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Faculty

BONNIE ROBINSON

B.J. Robinson is a Professor of English at North Georgia College & State University. She earned her Bachelor's Degree at Wesleyan University in Connecticut and her Masters and Ph.D. at the University of Virginia (Charlottesville). She is the author of He/She/Eye (forthcoming -- 2008), as well as several scholarly articles on creative writing and late Victorian era writers. She guest edited a special issue of Victorian Poetry dedicated to Women Writers 1890-1918 (Spring 2000). And she is the founder and director of the University Press of North Georgia.

A Poem from He/She/Eyes:

"All for the Best"

The way he died seemed
the best way, at least to our mother, who thought it was

the best thing that could have happened, his dying while in police custody, since

the best thing he could have hoped for otherwise was more jail time, and

the best thing he ever got out of any of that was free prescription drugs and Jewish holidays, that is, after he converted just for the Jewish holidays, converting by tattooing a Star of David on his arm, which shows how much he knew about Judaism, and at least getting arrested for breaking and entering and then dying in police custody, having a heart attack in the patrol car the way he did, forced the city to pay for his autopsy, funeral, and long holiday, but

the best thing he ever did while in jail was learn to be a printer so he could earn money, though he never earned enough to support his drug habit, and he hated the smell of ink, and

the best thing he ever did was a children's picture book with silver space ships, dim galaxies, timid aliens, and dreams signed off as missions to other worlds, and

the best thing he ever did was ask himself if he could get to another world, or at least out of the prison world he inhabited, what with the rapists who pinned him down so he couldn't do anything, at least so he told our mother in a letter she couldn't understand his writing her anyway with such awful stuff in it, so she wrote him that

the best thing he ever did was ask for more time alone, but, really, I think that

the best thing he ever did was ask for help