Graduating from Retirement By Dr. Bob McCutcheon, Professor of English Emeritus
Last spring, from off campus, as I witnessed the signs of Commencement — security directing traffic through the gates, gowned faculty streaming toward the College — it occurred to me that I had been retired for as long as I was in College. I wondered if in the past four years I had learned as much. My first decision as a novice emeritus in 2017 was whether to strike out in new directions, develop new skills and interests, or to deepen those I already had. Should I learn Arabic? Study chemistry? Take up the violin, which I abandoned in ninth grade for the more glamorous guitar? I knew I would read. I remembered the character in “Grapes of Wrath” who said that when the Depression was over he would build a wall of pork chops around himself and eat his way out. My wall would consist of books, and I would read my way out. I had a whole century to begin with, the eighteenth, which I scanted in the course of my education. My first project was to read straight through Gibbon’s classic six-volume, 3,600-odd page “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” Then on to Boswell’s unabridged life of Samuel Johnson and an equally massive anthology of writings from the Scottish Enlightenment. That curriculum covered my freshman year of retirement. This would be a time for reading works in their entirety and in the original language: the “Aeneid” in Latin, the “Oresteia” in Greek, the fiction of Victor Hugo in French and the memoirs Albert Schweitzer in German. Nothing in Arabic. Not that I stopped teaching. Locally, I had very rewarding stints at Huttonsville Correctional Center and the Mountain School with students straining to ask the big questions. In Kenya, I spent two semesters at the Presbyterian University of East Africa teaching aspiring pastors. One day, after I dismissed my Greek class, no one budged. In an American classroom I would have expected a jail break. But I had forgotten to pray. Class could not end before we prayed. When I was last there, D&E and PUEA entered an agano ya urafiki, Kiswahili for a covenant of friendship, signed by the Vice Chancellor and President Wood in hopes of further exchange. The Reformer John Calvin drew no distinction between teaching and preaching. In that spirit, I have filled pulpits in small mountain churches. Recognizing travel as reading in a different form, I joined PC(USA) missions to Russia and Iraq. And I fell into a nice writing rhythm. At D&E I taught a course called The Bible as Literature; truth to tell, in my English classes I taught literature
as the Bible. In either case, I asked how writers use language to express spiritual experience. Shakespeare’s Over the past decade, three teams of Davis “Measure for & Elkins College students have visited the Measure” is the great campus of the Presbyterian University of example, placing East Africa (PUEA) just outside Nairobi as characters in peril of part of a winter term class. In the course their souls, working of the last couple of years, D&E and PUEA out theological have entered into a covenant, pledging to dilemmas in human look for opportunities for exchange and terms. In a collection fellowship, even at distance. In that spirit, of short stories Professor Emeritus Dr. Bob McCutcheon just out, “Suffer spent a few months as a visiting lecturer in the Children,” I the New Testament at PUEA. try to depict my generation’s struggles with faith and doubt. In one piece, a childless and recently fatherless character embarks on a mission to African children. Another is a series of dialogues between a Christian and Jewish student on a college campus. One I call a parable; but that term might suit them all. So, I chose the familiar path, though it presented different byways. I continued my literary discipleship. Now: what next? What to do with this belated education? Is it finally over? I supposed I could always get a Ph.D. in retirement. Editor’s Note: Dr. Bob McCutcheon retired as Professor of English Emeritus in 2017 after 22 years of service to the College. He holds a Ph.D. in English from Stanford University, a master’s in philosophy from Oxford University and a Bachelor of Arts in English from Duke University. His new book, “Suffer the Children: Novellas, Short Stories, and a Parable” dramatizes a generation’s mingled faith and doubt. Released in July 2021, the book is available in paperback at christianbook.com and as an eBook at barnesandnoble.com
Bill King Wins HeartWood Poetry Prize
Dr. Bill King
Professor of English Dr. Bill King was selected as the inaugural winner of the 2021 HeartWood Poetry Prize. “Pre-Carnal Knowledge” is published in a special issue on HeartWood literary magazine’s website.
they used-to-bes and who-we-ares. Haunting in its careful description, ‘PreCarnal Knowledge’ followed me for days after first reading, like a flash of a remembered film, or a glimpse through a night-lit window. Wonderful work.”
The contest, judged by poet Mary CarrollHackett, called for previously unpublished works to be submitted without the author’s name or other identifying information.
An online literary magazine associated with the low-residency Master of Fine Arts program at West Virginia Wesleyan College, HeartWood features creative work from around the world that delves into the heart of humanity.
King wrote “Pre-Carnal Knowledge” in 2019 and notes that “when a voice comes into my head as strong and clear as this one, I’ve learned it’s best to listen.” In her remarks, Carroll-Hackett said, “From the opening words to the ending, this poem maintains an incredible balance between an almost breathless tension and a slow stripping of a life, of multiple lives, of the who
As part of his winnings, King received a cash award and an opportunity to serve as the final judge for the 2022 HeartWood Poetry Prize.
On sabbatical for the fall 2021 semester, King had several other works published this summer. “Promise Made in Total Darkness” appeared in the online literary journal Change Seven, while “Living Wall” and “A Song for the Doe-Thief ” were published in Susurrus, an online literary arts magazine of the American South. King was especially content with the publication of “Post-Surgery” in Schuylkill Valley Journal Online. News Around Campus
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