tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014415529871703586.post9015805537559528451..comments2023-12-16T02:44:20.427-06:00Comments on Reginald Shepherd's Blog: The World Is Not EnoughReginald Shepherdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11965170916626482963noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014415529871703586.post-35236801850700884722010-12-15T23:23:02.648-06:002010-12-15T23:23:02.648-06:00徵信社
徵信<a href="http://www.find007.com.tw" rel="nofollow">徵信社</a><br /><a href="http://www.find007.com.tw" rel="nofollow">徵信</a>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014415529871703586.post-79193857689870015042007-04-22T05:24:00.000-06:002007-04-22T05:24:00.000-06:00How nice to Russell Berman quoted, who was my advi...How nice to Russell Berman quoted, who was my advisor for my Honors Thesis long ago (on Milan Kundera, whom I just mentioned in a comment on another post of yours).<BR/><BR/>I, too, am grateful for your gracious ferocity.Andrew Shieldshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02804655739574694901noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014415529871703586.post-86538706537349499942007-04-20T10:20:00.000-06:002007-04-20T10:20:00.000-06:00Dear Jonathan,Thank you so much for your comment, ...Dear Jonathan,<BR/><BR/>Thank you so much for your comment, which really heartened and touched me. Except for Robert and a handful of friends, I usually feel rather alone in this world, especially living where I live, a very conservative area with no literary community. Robert really is my anchor and my soul mate; I don't know what my life would be like without him, but I know that it would be much worse.<BR/><BR/>Your comment made me feel considerably less alone. I'm very glad that the things I've written have reached you; what you wrote me reached me as well.<BR/><BR/>I guess that I have spent my whole life trying to invent my identity, since none of those on offer fit or seemed appealing. I am still engaged in that process.<BR/><BR/>As for my previous post, cademic racism often hurts me emotionally and offends me more than the racism of the larger world because I turned to the world of literature and the life of the mind as an alternative to the "normal" world, an alternative where higher and superior values prevailed. Perhaps I was naive in that belief, but for me literature still represents the possibility of a better world and a better existence.<BR/><BR/>I hope that you are right that the spirit will protect me. Perhaps in a way it already has been doing so. Despite the many horrible things that have happened to me in my life, things I needn't detail here, I have still been able to achieve the things I wanted to do. I have been able to write and to write well, to write things that have mattered to me and to other people, and I have found, quite by accident, a relationship that truly fulfils and expands my life. So with all the miseries, I have also been lucky. How ironic to think of things that way. But it's true.<BR/><BR/>Take good care, and thanks again for your very moving comment.<BR/><BR/>all best,<BR/><BR/>ReginaldReginald Shepherdhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11965170916626482963noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014415529871703586.post-76305735047833407452007-04-19T15:51:00.000-06:002007-04-19T15:51:00.000-06:00Dear Reginald,I am in solidarity with you. I wres...Dear Reginald,<BR/><BR/>I am in solidarity with you. <BR/><BR/><I>I wrestle with this necessary angel and rise renamed, blessed but also lamed.</I> These lines from your latest post (with echoes, if not paraphrases or quotations, of Wallace Stevens whose <I>Necessary Angel</I> I adore as much as Auden) beautifully capture all that you are saying about invention and identity.<BR/><BR/>I appreciate your honesty, clarity, and risk as you talk about poems, teaching, and building a professional practice. But, I also appreciate your beautifully open support for your partner, Robert. Phenotypical white men and phenotypical black men are so often opposed towards one another in still unimaginable ways. Your partnership makes worlds. <BR/><BR/>Your last post numbed me for a few days and I waited for your next post to reconstitute my feelings. I don't know what it is called but there is a force greater than the ego that takes up residence within our art, our partnerships, our transgressions, our longings...For lack of a better word, I call it <I>the spirit</I>.<BR/><BR/>My major reaction after almost a week to your last post about racism in academe is <I>the spirit will protect Reginald, even in the face of challenges</I>. One of the things I mean by this is that the integrity and excellence of your writing, teaching, and literary advocacy alone will distinguish you and provide blessings that are far more powerful and specific than any phenotypical generalization.<BR/><BR/>I have no position of importance anywhere in the world. But I can offer you gratitude for being, like a lion, quietly, exactingly, incisively <I>fierce</I><BR/><BR/>~Jonathan David JacksonJonathan David Jacksonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03634813038551795945noreply@blogger.com