Ed Davis has immersed himself in writing and contemplative practices since retiring from college teaching. Time of the Light,his poetry collection, was released by Main Street Rag Press in 2013. His latest novel, The Psalms of Israel Jones (West Virginia University Press 2014), won the 2010 Hackney Award for an unpublished novel. Many of his stories, essays and poems have appeared in anthologies and journals such as Leaping Clear, Metafore, Hawaii Pacific Review, and Bacopa Literary Review.
What past event do you often reflect upon, and did that event change you?
That would be August 7, 1993, when I called to make an appointment to talk to a counselor about my drinking: the beginning of my search for Spirit rather than “spirits.” Just back from a Maine vacation where we’d camped beside drunken young people, one of whom had accidentally broken his girlfriend’s arm, I saw the future and didn’t like it. I became a seeker rather than a knower. My search continues through Christianity, Buddhism — I’m open to all spiritual traditions — and is woven into everything I write.
How does your work add to the quality of your life?
Writing fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction forces me to challenge every idea or thought flitting through my monkey mind. I may have never started writing fiction or poetry if I’d realized how hard it is — and I would’ve missed writing into the depths of my unconscious, past all the parental and cultural conditioning, to find words, characters and scenes embodying perspectives unlike mine. After almost fifty years of pursuing my art, my work continues to get me to the writing desk almost every day, a joy and a great responsibility.
Tell us a story you would like to share with the world.
At the height of the pandemic, I got a call from my mother’s nursing home, 300 miles away, saying my unresponsive mom was being rushed to the ER. Decades ago, my mentally ill mother had signed a form saying she wanted all efforts made to save her life. Now, hoping to prevent a violent assault on my frail 93-year-old mother, I begged the attending ER nurse not to abide by the order I’d been unable to rescind. She said she’d fill out the DNR form so it’d be available to the attending physician. Within an hour, the doctor called to say Mom had passed peacefully. The worst day of my life had become, due to caretakers’ wise compassion, the best.
Author photo: Bill Franz.
Side image: Pixabay/Edar.
