Progressive Wednesday

“And don’t you forget it!”

A little over a year ago, my writing mentor and good friend, David Citino, passed away from complications from MS. (Please consider making even a $5 donation here.) Thankfully, he left behind an incredible collection of work, including, my favorite book of his, Broken Symmetry, which snagged a citation for “notable book” from the National Book Critics Circle in 1998. And thankfully, you can find oodles of his work on the web; this verse serves best as a poetic primer to his welcoming, witty and wise work (right now he’s staring down, sighing and shaking his head at that asinine alliteration).

One of my faves is “Reading the M.R.I. Report, the Retired Pastor Considers Dementia.” David often wrote about his illness in ways that describe the disease from the voice of an imagined character, which made for more empathy toward others with MS. David never wanted pity — he found living too glorious for that waste-of-time emotion. You can always read the poem at the Cortland Review, but I’d recommend listening to the big man read it himself.

You can find David all over the web: at Poetry Daily and Verse Daily and in the Roanoke Review and The Literary Review.

Let me tell you one other thing about David. One day as he drove off Ohio State’s campus, he spotted me on the sidewalk, rolled down his window, and yelled, “Hey Z-man! Poetry rocks, and don’t you forget it!”

David, I haven’t.