Judson Evans
Postcards from Bob
Marianna, FL, Nov. 18, 1997
Dear Impatient Interlocutors,
Waffle House after Waffle House, Tallahassee falls short,
and tonight, Mobile is out of reach. Marianna–rainy way station.
Billboards sport its scenic caves, southern charm, and freshwater
springs, though the town hosted its own fratricidal “Jackson
County War” killing 200 Republicans–white and black, and birthed
governor John Milton, descendant of the poet, who shot himself
in the head rather than reunite with Yankees. Known also for an
abusive Boy’s School, and this Stalactite Rest Inn with its dripping
AC and greasy Naugahyde chair from which I restlessly write.
flooded caves
an umbrella-folded bat
in the mildewed closet
Yours—Bob, Interrupted
Note: This is part of a sequence of haibun that take the form of postcards. “They are written by a deeply conflicted persona on a cross-country trip and addressed to a mysterious couple identified only by the myriad playful nicknames bestowed upon them (‘Dear Benevolent Geniuses,’ ‘Dear Conscientious Objectors,’ ‘Dear Ladies of the Canyon’), always with sardonic campiness,” the author writes.
About the Author
Judson Evans is a full-time Professor of Liberal Arts at Berklee College of Music, where he teaches poetry workshops on haiku, haibun, and renku, and a visual studies course on Paleolithic cave art. His collaborative book of lyric poems responding to cave painting, Chalk Song, was published by Lilly Press, Boston, in fall 2021. He is haibun co-editor for Frogpond.