Easy me, writing fool

Ever since I've been back on the freelance beat, I have been writing for whoever will have me. I am just easy that way.

If you want to know about the Little Rock Theatre scene, go here. No, there isn't much creative writing involved, but I am trying to keep it going. So help a guy out and click on the stories one billion times. Thankee.

Take another bow, Letter to Little Rock

This is my Letter to Little Rock that was published in Soiree a few months back. In case you missed it, we repeat for you because that's just how we are.

There are two things I distinctly remember about the summer of 1987, my first summer back in Arkansas after being away in graduate school in Boston. The first was playing Frisbee on Markham. We had a rent house that was steps away from the Razorback Laundry and the beloved Oyster Bar with a long porch that faced Markham. Being young, broke and generally fearless (you could substitute the word “fearless” with the word “stupid”), we held many parties where we consumed cheap beer that had the kick and flavor of water. There were three of us renting the house, but it felt like a lot more. Maybe we locked the door, but I don't remember doing so and it always seemed as if somebody new – a friend of a friend of a friend – was traipsing through the house.

And that was fine. We were cut loose from college and yet we weren't ready – not near ready -- to let it go. So our wood-paneled pad on Markham served as a ratty yet comfortable way station. We would stagger in from whatever temporary job we had, somebody would put on a record and the party was on. Then, when it was midnight or later, we'd play Frisbee on Markham. You could even get off three or four throws before somebody yelled “Car!”

Little Rock was new to me then. I had grown up in Hot Springs, spent four years in school in Conway and was still absorbing what it meant to live in Boston. I knew Little Rock like most kids my age did – mostly by what I saw looking out window driving to and from the malls. So I was lying when I told the man who hired me as a courier that I knew my way around the city. He operated his business out of the basement of his house in the Heights. He had a small fleet of young men like myself driving architectural plans and medical tests all over Little Rock. We communicated through a walkie-talkie system installed in our cars. It was still years away before that business and all the others like it were obsolete.

As I said, Little Rock was foreign to me, which made for many nervous courier trips with me sweating through the white button-down shirts that served as a uniform. There was a trip to the airport that seemed to last for hours with the owner offering increasingly terse directions as it became clear that I had no clue where I was. I think I somehow ended up in Jacksonville.

But the stress of that job, intense as it was at the time, was fleeting, passing almost as quickly as that summer. Soon I'd be back in Boston, where I would last only four more years. Now I live in Little Rock and I eat at the Oyster Bar quite a lot. I drive by that old house and I am quite tempted to get out and fling a Frisbee across the street for old time's sake. I would do that, but, you know, I'm not crazy.

It is AAALLIIIIVVVVEEEE!

The blog, I mean. It's alive. I am going to maintain this little corner of the internets if it kills me -- and it probably will.

For my first act among the living, here is a recent piece I wrote about the 25th Anniversary of the Porter Fund Prize. I am a very, very, very lucky Porter Fund winner. The gala at the Governor's Mansion -- well, read below. It was a special evening.

Oh, and the picture to the right is of Dr. Ben Kimpel, the professor I didn't know but who lives on in the literary prize started in his honor.

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During a recent reading at the Great Hall of the Governor's Mansion, poet Miller Williams paused to take note that his work does not require the constant use of a dictionary. He went on to state that his intent was to create poems with language that could be read and understood by “squirrel hunters and taxi drivers.”

Williams said this while addressing a sizable crowd that included the sitting governor of Arkansas, Mike Beebe, the attorney general of Arkansas, Dustin McDaniel (who also happens to be a cousin of Williams), former governor and senator David Pryor and several captains of industry including Don Tyson. There may not have been any taxi drivers in the bunch and the squirrel hunters didn't identify themselves.

The happy occasion – and any chance to hear Williams' heart-expanding, smile-inducing verse can be labeled as such -- was the 25th Anniversary of the Porter Fund Literary Prize. The poet from Hoxie received the Lifetime Achievement Award, the second such designation given by the literary prize started by Phil McMath and Jack Butler over drinks in a bar. The idea by the two former students' was to honor Dr. Ben Drew Kimpel, the distinguished chair of the Department of English at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. Kimpel made a request that the prize be named in honor of his mother, Gladys Crane Kimpel Porter.

In his welcome speech, McMath couldn't help but notice how far the Porter Prize has come in the past 25 years. Taking note of the glittery appointments of the Great Hall and the wine and martini bars that were taken advantage of by many of the guests, McMath remembered the “early days” where he and his wife Carol would run out the day of to buy the cheese and the wine for the Porter Fund events.

Poet Leon Stokesbury has the honor of the first Porter Prize, which he won in 1985 and received a check of $500. The last Porter honoree, non-fiction writer Roy Reed, received his award and $2,000 in prize money, at the Main Library in downtown Little Rock. There have been 24 Arkansas writers – 9 poets, 12 fiction writers, 2 non-fiction writers and 1 playwright -- recognized between Stokesbury and Reed. Over the years, what has come clear is that the Porter Prize is something more than money and a nice pat on the back (which is not to say that most writers don't desperately need and appreciate both). The Porter Prize is helping to identify the significant talent that Arkansas has produced. Along those lines, McMath drew the attention of the crowd to a chance to donate to The Porter Literary Project, a documentary film that will begin production in 2010. When completed, the documentary will be distributed to schools as well as writing departments in Arkansas' colleges and universities.

The documentary will go a long way in capturing the past of the Porter Prize (and footage was taken of the 25th Anniversary event), but McMath struck a note of concern about the present, specifically the paradox of “how there is less communication in this age of communication.” This notion was echoed in the direct and moving remarks by McDaniel about his cousin. After taking a moment to recognize the members of his extended family in the audience including state representative Kathy Webb and Williams' daughter, Grammy winner Lucinda Williams, he mentioned a brief e-mail he received from Williams after being elected to the office of Attorney General. The e-mail, which McDaniel said he printed and has kept in his office, was a plea for the new head of Arkansas' legal realm to be mindful of how his decisions affect those without power or money.

In between his poems during his reading Williams mentioned how he started his collegiate life with a major in biology. The work he selected and read reflected that keen appreciation of the natural world – the way a caterpillar doggedly crawls along the edge of a dog bowl, the way husband and wife can talk around one another and even the questions raised by the very atoms and particles of our being. Williams direct verse -- those well-carved out words aimed at squirrel hunters and taxi drivers – delighted the crowd. It was a night of honors and recognition, but, above all, a night of peerless communication.