tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7444082152312444929.post1310597322527401812..comments2024-02-15T22:18:00.385-07:00Comments on Bobby Byrd: Keith Wilson: 1927-2009Bobby Byrdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17990783036661848472noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7444082152312444929.post-45884462832500962622009-03-20T00:26:00.000-06:002009-03-20T00:26:00.000-06:00Bobby, thanks for your words here.... DaleBobby, thanks for your words here.... DaleDalehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13285558511682553411noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7444082152312444929.post-37949482619349429762009-03-08T13:36:00.000-06:002009-03-08T13:36:00.000-06:00Dear Mrs. Heloise, I am Liana BOTA from Floresti-...Dear Mrs. Heloise, I am Liana BOTA from Floresti-Cluj Napoca, ROMANIA, a former classmate and friend of Kristin and Kathy and I am sorry for your great loss - Keith, your dear husband. I want to get into contact with Kristin so please send me her e-mail or mail address. I want so badly to talk to her over the internet. My family's deepest regrets and condoleances. God bless you and please give me a sign that you've got this note. My email address is lalabota@yahoo.com.Send my love to Kristin, Kathy, Kerrin and Kevin.<BR/><BR/>Liana BOTA and her familyAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7444082152312444929.post-28820689849275947432009-03-07T07:47:00.000-07:002009-03-07T07:47:00.000-07:00Dear Bobby, Thank you very much for writing about...Dear Bobby,<BR/> Thank you very much for writing about my father. He loved being in the company of fellow poets and friends. The eulogy you gave was beautiful & made me remember him in stronger days.<BR/> Thank you and Lee-Bird for being such good friends. I loved seeing you again.<BR/>Abrazos,<BR/>Kathy Wilson FoxKathy Foxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00246858454192092637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7444082152312444929.post-17006734917812814132009-03-01T19:01:00.000-07:002009-03-01T19:01:00.000-07:00from Cirrelda Snider-Bryan (artist and co-publishe...from Cirrelda Snider-Bryan (artist and co-publisher of La Alameda Press in Albuquerque):<BR/><BR/>I came to this entry, series of entries, you have written re: Keith Wilson. Please know they have all helped me to honor Keith, which I was not able to do in the big gathering yesterday.<BR/><BR/>You say it very well, Bobby, about the connectedness that the poetry community brings. Thank you so very much for this.<BR/>ccBobby Byrdhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17990783036661848472noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7444082152312444929.post-25303108123757209382009-02-18T19:59:00.000-07:002009-02-18T19:59:00.000-07:00Dear Bobby,Thank you for remembering Keith and hel...Dear Bobby,<BR/>Thank you for remembering Keith and helping us all.<BR/><BR/>I talked to Heloise yesterday. I thanked her for supporting Keith and providing us all with the opportunity of having him in our lives longer than aphasia usually allows. As you know, Heloise continued to take Keith on outings and to gatherings. The last time I saw them together, not long ago, Heloise was buzzing north on I 25, Keith in the passenger side, face forward, taking the curve toward Kevin’s. <BR/>Though Keith’s words became garbled, his message was clear. The poet’s essence transcended his own art form. Without words he kept on making poetry. (Shaman Trick)<BR/>I will miss Keith Wilson.<BR/>Jane SlagleAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7444082152312444929.post-69661014932463280522009-02-18T10:48:00.000-07:002009-02-18T10:48:00.000-07:00Here is Keith's poem, "Stepping into Darkness." O...Here is Keith's poem, "Stepping into Darkness." Of the three drafts, it is the only one without edits, so I assume it to be the latest incarnation I have. The margins may not come out on this post as he intended (stanzas two and three are significantly indented as Keith's typical half lines).<BR/><BR/>When Stepping into Darkness<BR/><BR/>Begin by throwing words<BR/>that spread, light,<BR/>colors<BR/> Darkness is,<BR/>after all, only the absence<BR/>of light.