I mentioned in an earlier post about the poem for Mr. Wilbur, my friend, the poet Wilmer Mills is fighting cancer of the liver. This news has affected me deeply. A panel was held for him at the West Chester conference, as he has been a regular from the very first, and he is much loved and respected among us. I wanted to get it all on video, so that Wil could see and know how much. Somehow, I did manage to do so, and the videos are now on the Web. Here you can see Dana Gioia, Catherine Tufariello, Dick Davis, Timothy Steele, Leslie Monsour, Michael Peich, Kim Bridgford, and even Mr. Wilbur himself, who was in attendance. You can hear the reading of Wil's favorite psalm, 139, hear a few anecdotes about him, excerpts from his writing, and hear his song "Independently Poor," which he performed for us a few years ago at the conference.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yY5RnyaqcwM
It had to be broken into three parts, as YouTube only allows ten minutes per video, and the panel ran for half an hour.
In addition, I recorded Dick Davis's prefatory poem in Wil's honor, which Dick delivered at the beginning of his Thursday night reading. You can see that here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLEob...eature=related
I gave these links to Wil, and spoke with him by phone a few days ago. These outpourings from his friends have flabbergasted him, and I want to say a public thanks. For those of you who are not familiar with him -- if you have ever seen a film with the actor Cillian Murphy, you have an inkling of what it is like to be with Wil! And for any who are interested in following his progress, his family is maintaining a blog, at this adddress:
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/wilmills1
Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers. As I said to him a few weeks ago -- I believe in miracles.