I almost didn’t go.  I almost didn’t meet him.  I certainly didn’t know him well enough to make this tribute, yet here I am.

At the late-summer workshop in Loveland, he gave us several printed pages of thoughts and prompts and reflections. I saw it just the other day and now cannot find it: another brick in the loss. 

But I do have some scrawled notes (I hope accurately captured):
“Go into a dark place you haven’t been before and turn a light on.”
“Put your ear forward.”
“Clarity is creating a window through which the world’s complexity can be viewed.”
“The poet’s job is to unhinge us into the uncomfortable need to know.”
“Keep writing through the doubt.” 

And the loss, I would add.

At one point he asked, “How would your life be different if you had done THAT instead.”

Then he mentioned knowing Richard Hugo, and I was suddenly back to 1982, one foot away from stepping into Montana and an MFA program with Hugo when he abruptly died. Instead I stayed put (mostly), married, had two kids and, now, four grand kids. 

How my life would have been different. 

How would my life have been different if I had not attended that workshop with Chris Ransick at the end of summer?

I left quickly during conversations and the signing of books.  Did I hurry away too soon?

He did. 

http://www.chrisransick.com
https://www.lighthousewriters.org