A Slant of Light

Reflections on Jack Wheatcroft

Peter Balakian, Bruce Smith

• Publisher: Bucknell University Press
• Year: 2018
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781611488753
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Essays
• Index: Literature

Jack Wheatcroft (1925-2016) had a transformative impact on five decades of Bucknell students (1952-1996). He served the institution with great generosity of a kind that was rare for a teacher so immersed in his writing. He founded the Bucknell Seminar for Undergraduate Poets, the Philip Roth Visiting Writers Residency, and the magnificent Stadler Center for Poetry. He over saw the restoration of Bucknell Hall for the Stadler Center and today it is one of the most beautiful and distinguished buildings and centers on campus. He was largely responsible for the creation of Bucknell University Press. Jack Wheatcroft's life and the evolution of Bucknell University in the twentieth century are inextricable. He was formative in helping to create and nurture a community of artists and intellectuals that helped to propel Bucknell into national prominence. Over fifty years, Jack Wheatcroft published twenty-six books of poetry, fiction, and plays. The essays in this festschrift, by former students (who have gone on to be writers and teachers themselves), colleagues, and friends are a testimony to an extraordinary teacher, writer, innovator, and trailblazer in creating a community and infrastructure of literary culture at a distinguished liberal arts college.

Table of contents

• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• 1 Jack Wheatcroft
• 2 Jack Wheatcroft, In Memoriam
• 3 “History Became the Words”: Trans/Scribing Conscience in John Wheatcroft’s Answering Fire
• 4 Collections of Stories, Years Later
• 5 Remembering John Wheatcroft
• 6 Sundays
• 7 Dear Katherine
• 8 Remembering Jack
• 9 Memories of Jack Wheatcroft
• 10 Jack Wheatcroft
• 11 Marginalia
• 12 Bucknell’s Boy of Summer
• 13 Jack
• 14 Rhyming Forward and Back
• 15 Jack Wheatcroft and The Stadler Center for Poetry
• 16 Jack, Some Scenes
• 17 Jack Wheatcroft: Recreant at Lewisburg
• 18 Late Afternoon, Bucknell Hall
• About the Contributors
• Published Works of John Wheatcroft