Deborah Digges
Apr. 13th, 2009 09:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
susanstinsonI was so sorry to learn, via Paul Lisicky, that Deborah Digges has died.
She was a poet. I met her only once, almost twenty years ago at a writers conference. I was in a workshop with Terry McMillan, and my clearest memory is dancing in a circle with Terry and Deborah, who was also teaching, and a couple of high school aged writers at a party, while some others looked on a little bit sourly ("That's not dancing, that's aerobics," I remember hearing one of the male faculty poets say.) It was just the length of a song, but it's a strong impression: Deborah being kind and willing to appear at least a little bit wild. I think she had on hip huggers. I thought of her as very beautiful.
Right after that, I read her Late in the Millennium. I remember lying on my back on the bed in Chesterfield, being moved and amazed. I loved the poem about her mother, "The Rockettes." I went looking for the book tonight, and couldn't find it. but here is a link to a stunning poem, Telling the Bees, about her father's death. There's a recording there, too, so, if you want to, you can hear her voice.
She was a poet. I met her only once, almost twenty years ago at a writers conference. I was in a workshop with Terry McMillan, and my clearest memory is dancing in a circle with Terry and Deborah, who was also teaching, and a couple of high school aged writers at a party, while some others looked on a little bit sourly ("That's not dancing, that's aerobics," I remember hearing one of the male faculty poets say.) It was just the length of a song, but it's a strong impression: Deborah being kind and willing to appear at least a little bit wild. I think she had on hip huggers. I thought of her as very beautiful.
Right after that, I read her Late in the Millennium. I remember lying on my back on the bed in Chesterfield, being moved and amazed. I loved the poem about her mother, "The Rockettes." I went looking for the book tonight, and couldn't find it. but here is a link to a stunning poem, Telling the Bees, about her father's death. There's a recording there, too, so, if you want to, you can hear her voice.
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-15 05:14 am (UTC)I remember spending a lot of time late at night talking with Dave Smith in the dorm lounge. Well, and I also remember the very drunk fiction writer who tried to pick me up one night mid-week, and then left the conference the next day.
And I also remember eating lunch almost every day at Terry's table.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-15 01:14 pm (UTC)It is a small world. And it's still sad, so sad, that Deborah is now gone.