<BR/> Paint<BR/>on canvas, wood or paper<BR/>will do as well as<BR/>singing, dancing, sculpting<BR/>all colors and meaning<BR/>into a blue swirl of doorway,<BR/>joy.Terry Lucashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09344475079916141270noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7444082152312444929.post-50018792537664774662009-02-18T01:47:00.000-07:002009-02-18T01:47:00.000-07:00Bobby,We have never met, but we are related throug...Bobby,<BR/><BR/>We have never met, but we are related through Keith and his influence on our work and our lives. Thank you for these fitting words. I was at AWP last week and just heard of Keith's passing. I have corresponded with him and Heloise on and off for almost 40 years. See my blog for a poem he sent me in 2000 that uncannily speaks to his translation into another state of being: "When Stepping into Darknness": <BR/><BR/>http://thewideningspell.blogspot.com/<BR/><BR/>Terry LucasTerry Lucashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09344475079916141270noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7444082152312444929.post-36036627373333802322009-02-16T14:36:00.000-07:002009-02-16T14:36:00.000-07:00Keith WilsonOvercast and damp. The small birdssit...Keith Wilson<BR/><BR/>Overcast and damp. The small birds<BR/>sit quietly atop the rose bush, claws<BR/>shadowing thorns. The large birds, Doves,<BR/>are not doing their usual Watusi wobble<BR/>toward the bowl of water on the ground.<BR/>They are perched on the power line,<BR/>a long row of them, as if waiting<BR/>for a funeral procesion to pass.<BR/>It is a sad day in Las Cruces, a<BR/>sad day in the world, the passing<BR/>of a man, generous and loving,<BR/>our “Shaman of the Desert.”<BR/>Aphasia stole his voice, but <BR/>could not take away his smile,<BR/>his thumbs up, his open embrace,<BR/>his two score of books. If you flip<BR/>through his pages, the immediacy<BR/>of his poems will draw you in,<BR/>and you will understand what is meant <BR/>by the Living Word.<BR/><BR/>Wayne CrawfordAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7444082152312444929.post-74633565388601337872009-02-16T13:29:00.000-07:002009-02-16T13:29:00.000-07:00Here's a poem from El Paso poet and song-writer Ge...Here's a poem from El Paso poet and song-writer Gene Keller (99names@elp.rr.com) in memory of Keith:<BR/><BR/>KEITH WILSON, POET<BR/><BR/>Sir, we have registered your grave<BR/>in the valley of a small mesa scarping<BR/>on the other side of a grand river.<BR/><BR/>Of course, any water in a desert<BR/>is a grace, a blessing, and therefore, grand, whether wadi or arroyo.<BR/><BR/>When I once visited a wadi,<BR/>I carried this image - you, driving at night through the Sacremento Mountains; you told me there was a wolf loping through the trees, pacing your progress.<BR/><BR/>I fear that wolf drew you<BR/>to a land beyond a green land.<BR/><BR/>Some say it's a land of nada,<BR/>but I expect to see you walking<BR/>up a dry creekbed near Cloudcroft,<BR/>your tongue lolling.<BR/><BR/>- Gene KellerBobby Byrdhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17990783036661848472noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7444082152312444929.post-49000081961817085712009-02-12T20:53:00.000-07:002009-02-12T20:53:00.000-07:00Halvard Johnson, in his regular newsletter of poem...Halvard Johnson, in his regular newsletter of poems, sent this announcement out to his list:<BR/><BR/>Keith Wilson died the other day. He was a friend I've known since the mid-60s, <BR/>when I spent some years living in El Paso while he was living in southern New <BR/>Mexico: Anthony, right on the Texas-New Mexico border; then San Miguel, farther <BR/>north, up the Mesilla Valley of the Rio Grande; and then Las Cruces. Any house <BR/>of Keith and Heloise Wilson was full of music and wine and poetry, a caravanserai <BR/>for poets traveling north or south, east or west. <BR/><BR/>Keith, at one stage of his life, often wrote of the sea, and his sea poems were <BR/>among the best poems to come out of the Korean War. Here's one that's not <BR/>overtly war related:<BR/><BR/>The Sea<BR/><BR/>"On the beach<BR/>the ocean ends in water.