Robert Fink is a stayer. Having lived nearly his entire life in one state and served out a long, distinguished career at one university, he has developed the virtues that come with remaining in one place and devoting the whole of his attention to it. His poetry seems to approach the world from a stance that is patient, reflective, and deeply humane. He is also a storyteller. He unfurls his poems patiently, letting a narrative thread play out gracefully, almost casually, until the story turns and, reflected in a certain light, startles us with something new. Perhaps the plains of Texas work some change in the eye over time, training a poet to look carefully, to dwell on the fine gradations of color, to notice the small changes of light. Through this keenly honed perception of the scents, sounds, and palpable stuff of the world—and in particular to human faces—he reveals a world marbled through with grace, even in places where suffering is most acute.
Some of Fink’s work is featured in Image issue 72. Read a poem by Fink here.
Biography
Bob Fink is the W. D. and Hollis R. Bond Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at Hardin-Simmons University, Abilene, Texas. He has five books of poetry, including TheTongues of Men and of Angels (Texas Tech University Press, 1995) and his most recent collection Tracking The Morning (Wings Press, San Antonio, 2005), one of three finalists for the Violet Crown Award from the Writers’ League of Texas. His literary nonfiction book Twilight Innings: A West Texan on Grace and Survival (Texas Tech University Press, 2006), one of five finalists in the “Essays” category for ForeWord Magazine’s 2006 Book of the Year, was awarded the “Silver” medal, second place. His first poetry collection Azimuth Points was the 1981 Texas Review Poetry Prize Chapbook (Sam Houston State University, 1981).
Poems and literary nonfiction have appeared in numerous journals including The Southern Review, Poetry, TriQuarterly, The Iowa Review, New England Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Southwest Review, Image, Poetry Northwest, Southern Poetry Review, Crab Orchard Review, The Texas Review, Gulf Coast, The Iron Horse Literary Review.
Bob Fink is a native Texan. He graduated from Baylor University with a B. A. in English in 1968. From 1968 to 1971, he was a lieutenant in the U. S. Marine Corps, serving twelve months in Danang, Vietnam, 1970. His M. A. (1973) and his Ph.D. (1977) in English are from Texas Tech University. He has done post-doctoral work in The Graduate Poetry Workshop—The University of Iowa, Summer 1985. He has been at Hardin-Simmons since 1977. In 1990 he was elected to membership in The Texas Institute of Letters. Since 1996, he has been the poetry editor of the Walt McDonald First-Book Competition in Poetry, Texas Tech University Press. He is married to Katrina, and they have grown twin sons.
Current Projects
January 2013
Bob Fink’s sixth book of poetry, Strange You Never Knew, is scheduled for publication April, 2013, by Wings Press, San Antonio, Texas. As the title implies, Strange You Never Knewdevelops the thematic motif of knowing, the desire to know the mystery of love—touching earth and pushing off, flesh and spirit, life of the senses complementing the spiritual, the dream life of the imagination, desire for the word that speaks light from darkness, the ethereal within the mundane.
This knowing is contained by our daily living, the sensuous world with which we interact, mostly unaware of its spiritual dimension. The book’s four-section poem sequence is one of immersion into the paradoxical life, the life we come to know and spend a lifetime comprehending its inexplicable beauty. The poems examine our lives of displacement from family, love, ourselves. Displacement, however, does not necessarily mean despair. Our mundane lives we may discover transpire in an austere and holy place peopled with angels unaware. Faith can exist in a place of stone. Absolution is available daily. Redemption is found in strange places we never knew.