Fascinating. I vaguely remember hearing of the Lamson murder in the late 1970s, but I never knew of Yvor Winters' role. (P.S. - I enjoyed your including Ken Fields in the list of important Winters-influenced poets. He and Martin Evans were critical in nurturing a love of poetry [including Dana Gioia's] that has been a great joy to me for 45 years.) Thanks!
Thanks for sharing that comment. I took three classes from Martin Evans as an undergraduate—so he played a key role in my intellectual development. He was the first person to guide me through Dante, Milton, Castiglione, Boccaccio, Petrarch, Machiavelli, and many other seminal writers. During my undergraduate years, I never met Ken Fields—although I knew him via his reputation as a poet. Later I got to know him after running into him by chance at Tresidder Union, where he had a copy of Art Pepper's Straight Life with him. We found we had a shared interest in jazz, and we became friends on that basis. (Later both my son and my nephew took a class from Ken—and they can testify to his skill and enthusiasm as a teacher.)
Love to talk to you and Ted Gioia about Martin Evans sometime. I studied Milton with him, and wrote the article on his 400th Milton birthday celebration at Stanford ... and later wrote his obituary.
I remember that obit, Cynthia. It was excellent. I really responded to Prof. Evans' great combination of scholarship, generosity and enthusiasm (for Milton, of course, but just generally, it seemed to me). I don't know if it was a regular thing, but I know he sometimes hosted dinner parties for students at his home. I thought it was such a lovely thing to invite a callow undergrad--me--to dinner!
Fascinating. I vaguely remember hearing of the Lamson murder in the late 1970s, but I never knew of Yvor Winters' role. (P.S. - I enjoyed your including Ken Fields in the list of important Winters-influenced poets. He and Martin Evans were critical in nurturing a love of poetry [including Dana Gioia's] that has been a great joy to me for 45 years.) Thanks!
Thanks for sharing that comment. I took three classes from Martin Evans as an undergraduate—so he played a key role in my intellectual development. He was the first person to guide me through Dante, Milton, Castiglione, Boccaccio, Petrarch, Machiavelli, and many other seminal writers. During my undergraduate years, I never met Ken Fields—although I knew him via his reputation as a poet. Later I got to know him after running into him by chance at Tresidder Union, where he had a copy of Art Pepper's Straight Life with him. We found we had a shared interest in jazz, and we became friends on that basis. (Later both my son and my nephew took a class from Ken—and they can testify to his skill and enthusiasm as a teacher.)
Love to talk to you and Ted Gioia about Martin Evans sometime. I studied Milton with him, and wrote the article on his 400th Milton birthday celebration at Stanford ... and later wrote his obituary.
I remember that obit, Cynthia. It was excellent. I really responded to Prof. Evans' great combination of scholarship, generosity and enthusiasm (for Milton, of course, but just generally, it seemed to me). I don't know if it was a regular thing, but I know he sometimes hosted dinner parties for students at his home. I thought it was such a lovely thing to invite a callow undergrad--me--to dinner!
Forget the book; get started on a script.
Fantastic! Please write that book and make sure it is translated into Spanish ...
Brilliant story, Ted. So write the book! I’d read it.