Voorhees College, Denmark, South Carolina
Dave at Voorhees College, 1974-75
With openings in English few and far between, Dave was fortunate to find a position at a Black college in Denmark, South Carolina. Voorhees College was established by Evelyn Wright, a determined figure who braved the hostility of white southerners in order to provide higher education to her race. The college is named for a blind New Jersey philanthropist, Ralph Voorhees, and is affiliated with the Episcopal Church. Unfortunately, the administration of the college proved in no way as inspiring as Wright nor as generous as Voorhees, and even engaged in unethical behavior. See Dave's memoir, Harbingers of Books to Come. Dave taught literature and writing courses and served as advisor for Vista, the student newspaper. He started a writers workshop and took a group of students to Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, to hear a poetry reading by Richard Eberhart. There were many positive developments during the 1974-75 academic year at Voorhees, but Dave would not return, having obtained what was at the time a permanent position at the University of the Americas in Cholula, Mexico.
Dave at The University of the Americas, Cholula, Mexico, 1975-76
Painting of the University of the Americas in Cholula, Mexico, by Fort Worth artist Bror Utter, 1967. Entitled "New Buildings and Pyramid--Cholula," this work is described in the title poem of Dave's The Cowtown Circle (2014/2016).
Kurt Van Wilt was one of the creative writing students who had sneaked on campus during the strike in order to confer with Dave about his writing. He would go on to have two outstanding collections of his poetry published by Pointer Oak and distributed by millichapbooks.com: vast self (2015) and Innocence & Awakening (2016). Sadly, Dr. Wilt died in 2016 shortly after his books appeared. He had earned his Ph.D. in England and had begun teaching in 1981 at Saint Leo University in Florida, pictured here, where he invited Dave to give a reading and to speak to his creative writing class circa 2011.
Yellow Butterfly
delighted by the lineaments
of dawn, you alighted in this place
of time and space where sleepers mistake
glamour for grace, certificates for sense.
too soon, the bones that beauty wed
succumbed. numb, we huddle in the night
while you flutter upward in the light.
winged sister, bless us who dwell in dread.
This is the home in the faculty compound where Dave and the family lived for the first six months, until the strikers shut down the campus. Since Dave had to continue to teach, while many faculty members were on strike, the administration rented an apartment for the family in Cholula. Classes were held in the nearby city of Puebla. Mexican law allowed for the faculty to occupy the campus, but without their salaries, the strikers, after some six months, gave up the struggle. At the end of the summer semester, the administration paid off the strikers and forced them out. Those like Dave who had continued to teach were also forced to leave, if their departments were eliminated, as his was. The University of the Americas continues in operation to the present day.