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Denise Low: “Mentors and a Game”

Mentors and a Game by Denise Low

My writer friend Robert Day has a game he plays. He shakes your hand, and then says, “There. You have shaken Nabokov’s hand, twice removed, and through him, Leo Tolstoy’s hand.” This physical touch-tag game shows the human aspect of writers’ lineages. Alongside the written books exists a living network of friends, teachers, and mentors. These all provide support for the next generations of writers. Sometimes the lineages are stories, not handshakes. Poet Langston Hughes lived in Lawrence, Kansas, most of his childhood (1901-1915), and his school friend John Taylor told stories about Hughes to Katie Armitage, who told stories to me, and I wrote a biography. A mentor for Hughes was his third-grade elementary school teacher, an African American educator named Mamie Dillard. He remained close to her the rest of his life. Mentors help young people with no expectation that the youngster will become famous. They support the lineage of the literary tradition because they love it. This kind of generosity inspired Rainer Maria Rilke to exchange letters with an aspiring poet, collected in: Letters to a Young Poet: Rilke, Rainer Maria, 1875-1926. An important part of literature is the community of those who love the craft and art of writing. They may become as famous as Leo Tolstoy or Langston Hughes, or not. Whom, in history, would you like to shake hands with? Who are your mentors? What kind of mentor will you be when your turn arrives?

Marsh Hawk Press Artistic Advisory Board

Sandy McIntosh, Publisher

Toi Derricotte
Denise Duhamel
Marilyn Hacker
Maria Mazziotti Gillan
David Lehman
Alicia Ostriker
David Shapiro
Anne Waldman
John Yau

In Memory of Marie Ponsot, Robert Creeley, Paul Pines, Allan Kornblum, Rochelle Ratner, Corinne Robins, Claudia Carlson and Harriet Zinnes. 

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Praise for Books

PAUL PINES: Charlotte Songs

The great themes—like Love, Death and Family— have inspired masterpieces and, alas, Hallmark Cards. In Charlotte Songs, Paul Pines celebrates his daughter. But, if you want the Hallmark Card version of fatherhood, you’ve come to the wrong place. Pines gives us the full paradox of living with his child as she grows from toddler to young woman. Inventive, humorous, baffling and poignant.

— Dalt Wonk
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