Tuesday, March 26, 2013

News at Eleven: Ambitious though they were,

neither was able to escape the constraints of their own hard upbringings. His mother, the oldest of five, grew up in extreme poverty, was charged with the care of the younger children and was whipped for her siblings' transgressions. His father was relentlessly belittled by his father with sarcasm and ridicule. Although both of [Wesley] McNair's parents entered college, neither graduated.

But McNair credits them both for "contributing" to his becoming a writer. His mother by reading to him and helping him create his first "book" as a young boy; his father's "most obvious contribution was his disappearance itself, for it showed me once and for all that the world is a broken place, and filled me with the need to mend it."

from Maine Sunday Telegram: Book Review: Poet's work shares how torn family shaped him

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