Born in Kentucky and reared across Texas as a child of the United Methodist evangelical diaspora, John D. Fry came of age and was bewitched by poetry en la frontera of South Texas. He received his BA in English and Creative Writing from Davidson College in Davidson, North Carolina, where he held the Patricia Cornwell Scholarship for Excellence in Creative Writing, and after four years living deep in Dixie’s heart, he learned that he didn’t belong anywhere near where Confederate colors were still flown. Currently, he lives in the Texas Hill Country, where he’s pursuing an MFA in Poetry from Texas State University on a William F. McKeen III Memorial Scholarship. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Hobart Park, Maker III, and Breadcrumb Scabs.

In answer to our question of why he writes, John responded:

“My relationship with language is as trinitarian as my childhood belief in the Father, Son, & Holy Ghost in that language, by my lights, engages body, mind, & soul. I would even be willing to argue that language embodies us every bit as much as we are incarnate in it. No matter how far afield I have gone from the Christian orthodoxy of my upbringing, the preacher’s son in me still holds fast to a faith that believes that words can call worlds into being. If not ‘The Word,’ then in any beginning, words. To put pen to paper is, for me, a spiritual acknowledgment of this mystery that I cannot not call sacred. I guess you could say it’s the one way, now, that I know how to pray, how to keep the faith, & how to warm myself and/or try to warm others in a society so often grown cold. I agree with Carole Maso:  there is a shelter inside the alphabet. & each letter? A figure of fire.”

 

 

 

 

   
 

 

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