On the Passing of My Favorite Great American Poet

"They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

They do not mean to, but they do.

They fill you with the faults they had

and add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn

by fools in old-style hats and coats,

who half the time were soppy-stern

and half at one another's throats

Man hands on misery to man.

It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

and don't have any kids yourself."

~ Philip Larkin, This Be the Verse

The poem above (which I've long since memorized) were the first words I ever heard Dr. William Greenway speak. He had no way of knowing this at the time, but I'd recently been binge-watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and when he walked into our classroom for the first time, I initially mistook him for Rene Auberjonois. Since I happened to have a massive crush on Odo at the time, I'm embarrassed now to admit a bit of it transferred over during that brief moment of thinking I was about to learn British Literature from a celebrity. The rest of it kicked in when I realized he was a poet himself.

As if realizing through the poem above that poetry didn't have to be pretty and flowery wasn't enough, being assigned The Bell Jar and The Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath opened up a whole new world for me. I already had a mentor I had described for years as an eccentric bull in a China shop who had swept into my life in a flourish of Earth-shattering chaos, and Dr. Greenway was like the male version of her with a Georgia drawl. Reading his poetry and truly discovering the beauty of free verse changed my life forever.

I'd started writing poetry when I was 12. Like most kids, I was hardly familiar with more than just Robert Frost and William Shakespeare. While a lot of the poetry I wrote before meeting Dr. Greenway and taking two of his classes was clearly therapeutic writing, what I was able to write because I met him and was introduced to The 20 Little Poetry Projects as an assignment helped me to change my life for the better. Seeing how incredibly bright and cheerful he was about being a husband and a soon-to-be-father at that time, I was able to start to see my own life for what it really was, and led to profound changes that resulted in my writing several novels and poetry collections.

I can't remember what it was that had me knocking on his office door one afternoon, but the first thing I noticed (aside from how small it was for someone who clearly deserved a bigger office) were all the trophies. It turned out I hadn't been too terribly far off in thinking my professor was a celebrity: Dr. Greenway was a multiple-award-winning poet. I will never forget what he said to me that day:

"Poetry will never make you rich in your lifetime."

To emphasize the point, he picked up a small trophy, tilted it in his hand with a shrug, and gestured around his office. Shortly thereafter, I'm sure you can imagine my surprise when I was awarded the Robert and Virginia Hare Award for Creative Writing in Poetry - having been nominated for it by Dr. Greenway. Before meeting him, I'd never felt encouraged to write. Nothing I'd ever written had ever felt like anyone enjoyed it. Reading something I'd written out loud to him and the rest of the class and seeing the looks of awe on all their faces was a gift I will treasure for the rest of my life. Because of him, I'm able to call myself an award-winning poet. No, I am most definitely not a rich poet, but I've continued writing poetry over the last dozen years unlike anything I'd ever written before. I'll be purchasing his poetry collections to keep on hand soon, as I gifted mine to a friend a few years ago, having spent the past dozen years gushing about his work and his impact to everyone I knew who enjoyed poetry. Having already read several, I can't remember the collection or the name of the poem, but my favorite line out of all of them has always been:

"The sound of things broken so small."

If I could change anything about my life back then, I'd have wished for better life circumstances so I could've been a better student. Up until that point in my life, I'd struggled to decide "what I wanted to be when I grew up." As a result of meeting Dr. Greenway, I realized I'd already been in that role, I just needed to step into my power and my confidence. I didn't become a writer, I always was a writer; Dr. Greenway made me a better writer.

May his memory be eternal.

In memory of Dr. William H. Greenway, former Professor of British Literature and Creative Writing at Youngstown State University

1947-2023