Ken

Ken Brewer, Utah's Poet Laureate, my professor and advisor at Utah State University, died Wednesday, March 15, just before 8:00 PM. He was attended in death by his wife, Bobbie, his two daughters, his hospice nurse, two close friends, and his dogs.

Two memories, among many:

During the time I was a graduate student at Utah State, Ken was the graduate advisor. One day he called me to his office, sat me down, looked me straight in the eye and without any hesitation asked me, "Why haven't you graduated yet?" Apparently, I had amassed more than enough credits and had been so caught up in teaching and being a grad student that I had stopped paying attention to my graduation candidacy. Ken set me straight on that in his bemused fashion, and I got the impression that while, as my advisor, he had a responsibility to get me out of the program successfully, he also understood that I was in the middle of one of the most enjoyable periods of my life. At my graduation, several months later, I caught him by surprise as he handed me my degree and hugged him.

I have little talent for poetry, but like any student at Utah State with writing aspirations, I availed myself of the opportunity to take one of Ken's writing courses. As part of the course, Ken would tape-record his comments on the poems the students submitted to him. To this day, I cannot imagine reading the sheer volume of student poetry he must have had to contend with (it was a very popular course), let alone taking the time to record commentary on them. Like most of the other students in the class, I was doing whatever I could in my writing to catch his attention. When he finally gave me the cassette tape with his comments, it was all I could do not to kill someone on my way to the nearest tape player. Near the end of the tape, he spoke three words that I have carried in my head every time I sit down to write something. Those words spoke volumes to me and gave me the impression that I could reach people, including people like Ken, with words. "Good," he said. "Good poem."

My friend Star, who has served as a one-woman news service on Ken's cancer treatments and has provided near-daily e-mail updates on his condition for the last nine months, said yesterday, "The last nine months have been an experience none of us are likely to forget. Our poet laureate will live on through his words, his gifts to us."

Here is a selection of Ken's poems read by students and faculty from Southern Utah University.

Here is a profile of Ken written last fall for the University of Utah magazine, Continuum.

Here is an interview with Ken conducted in Fall 2004 by a former colleague of mine at Weber State University.

And here is my favorite of Ken's poems.

More later.