Brett Foster
 

The poet, translator, and scholar Brett Foster died two days ago, at 42 years old. He had been diagnosed out of the blue, in June 2014, with stage IV colon cancer. He leaves behind his wife, Anise, and their two children.

I know that Brett attended West Chester at some point, and that some of you knew him, so I wanted to pass on this news here. I had the pleasure of meeting Brett when he taught at Gordon College’s overseas program in Orvieto, in spring 2013, and we corresponded often by email after that. His emails were an event: packed with ideas, poems, questions. Just like Brett himself: a brilliant and generous man, who will be greatly missed.


Prayer Before Reading St Mark's Gospel

Please attack my colonialist ego,
o lion-face, o ancient evangelist.
The carcinogenic self, gleeful
but cruel in its unhealthy glow,
needs every means of resistance,
nor do I expect your treatment to be
remotely easygoing, if any freedom
is to be won from tumor, polyp, cyst.
Don't let my withheld forgiveness
be among the glittering cargo
of my sickly little boat, battered, kissed
by fortune's surges. Let me bestow
instead regard to every fellow narcissist,
to thief and punk, humbug and arsonist.

--Brett Foster, July 2014

Thanks for posting this, Andrew. Yet again I learn about a writer of moving work only because there won't be any more of that work.

The Facebook page of the journal Image also posted about Brett and provided a link to this poem.

Thanks, Andrew and Maryann. I had no idea who he was, but am now finding out that I miss him.

Best,

Ed

Ed expressed my feelings exactly. Such a fine poet of such moving work! What a loss.

I am stunned, thoroughly, to hear this. Though his last message to me a couple months ago hinted at some recent difficulties, I had no real inkling. I hope someone will find a way to bring his Cecco Angiolieri translations together in one place--it was brilliant work that he was doing. I wish I had gotten to know him better. A true loss for us all.

Doug