<BR/> --George Oppen<BR/> The Materials<BR/><BR/>The crisp line, taut, in all<BR/>intimations, thrown out, cork circling<BR/>the water, spash, my hand<BR/><BR/>reaching out<BR/><BR/>--the call, rightly named, these<BR/>Materials, the call is there<BR/>simple, demanding<BR/><BR/>response and a certain<BR/>attention to pulse, the<BR/>movement of whatever the work<BR/><BR/>asks of man--is that what<BR/>I'm trying to say, a man,<BR/>and how, sometimes, he doesn't<BR/><BR/>drown. Coming up spitting<BR/>salt water, safely past the<BR/>screws, it is a man<BR/>intact who waves<BR/><BR/>from the calm wake; behind<BR/>him the sea clear, oceans<BR/>held in place by a line.<BR/><BR/><BR/>And he wrote of dusty New Mexico<BR/>towns:<BR/><BR/>The Politicians<BR/><BR/> come<BR/>come here with full bellies<BR/>& shined shoes to the one street<BR/>of San Miguel, talking, waving<BR/>hands, their harsh gringo Spanish<BR/>shouted in the hanging dust <BR/>of the square<BR/><BR/> the men of the town<BR/>stand uneasy, aware of their hard<BR/>hands, the blue of the stranger's<BR/>eyes, their own mudcrusted boots<BR/>stiff with clay<BR/><BR/>they are ashamed these men<BR/>whose hands are strong with work & loving.<BR/>they listen. then go to the bar,<BR/>beer & red wine, juke box Infante songs,<BR/>his dead voice singing of a Mexico<BR/>which was sad, beautiful, but theirs<BR/>--riding free across a green land,<BR/>gritos on their lips & dead politicians<BR/>fall, one-by-one before their dreaming guns.<BR/><BR/>--both from Graves Registry and Other Poems<BR/>[New York: Grove Press, 1969]<BR/><BR/>Coincidentally, while 1969 did not mark the first publication of a collection of <BR/>poems by Keith Wilson, it did mark the first publication of a collection of poems <BR/>by me. And it was Keith Wilson who sat me down on his living room floor and <BR/>showed me how to put a collection of poems together. That first book that bore <BR/>a epigraph by Keith Wilson: "a sunlit unity / desperately sought" and contained <BR/>this poem written on the occasion of Keith's and Heloise's moving from Anthony, <BR/>New Mexico, to a big new (well, not new new) house in San Miguel:<BR/><BR/>Moving Out<BR/><BR/>for Keith & Heloise Wilson<BR/><BR/> saying goodbye<BR/> is no trouble:<BR/><BR/> a house is a skin<BR/> to be shucked<BR/><BR/> wriggled out of<BR/> room by room<BR/><BR/> closet by closet<BR/> until what remains<BR/><BR/> is piles of boxes,<BR/> a few empty hangers,<BR/><BR/> a heap of debris<BR/> on the kitchen floor<BR/><BR/> which never seemed so wide,<BR/> a neighbor's dog<BR/><BR/> who come to say goodbye<BR/> from a respectable distance.<BR/><BR/>fr. Transparencies and Projections<BR/>[New York: New Rivers Press, 1969]<BR/><BR/>--HJBobby Byrdhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17990783036661848472noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7444082152312444929.post-47777144952163220922009-02-12T10:03:00.000-07:002009-02-12T10:03:00.000-07:00Bobby:Thanks for providing the space to reflect up...Bobby:<BR/><BR/>Thanks for providing the space to reflect upon Keith's life. You might know that I worked with him, as I did with you, at the NMSU Archives. What a fascinating man, with great insight to the human condition. I consider myself fortunate to have met him, and through this meeting also found commonality with a past great love in my life, who also met Keith as a student at State.<BR/><BR/>God Bless you, Keith.<BR/><BR/>Bill Boehm<BR/>Washington DCAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7444082152312444929.post-26982308251329881332009-02-12T09:45:00.000-07:002009-02-12T09:45:00.000-07:00I very much admired Keith Wilson's spirit through ...I very much admired Keith Wilson's spirit through his poems. Very few could write about the desert like he could. I never met him but have several of his books. Am especially attached to his Shaman Deer. I've recently become attracted to a poem he wrote years ago, "Desert Cenote."<BR/>He'll be missed.<BR/><BR/>John MackerAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7444082152312444929.post-49769496689943649932009-02-12T08:17:00.000-07:002009-02-12T08:17:00.000-07:00Thanks, BB, for saying what we think. Equally empt...Thanks, BB, for saying what we think. Equally empty, equally to be loved.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7444082152312444929.post-29459220321744743952009-02-11T07:00:00.000-07:002009-02-11T07:00:00.000-07:00He was a good guy who listened to me on many occas...He was a good guy who listened to me on many occasions and provided valuable guidance in my life. I will miss him.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com