Tribute to Larry Rubin (1930 - 2018) (Jennifer Semple Siegel)
Larry Rubin, Poet and Scholar ___________________ Larry Rubin (February 14, 1930 - June 26, 2018) The author read a slightly different version of this tribute at the College English Association (CEA) Conference in New Orleans, at Open Mic night, March 29, 2019. I first met Larry Rubin in 1987, at the CEA conference. I had wandered into his workshop, without a poem and intimidated. Who was I to submit my clearly inferior poems to such an erstwhile poet? After suffering graduate school angst and experiencing the wounds inherent in many creative writing programs, I was not anxious to put myself out there again. I will just listen and learn , I thought. Well. As I sat in on that session, I observed an accomplished poet working his wonders with poems in varying stages of drafting. First, he would read the participant’s poem, out loud, in his breathless poetic voice, giving heft to the words on the page, even if the poem itself was not quite ready for prime time....