Some Writers Have Shakespeare, I Have My Uncle

I posted a poem at Poverty House yesterday by my uncle G.C. I started reading that poem, "Big Shoal, Coal Town on the Big Sandy (1918-1949)," when I was eleven years old. I've been reading it for thirty-six years. And I've yet to write anything nearly so beautiful and true. Nothing so honest and tender. But it has always been my measuring stick. Always will be. 

If I've had any success as a writer it's because I had my uncle as an example throughout my childhood of someone who sat down and wrote words as a routine, as a career. I stood in his writing room as a kid and felt a religiosity I couldn't understand but felt deeply --- the quiet space, the bookshelves full and covering all the walls from ceiling to floor, the simple desk that sat in the middle of the room, the 1978 IBM Selectric 1 that squatted bulky on the desk in perfect mystery. I knew what he created with that typewriter, that whatever magic that happened in that room came from my uncle through that machine. 

The result can be found in my body of work. What can I say?

Some writers have Shakespeare, I have always had my uncle.