Serving Boone, Blowing Rock, Banner Elk, and other towns of the North Carolina High Country
Founded 05-05-05
May 15, 2008 issue
John Foster West, who died May 2, taught creative writing at ASU from 1968 to 1991. He retired as professor of English emeritus and endowed a creative writing scholarship that bears his name.
West’s former student, the poet Hilda Downer, remembers West from her work with him. Before taking his class, she had never published any of her poetry. As a result of it, her first published poetry was not a poem in a literary review, but a full book, Bandana Creek, published by the Red Clay Press. Hers story illustrates the special influence West had on young regional writers during his teaching career.
John Foster West: My Teacher
Story by Hilda Downer
I knew who John Foster West was. When I saw him stride across campus, he appeared bigger and balder than he even was. He wasn’t really a big man, just tall, but wide shouldered and his white or tan sports jackets made him seem bigger. His large nose added more depth to his face—more baldness or boldness to be exact. He was loud too, almost barking when he called out. In short, I was afraid of him.
It took me three years to muster the courage to take his creative writing class. I came across West waiting alone at the elevator in Sanford Hall. I told him I had signed up for his class. He said, “Good.” I told him that I wrote all the time, but I wasn’t sure I could write poetry for a class. I pleaded for some kind of reassurance, asking him, “What would happen then?”
The elevator door opened, solemn. Suddenly, the hallway was full of rushing students. West stepped into the elevator, swirled around, and looked straight at me: “Then you will get an F.” The door closed.
After reading my first set of poems, West told me he couldn’t teach me anything, that I was better than him. I was taken aback. No one, except my best friend, had ever read my poems before.
During that creative writing class, I found that West and I had more in common than just our big noses. In fact, some people assumed that I was his daughter. We both had the same strong sense of place that most Appalachian writers share. He wondered how anyone coming from anywhere other than the mountains had anything to write about.
At the end of the semester, West asked for 100 poems in order to figure out my grade. I had a lot more, but I chose what I thought were my best, the earliest written at the age of 17. I even threw in new poems I wasn’t sure about because, at this point, I figured I was not going to get an F.
What I hadn’t figured was that West would call me the first day I arrived back in Boone for fall semester. I lived downtown in the old Daniel Boone Hotel, and he was in his office on campus. He told me to start walking, and he would start walking. We met halfway on the corner in front of the big Baptist Church. He said, “You know those poems you gave me? I sent them to a publisher, and they got accepted.”
West was bigger than life to most people. Some may remember him for his flamboyance in a blonde wig or his inflated ego or his scatological humor or his letters to the Watauga Democrat at election time excoriating Republicans and criticizing the grammar of letters by their defenders. Not everyone would know that he cried when he finished a book or watched a sad movie. He told me that, as a student stumbling out of the library for the first time at Mars Hill College, he had sat down by a tree and cried because there was so much to know. He did not think he could learn so much. He did not think he could write what he eventually wrote. He did not think he could teach me anything. Yet, he is the only person I still refer to as “my teacher.”