The Victorian Violet Press & Journal

English 101

     for Bo

You died on Wednesday morning during an hour
I spent in telling 20 freshmen how
To put a comma next to and or or.
No nurse in ICU would ever know
The cousin who once dared to wade out deep,
Out past the stumps, to catch the frog we kept
Inside a coffee can, who scaled the steep
Old treehouse roof, then coaxed me up.  Who wept
When monitors went still?  It should have been
The one who shared with you those summer days.
(How could we know they would not come again?)
Instead, RN’s well trained by their TA’s
Filled out official forms to close your file,
Deploying commas in the proper style.  

Bryce Christensen

associate professor of English at Southern Utah University, received his Ph.D. in English literature from Marquette University.  He has published articles on cultural and literary issues in Philosophy and Literature, Christianity and Literature, Renascence, Modern Age, and various other scholarly journals. His poetry has appeared in various journals and anthologies, including Grace Notes; Poetry from the Pages of ‘First Things’ (a collection of outstanding poetry from the first 20 years of First Things) , Sonnets: 150 Contemporary Sonnets (University of Evansville Press) and The Conservative Poets (University of Evansville Press).  The former editor of The Family in America, he is the author of Utopia Against the Family: The Problems and Politics of the American Family (Ignatius) and Divided We Fall: Family Discord and the Fracturing of America (Transaction). His novel Winning was   published by Whiskey Creek Press. He and his wife, Mary, are the parents of three sons and the grandparents of four grandchildren.  

Art ~ Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder