On the sermons of Tyrone Williams
A lay preacher, as well as the distinguished poet, critic, and English professor I had known him to be, Tyrone had delivered the sermons at the Winton Community Free Methodist Church in Cincinnati, where he worshipped from 1987, when he began teaching full time at Xavier, until he took his position as a distinguished chair in the English Department at Buffalo in Spring 2022.
Six months after Tyrone Williams died from cancer at age seventy on March 11, 2024, I accessed the texts of seventeen sermons he had composed and that were now housed in the “Theological, 2001-2021” section of his archive at SUNY Buffalo.
The ray of way
Ray Hsu is a rockstar who writes books. Or he is a poet who collaborates. Or he is a collaborator who performs. Or he is a performer who teaches. Or he is a teacher who rocks out online at thewayofray.com. Or on his YouTube channel. Critical of the rising tension between “online” and “print”, Ray Hsu works with artists as collaborators, publishers as collaborators and venues as collaborators. To comment on his work I must collaborate with it. The following commentary has been composed entirely of fragments from Ray Hsu’s Cold Sleep Permanent Afternoon, and as such can be read as an online performance of his print.
One sees oneself not as one is, but as others. Mischievous surfaces. Your documents please. One can only do as one does and yet we make do, go on, as if our troops are us. I am at home where I am missing. Problem is all this feels outdated. Books books books. On paper, everything equals out. I, for one, want bravely to be random. Strictly speaking, this may not seem like useful advice, but I think you should do whatever feels natural.