Home Sections News Gavilan faculty share new poetry with the world

Written by Bradley Boggs, Staff Writer

Monday, 05 May 2008

Two adjunct faculty members from the English department share newly published poetry books.  Richard Tice and Meg Withers say persistence is the key, as well as finding the right publishers. Two issues ago we spoke with Debbie Klein, who wrote an ethnography about certain African drumming, dancing and masquerading traditions. After publishing this article, we became aware of other faculty here at Gavilan that have written and published books of their own. I caught up with poets Meg Withers and Richard Tice, who have both released new books recently. Adjunct faculty member Meg Withers finds catharsis and a means of expression through her poetry. At the age of 10, amid a troubled family life, she discovered her passion for writing. “For me, this was the way I could have a voice. I wrote to save my own life,” she says.  Having written about all aspects of her life, her newest book, ”A Communion Of Saints” is based on a period in her life that found her bartending in a gay bar in Hawaii during the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s. During her time in Hawaii, she became friends with many gay people, many of whom suffered from AIDS at a time when there was still a lot to be learned about the virus. From the friendships she made and the friends she lost to the epidemic, she set about writing a book that would express her feelings for her gay friends and the AIDS epidemic she witnessed from the front lines. Though she’s not particularly religious, she felt the need to reconcile the seemingly negative language about homosexuality in the Bible and use it to cast a more positive, modern light on the gay community and the AIDS epidemic. Very uncharacteristically for her, Withers completed this book in only one year.     “It poured out of me,” Withers says.  “It’s the most painful thing I have ever written.”  One neat thing about writing and creative endeavors in general is that people come to be passionate about such pursuits for different reasons. While Withers found a voice through her poetry and an escape from her troubled youth, adjunct faculty member Richard Tice came to writing in a different way.  As a child, Tice loved to read. He read poetry, short stories, science fiction novels and more. In the fourth grade, he was assigned the task of writing a short story for class. After completing the assignment, he thought to himself, “I can do this,” and has been writing novels, short stories and poetry ever since.   Tice tackles different topics with his writing. As a member of the Church of Latter Day Saints, one of the topics he explores is religion. Besides religion, he occasionally writes science fiction and fantasy poems, which is somewhat unique in the poetry world. Tice’s life has brought him to travel and live in many different countries.  Being interested in different languages, Tice sometimes writes in Japanese and French, although the majority of his work is written in English. One effect his travels have had on his writing is sparking his love of the Japanese poetic form of Haiku. He studied traditional Haiku while living in Japan, and this has proven to be one of his most prolific and well-received forms of writing. His first collection of Haiku, “Station Stop: A Collection Of Haiku & Related Forms” was published in 1986. Since then, he has had a science fiction novel published, as well as two new poetry books published within the last six months. “Foreign & Familiar: Haiku & Linked Verse” is a collection of  his successful Haiku poems as well as linked verse poems, which sometimes are created with many different poets, each contributing a line before passing it to the next writer. “Degrees of Light” is a collection of poems with different themes including religion, fantasy and science fiction that all have one thing in common, the discussion of light.   In speaking with both Tice & Withers, I was able to discuss with them the processes each underwent to getting published. Not surprisingly, both Tice and Withers say that persistence is the key, as well as finding the right publishers to present your manuscripts to. Both authors also mentioned the difficulty in getting new poetic works published, as mainstream presses are less willing to publish to poetry.    Both Tice & Withers were featured at a recent authors’ event in the North Lounge here at Gavilan.

Last Updated ( Monday, 05 May 2008 )

 

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