About the same time W.S. Merwin was announced as the winner of this year’s Pulitzer Prize, I wondered if something had happened to another of my favorite writers, novelist and essayist Jim Houston. Searches for him and “cancer” brought people to my blog almost two weeks ago, then my former husband sent me an email which confirmed the sad news. Today I went to Al Young’s blog and read REMEMBERING JAMES D. HOUSTON.

I was a student of Jim’s at UC Santa Cruz; I had my first class with Jim sandwiched between my first quarter there with Al Young and the following quarter with Page Stegner.

The class focused on fiction. I was working on a novel about hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, and Jim was very encouraging. He knew a lot about the state and its natural history.

For class each week we’d workshop one or two people’s stories, discuss literature, and talk about writing process. Often we held class in his house near the beach in Santa Cruz, and he showed us his studio where he wrote standing up because his back hurt. When I stand to write, I always think of him. At his house, we drank wine–he was a big fan of Ridge wines and was amazed that I had worked there. For class, we read the collection Best American Short Stories which had been edited by Ray Carver and had recently been released. Jim had arranged for Ray to visit our class, but that was changed with the news of Ray’s serious illness from cancer. Most of us in the class traveled to Stanford to hear Ray read. 

As a teacher, he was gentle, generous, and honest. He had a great laugh, and he really had eyes which twinkled when he smiled. His deep love and respect for his wife was inspiring.  I was fortunate to have him as a teacher,  a mentor, a friend.

In late August 2006, I saw he was giving a workshop and I wrote to the organizers to say I’d love to attend and to tell Jim a former student says hi. In September 2006, Jim emailed me, asked me about my life, and how my writing was going. We kicked around the idea of having him come read at the college where I teach but it didn’t come to pass. I wish now I’d tried harder to make that happen.

I did send him this poem which I’d written during the 3:15 experiment a few weeks before we reconnected:

Tuesday August 8, 2006 315am

The train cars crash
into each other on the tracks
It’s unnerving tonight
like it is on my head
sweeping past my cheek
through my ears
out my mouth
across my eyes
until the
house & I
stop shaking

faint rumble of
engines now
try horn of train
now horn now whistle
what do they call
this electronic noise
the engineer makes
any more?

Now steady beep beep beep
something somewhere
warns as it
backs up

breath alternates
first the child’s drawing in then
the father’s blowing out

I was dreaming of James and Jeanne Houston
of their writing of her writing
I was hearing it read in my dream
It was so beautiful elegiac
I wanted to possess these words
I was going to
there was snow
words held fire
they were solid like rocks
I was going to be able
to hold them the words like
stones in my hand
I can feel the weight
of them in my palms
soft grey stones not
unlike dove a soap
a chocolate the words
from one mouth into
anothers you can
suck on a stone
when you need to
for sustenance
for comfort

moth walks up the wall
Its wings flutter a tutu

the baby’s breath

the ocean

this night at 315

the ocean

the ocean

So enough about me and Jim Houston. For more poetry, check out Read Write Poem. For more about James Houston, continue! Read more…