Writing at Houghton
During a writing class several years ago, visiting poet Wendell Berry was asked to describe what he thought was his most important breakthrough as a writer. He surprised everyone when he said it was the moment he knew he could be a complete person without being a writer. Asking if a poem is worth a suicide, he went on to say that writers do not owe their lives, or the lives of their families, to art. Their first responsibility is to become whole people. Competent, healthy writing, he argued, should then rise from their wholeness.
Alumni Profiles
- "An Apple of Gold in a
Setting of Silver"
Dindy Bence ('74) - "A Life Worth
Writing"
Tom Noyes ('92) - "Fostering Wonder"
Thom Satterlee ('89) - "Of Gardens and
Mysteries"
by Audrey Stallsmith ('83)
