To Dr. Arthur Foff

(San Francisco State University)

You could have easily stepped
out of a Sam Spade detective novel,
cigarette dangling from the corner
of your mouth and wind tossed hair,
a hard-nosed reporter
who wrote deep and dramatic prose.
Eudora Welty proclaimed
you the darkest artist
in American literature.

Turning to teaching, you became
mentor to a new generation
of emerging writers,
paring down Henry James eloquence
to the bare-boned craftsmanship
of a modern Hemingway.
The faint-hearted
did not survive your tutorage.

Your death diminished a part of me,
but your wisdom still winds itself
around my pen as I continue to struggle,
not letting agents, publishers or critics
silence my words, for you taught me
that “perseverance prevails,”
and your motto has become my motto.

Ruth Wildes Schuler

Published on American Asian Poetry Site
A wonderful array of poems published here.