English Professor publishes new volume of poetry

Glenn Freeman, associate professor in the department of English and creative writing, has published a new book of poetry, “Traveling Light.”

Freeman, who teaches creative writing, American poetry and American Nature Writers, grew up in Maryland and has since lived in Vermont, Minnesota, and Florida. He now lives with his wife and two cats in Iowa . He has degrees from Goddard College, Vermont College, and the University of Florida. He has received grants from the Minnesota Arts Board, the Loft-McKnight Foundation, and the Iowa Arts Council, as well as fellowships from The Blacklock Nature Sanctuary and the Vermont Studio Center. He has served as Artist-in-Residence at Isle Royale National Park and Rocky Mountain National Park. His first book of poems, “Keeping the Tigers Behind Us” was published in 2007.

The book takes its title from the poem below.

 

 

The Buddhist Contemplates the Dead Man
~After Marvin Bell 

The dead man rises before dawn.
He makes his coffee strong and drinks it
in the dark. The dead man imagines himself
invisible but no one believes him. His presence
is always among us like the cousin whose name
we forgot, the car we left in the junkyard to rust,
a photo lying faded & dusty behind the dresser.
The dead man wants to believe
no one knows his name, comfortably anonymous
with his superior taste, exotic drink & sublime jazz
on scratchy vinyl, skipping across the grooves.
It’s good, I suppose, to be haunted, to allow the dead man
freedom to walk where he will,
the rattling and creaking of his presence among us
like a voice of the past splashed
across an empty page where you
& the dead man continue
like motes in the morning’s beam, traveling
light, always light.