Of Poetry, Professors, and Soldiers
Last October H&S associate dean Ellen Bonaguro asked faculty
members what they had heard from alumni about the value of their
liberal arts degrees. Here's how Kevin Murphy, English, responded.
Dear Ellen,
Apropos our conversation about students remembering teachers
long after the fact, I received the following e-mail. With so
many American soldiers poised to enter combat, I was overwhelmed
by David Brown's generosity and trust in sending such a letter
after 10 years.
As it happens, I was giving a talk at the Unitarian Fellowship
the next morning on Ralph Waldo Emerson, using the same phrases
from "Self-Reliance" that David cited. Can this really be a
coincidence, or am I going to have to give up my hard-earned
skepticism on such matters?
Kevin
Professor Murphy,
I write to thank you for your instruction and inspiration more
than 10 years ago. You may not recall my presence in  your
classes between 1989 and 1991 (the poetry of Frost, Lowell, Bishop,
and Heaney; the theme of women in literature after 1890). I was
the tall, long-haired philosophy major who would frequent your
office between classes [photo, right]. On one such occasion you
provided me with a Signet Classic of selected writings of Ralph
Waldo Emerson to assist me on concomitant themes between Emerson
and Zora Neale Hurston.
Following graduation I traveled for a year and corresponded with
[professor emeritus] John Ogden. As the grace period on my student
loans rapidly dissipated, I knew that my days of frivolity were
waning. Thus, my intended "voyage of . . . a zigzag line of a
hundred tacks" acquired merely a few shifts in direction. After
much thought over what to do to remove my debt while fostering
growth to further cultivate myself as what Rimbaud called "a seer,"
I circumspectly joined the army as a behavioral science specialist.
I have since completed a master's degree in psychology in 1995
and have begun the third year of a doctoral degree in clinical
psychology. I cannot recall if I wrote to you while deployed throughout
the Balkans and Europe from 1995 to 1999; however, I do remember
reading a poem that you wrote to your late brother.
Poetry is the reason that I write to you today. Your tutelage
has not only inspired me, it has also affected my soldiers. Throughout
my nine-year career I've been entrusted with the lives of America's
sons and daughters. Though I respect the views and choices made
by Bertrand Russell and Robert Lowell with regards to military
affairs and war, I  willingly
deployed to Bosnia in hopes of facilitating understanding and
psychological healing. Whether deployed or back in garrison, I
have insisted that my troops develop their minds as well as their
bodies. Subsequently, in tents during a spring rain or winter's
snow I have read aloud and listened to innumerable poems from
the tattered Norton anthologies that my wife ardently sends to
the field. Though held together with tape and nylon cord, these
anthologies have inspired others to think critically, often for
the first time, as they transform from follower to leader. This
cognitive shift is much more than a symbolic escape from mind-forg'd
manacles, it is evolutionary. For this is where a soldier becomes
a sergeant, a leader of troops responsible for the lives of others
before concern of self. Though this may sound conformist, it is
not. It is survival. I think of these lines from Emerson's "Self-Reliance":
"Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string."
"Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist."
"Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind."
"Insist on yourself; never imitate."
I must admit, during their free time my platoons often look as
tattered as the books that we read, but I credit a confluence
of ideas and our robust individualism coupled with a sense of
team and purpose for the results and accolades that follow when
on duty in uniform. Though their interests appear esoteric among
their current peers, they are aware that they have miles to go
before they sleep once their enlistment ends. They have you in
part to thank. Mahalo.
Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,
Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams
And our desires.
--- Wallace Stevens
Your pupil,
David G. Brown '91
Editor's note: Brown is out of the army now. He is a counseling
psychologist for the Twenty-fifth Infantry Division ("Tropical
Lightning") and also serves as a research scientist with the Department
of Psychiatry at Tripler Army Medical Center, in Hawaii. |
