Creative Writing
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Hardin-Simmons University
Creative Writing |
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In his book The Triggering Town: Lectures and Essays on Poetry and Writing (New York: Norton, 1979), poet and teacher Richard Hugo states that "the true or valid triggering subject is one in which physical characteristics or details correspond to attitudes the poet has toward the world and himself" (5). That being the case, I suspect that someone reading my four poetry books would conclude that Bob Fink is schizophrenic. I have been called an East Texas
Annie Dillard, in The Writing Life
(New York: HarperPerennial, 1990), admonishes writers to "Push
it. Examine all things intensely and relentlessly. Probe and
search each object in a piece (*allusion to Robert Frost's poem "Directive") Books: Twilight Innings: A West Texan on Grace and Survival. Literary nonfiction. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2006. To order: Amazon.com. Twilight Innings: A West Texan on Grace and Survival is one of five finalists in the "Essays" category for ForeWord Magazine's 2006 Book of the Year Award. . Tracking The Morning. Wings Press Poetry Series. San Antonio: Wings Press, 2005. To order: http://www.wingspress.com/Titles/Tracking_Morning.html To order: Amazon.com. Tracking The Morning was one of three finalists for the 2005 Violet Crown Book Award from the Writers' League of Texas.
The Tongues of Men and of Angels. The TTUP Invited Poets Series. Lubbock: Texas Tech UP, 1995. Texas Tech University Press. To order: Amazon.com.
The Ghostly Hitchhiker. Corona Poetry Series. San Antonio: Corona,1989.
Azimuth Points. 1981 Texas Review Poetry Prize Chapbook. Huntsville: Sam Houston State University, 1981.
Beyond Where The West Begins. Limited Edition Poetry Chapbook Commemorating the Abilene Public Library's 100th Anniversary 1899-1999. Abilene, Texas: Friends Of Abilene Public Library, 1999.
Eleven Edited Poetry Collections: Editor, since 1996, of Texas Tech University Press's Walt McDonald First-Book Series in Poetry and the Press's Invited Poets Series.
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Updated: April 11, 2007
poet, a West Texas poet, a family poet, a baseball
poet, a Viet Nam poet, a religious poet (once even a Zen Buddhist
poet), a disturbing (or was it disturbed) poet, and a wryly-humorous
poet. Except maybe for the Zen Buddhist, I would acknowledge
each of these labels while admitting that I am none and all of
them. In my book The Tongues of Men and of Angels, I became,
in several of the poems, Saint Paul--the apostle who wrote in
First Corinthians 9:22, "I accommodated myself to people
in all kinds of different situations." Paul did this "so
that by all possible means [he] might bring some to salvation."
I tried to be Saint Paul and try, in turn, to be each persona
in each of my poems so as to understand what the experience /
the conflict in the poem means to the persona. 
Because I am a "process" poet, like
an actor getting to know his character, I become the poem's persona
and experience his or her world, confronting and sometimes resolving
the conflict discovered on this journey following the poem's
unmarked path. In the first draft I don't know any more than
the persona about where we're going or what we will or will not
learn when (or if) we arrive at some destination. It often takes
months (sometimes years) of investigative revision to determine
if the trip was valuable. Oh sure, I almost always enjoy the
journey (my favorite poem being the one I'm writing at that time),
but for this experience to be of value to a reader, I've got
to somehow understand what it means. 
of art. Do not leave it, do not course over
it, as if it were understood, but instead follow it down until
you see it in the mystery of its own specificity and strength"
(78). So, becoming my poems' personae, I have climbed to the
top of a sycamore tree and laughed at my mother below "holding
her apron like a net." I have stood in the batter's box
and taken strike three, frozen by the slider breaking at my knees.
I have been lifted up by angels and tornadoes and clutched my
wrist, counting. I have bowed in the dust, seen myself darkly,
lifted a cup of coffee to the day "survived / to almost
talk about / back home in the states." I have forgotten
my wife in Waxahachie, the Exxon station. I have held my wife
until my breathing "almost matched / her steady pace."
I have sworn "five hundred times" at my dead father,
"I forgive you! I forgive you!" I have begged
forgiveness of my sons. In public places I have laughed
out loud "at nothing . . . nothing at all." I know
it was a good laugh. I hope the poem will make clear why. 
