Hobble Creek Review
Often time we are thrown into situations we do not immediately
comprehend or quite simply dread because we understand all too well
what will be required. Today, I fall into that second category. I have
been putting off this letter for as long as I possibly could because I
know what I must do and I know I am not equal to the task in many
ways.
Some time ago, in May of this year, William Kloefkorn passed away.
Most of you here now already know that for one of several reasons.
You are either somebody who knew Bill, or you have been a reader of
this journal and have known I was putting together this issue
honoring him. In any case, I am not going to eulogize him here, nor
should I. Even though I count Bill as one of the great influences on
my writing life, I was only one of hundreds (if not thousands) of poets
who knew him in the same way. I was not fortunate enough to call
him a friend, though we were on friendly terms, and more than an
abiding love of the written word connected the two of us together.
Who was William Kloefkorn to me? He was an influential mentor to
me and my writing. I met him in 2002 because of my friend, David
Lee. I was attending the Cedar Breaks Writer Workshop near Cedar
City, Utah, and Kloefkorn was there because Bill Holm was not. We
swapped one Bill for another, and though I would not dare to say I
would have been worse off with Bill Holm, I do know I learned a lot
in that week and I certainly would not have learned what I did learn
if William had not replaced Bill. I can also say with assured
confidence my first chapbook would not have been published when it
was without him. He was directly responsible for my chapbook being
ready to publish and pointing me at my first editor.
As we got to know each other over the course of the week, we began
to bond a little. We had both been in the military. Bill was a marine
and I was in the army, so we traded martial metaphors and images in
our conversations, and later in the few letters we wrote. We also
bonded in a shared joy of making fun of our friend David Lee’s
penmanship. Bill never missed an opportunity that week to remind
Dave he wrote “like a little girl.”
A few years later I bought an old copy of Ludi jr. and wrote my own
version of a Ludi jr. poem in order to ask that he sign my copy. He
graciously told me it was Ludi jr. reborn. Two lines of my poem
struck him:
If he signs the book
there will be life everlasting.
He replied, “and of course I like to believe that.” That was back in
2005.
I sent him copies of my chapbooks, and in April, 2011, I sent him a
copy of my first full length book. I sent it to him because I was proud
of what I had accomplished and I sent it to him because he was such a
large part of the success I have had as a writer over the past decade
since we met at the writer workshop. I wanted him to see his efforts
with me had paid off, show him I was truly grateful.
Still, I know if we had the chance to talk about my book, he would
have asked one simple question: What’s next? I know that because of
what he once told me in one of his letters. It’s advice I often pass on
to other writers interested in my methodology. It is the sentiment I
will leave you all with as I invite you to read this special issue of
Hobble Creek Review.
[I] hope all is well with you, and that you are continuing to write. The writer, after
all---right or wrong---writes.
---William Kloefkorn, 2005