Long Live Ron Bayes

This past weekend I went to my college reunion. Partly I went just to see old friends and visit one of my favorite places in the world, but I also went for a special celebration of the work and influence of my Poetry/Creative Writing professor, Ronald H. Bayes.

At the special Writer’s Forum ceremony on Saturday night, there were a lot of people sharing a lot of memories about Ron. He’s quite a memorable guy–in his demeanor, in his talent, his achievements in poetry, and his ability to teach–so that wasn’t surprising. What was surprising was that the thing I felt most grateful to him for that night, involved flash cards.

My freshman year, I took a Modern Poetry class with Ron. I had picked St. Andrews pretty much for the famed Creative Writing  BFA there, so I was really eager to make an impression on the head of the department. So eager, in fact, that I was one of only a couple freshmen in the class–surrounded by some of the coolest seniors and juniors on campus. To say I was intimidated would be an understatement.

In the first week of class, Ron explained to us that aside from a paper, our grade would be determined by our attendance and also a major exam at the end of the semester, upon which would be questions about the poets we covered in class. We’d need to identify them by the time period in which they lived, titles of their poems, and styles of their writing, plus any other special anecdotes Ron threw out during lectures.

Determined that I would do well on this exam and prove my worth–in a burst of discipline I had not previously expressed before–I then set about dutifully creating flash cards for every poet as we covered them. Dates, what poems we discussed in class, tidbits Ron through out in lecture, stylistic identifiers . . . everything. I took meticulous notes, filling the index cards with my tiny handwriting. In the weeks leading up to the final, I quizzed myself on them religiously. By the time I sat down to take it, I could tell you the birthday and at least three significant poems and contributions of James Dickey, Dylan Thomas, Wallace Stevens, H.D., Ezra Pound–you name it.

Needless to say I was the only one to make an A+ on the exam.

It isn’t a very romantic story, I guess. And certainly not poetic. It’s not the kind of thing I think they were looking for at this ceremony, and it’s definitely not the most glamorous story I can tell about Ron. But it stuck out to me this weekend, because of how fundamentally important the lesson was: that being a poet, and studying poetry, requires not just passion and interest, but discipline and focus, sometimes over a long period of time. Sometimes the success of writing doesn’t come from a strike of inspiration from the blue, a sparkly dream that follows you into waking, or some gin-sodden conversation of genius, but instead from something as banal and gruelling as a stack of overstudied flash cards.

Thanks Ron. For this and more.

Songs in my Head Upon Waking This Week:

A song by Low that I don’t know the name of.
“Wherever You Will Go,” by Creed
“Love My Way,” by Psychedelic Furs
“The Final Countdown,” by Europe
“Single Ladies,” by Beyonce
“Things Will Change,” by Daniel Clay
“Never Gonna Give You Up,” by Rick Astley