Tribute to Larry Rubin (1930 - 2018) (Jennifer Semple Siegel)
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| Larry Rubin, Poet and Scholar ___________________ |
I
first met Larry Rubin in 1987, at the CEA conference.
I
had wandered into his workshop, without a poem and intimidated.
Who
was I to submit my clearly inferior poems to such an erstwhile poet?
After
suffering graduate school angst and experiencing the wounds inherent in many
creative writing programs, I was not anxious to put myself out there again.
I will just listen and
learn, I thought.
Well.
As I sat in on that session, I observed an accomplished poet working his
wonders with poems in varying stages of drafting. First, he would read the
participant’s poem, out loud, in his breathless poetic voice, giving heft to
the words on the page, even if the poem itself was not quite ready for prime
time.
Then
he would ask the participants to read the poem silently – we all had copies.
Finally,
he would ask the poet to read out loud the poem as he or she intended it to be
read.
Larry
would then compare his interpretation of the poem in his oral reading of it and
the poet’s. He always felt that the out loud reading revealed much about the
poet’s intent and whether that intent had been conveyed the way the poet
intended.
Larry
always started the critique on a positive note, discussing what he admired
about the poem. He would probe for clarification, perhaps questioning – always
gently – word and image choices. He would offer some suggestions for line
breaks.
He
opened up discussion to the group.
He
was very deft at sidestepping snarky remarks by other participants, always returning
to the positive aspects of the poem.
I
loved it!
I
was hooked. I vowed I would bring a poem next year.
And
I did. And every year after that.
Often,
it was the only poem I wrote all year. Even so, I became a better poet because
of Larry’s workshop method. He encouraged risk and inspired confidence in the
writing process.
In
the mid-2000’s, as the poetry workshop numbers grew, I became his assistant,
helping to distribute copies and keeping the workshop on track. For a short
time, because of popular demand we even conducted an additional workshop.
I’m
not exactly sure when it happened, but Larry, Jerry (my husband), and I became friends.
I’m
quite certain it wasn’t because he saw great poetry in the two Siegels, but he
must have seen something – what, I don’t know.
We
started palling around during the conference.
We
fell into a conference routine: the President’s Reception on Thursday night, dinner
on Friday night, followed by a concert or play and, afterward, late-evening dessert.
Sometimes, in lieu of outside entertainment, we attended the CEA Friday night event
together.
Larry,
always generous, paid for dinner, and we treated for dessert.
When
I was reading my fiction or memoir at a session, Larry was always there,
offering support.
We
hung out at the book drawing, admiring the delightful books about to be given
away and wishing for our names to be drawn early.
We
sat together at the all-conference luncheon, where after the keynote speaker wrapped
up, Larry would run off to catch a bus or train because he didn’t do airplanes.
Our
friendship really cemented at the Memphis conference in 2001. Jerry had helped
Larry find something important he had lost, and Larry was forever grateful.
That
was also the year that the annual fruitcake started arriving. We didn’t have
the heart to tell Larry that we both loathed fruitcake; fortunately, our friend
Lily in Macedonia loved it, so we froze it and lugged it across the pond.
Every
year.
Later,
when the fruitcakes stopped, issues of The American Scholar started arriving, which we both loved. So, perhaps, Larry sensed
that we were not altogether thrilled with the fruitcake.
In-between
conferences, he would call us, just to tell us his latest politically-incorrect
joke. Despite ourselves, we would crack up laughing. Anyone else telling such
jokes would be offensive, but we understood that Larry came from a different
era and was still was very much part of the 1950’s and early 1960’s in
attitude.
True
story: After he retired from Georgia Tech, Larry volunteered to lead literature
discussion groups at local senior centers and nursing homes. One day, after he
told one of his famous jokes, one of the participants reported him, and he was
called into the office, so to speak.
He
was told to cease and desist.
He
kind of laughed about it, and said, “I suppose I’d better tone it down a bit.”
I
doubt if he ever did.
Larry
eschewed technology – no word processing, internet, or email. His poems were
typewritten on a manual typewriter with penciled-in edits and revisions.
He
did carry a burner cell phone, rarely used, though.
If
you wanted to contact Larry, you had to call or write a letter. Calling was a
crapshoot because Larry was constantly on the go or out of town or on the town,
often traveling to Europe.
And
guess what? Larry didn’t own an answering machine.
Larry
loved going on long walks and walked anywhere and everywhere. He was fearless,
often walking through neighborhoods not conducive to rumpled elderly Jewish
poets. I once asked him if he were ever robbed. He looked at me as if I had
three heads and said, “Of course not. Why do you ask?”
I
swear Larry had a guardian angel.
Due
to his increasing poor health, Larry participated in his last CEA conference in
2014 (Baltimore), a loss for the organization and definitely for Jerry and me.
We
last saw Larry in November 2015. That year, the Fulbright conference was in
Atlanta, where he lived, so we met him at a Chinese restaurant near his home – Larry
paid for dinner, of course. A bittersweet moment: part of me knew that this
would be the last time we’d see him in person.
Still,
we reminisced about the good times at CEA.
And,
of course, he told one of his jokes.
(Edited and
revised on April 11, 2019)
He died on June 26, 2018, at age 88 in Decatur, GA.
Reared in Miami Beach, he came to Atlanta in 1950 to attend Emory
University where he earned his Ph.D. in 1956 and began his long academic career
as an English professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Rubin had already published numerous poems when his first volume of
poetry, The World’s Old Way, appeared in 1962 and won the Georgia
Writers Association’s Literary Achievement Award. The Dixie Council of Authors
and Journalists named him Georgia Poet of the Year in 1967 for his next volume,
Lanced in Light and again in 1975 for All My Mirrors Lie, his
third book, which includes “The Bachelor, as Professor,” for which Rubin
received an annual lyric award from the Poetry Society of America in 1973.
Unanswered Calls, Rubin’s fourth book, appeared in 1997 and
included an introduction by his friend and colleague, poet and novelist, James
Dickey, who described him “as a powerful creative current running beneath the
surface of American life and fortunate are those among us who have the
intelligent sensibility to connect with him.”
He is survived by his niece, Lisa Popkin Loomis of Sandy Springs, GA
(Steve Loomis, and children, David Welch and Lindsey Peterson), nephew, Michael
Popkin, of Sandy Springs, GA (Melody Fulford Popkin, and children Megan Popkin
Woolbright and Benjamin Popkin). Dr. Popkin, founder and president of Active
Parenting Publishers, is also a writer and attributes much of his success to
his uncle’s encouragement and feedback. “Larry loved teaching as much as he did
writing,” said Dr. Popkin,
and he was awfully good at both. His other
passion was travel, alternating between summer trips to Europe and across the
US. He always came back with a stash of new poems that he kept crammed in his
shirt pocket and shared for our enjoyment and feedback before sending them out
to the literary journals. It was great having him as our “bachelor uncle” and
he will be fondly remembered for the person he was, and the poetry that he
wrote.
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