quiet the ugly wife And free themselves and children from the long ways I want to ride with mine for years. Dear God, I thought, please let him kill in some other state Tonight, as he seems to . . . Or, better, let him die Alone in a ploughed field, His throat slit by his own hand— Or in a big motel, His pistol in his mouth— Don’t let him crush his family, or mine, Or any other man’s. Save, if you can, A dozen lives too subtle to abide A fury of metal. Let No man gone out of round tear living years On a wheel insanely rolling bloody from The berm. It’s love that dims Our lights. It’s praise that we take care to ease Ourselves from every curve. James Whitehead 185 ...