Hope College | English

David James

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JAMES, DAVID, Adjunct Associate Professor (1987) and Director of Writing and Study Skills Tutoring, Academic Support Center.

Education: B.A., Hope College (1976); M.A., University of Iowa (1980).

Interests: Expository Writing, Teaching Writing, World Literature, and Contemporary Poetry.

Selected Works: Psychological Clock (Pudding House, 2007), Lost Enough (Finishing Line, 2007), A Little Instability without Birds (Finishing Line, 2006).

Publications:

Psychological Clock (Pudding House Press, 2007).
"This chapbook of 24 poems, in a variety of forms, includes some of D. R. James's most exicting work: "The Day I got My Timing Down," "New Year's Resolution," "Lakeside Birdfeeder, Wet Snow," "The Same Game," "Lakeside Birdfeeder, Squirrels," "Field Notes, from an Old Chair," "April Fool," "School Bus," "Sons and a Father," "I Don't know the Biochemsitry of a Hummingbird," "One Kind of Faith," "To Be: It's not a Question," "Whose Life Is It, Anyway?", "Great Blue Heron," "Qualifications," "If Only I moved by Instinct," "A Couple of October Options," "World Lit. Postcards," "Only This Just In," "Recycling," "Man to Man with the Folks' New Condo," "Guano Glorioso," "Pscyhological Clock," "Bon Voyage!"

Lost Enough: Poems (Finishing Line Press, 2007).
"This chapbook of 24 poems is "fictionally autobiographical" and spins off of William Stafford's epigraph in the title poem: "If you're lost enough, then the experience of now is your guide to what comes next." Says the author, "We're all a product of our pasts, yes, but we really only live a series of now's, and that done consciously frees us from what may feel like the lostness of inevitability. There is always the next now." Reflecting on the book, Leah Maines, poet and editor notes, "We are all lost in our own little ways, and James reminds us that life is a mixed bag of memories....[These] poems serve as revelations—life is about finding our way and losing our way, and finding it again."

A Little Instability without Birds (Finishing Line Press, 2006).
D. R. James's poems pull us away from the terrible onslaught of daily distraction and lead us back to what matters. He invites us to settle down, maybe in an isolated cabin where the coffee's hot, the weather cold, and introduces us to a guy who welcomes us then talks about what is most disquieting while pointing us toward the reasons to look out the window. We feel somehow comforted and grateful just to be still in the mysterious world. --Jack Ridl