Ray Ventre was a professor of English Literature at Northern Michigan University. I always thought of him as Father Ventre, however, because he had at one time been student at seminary, and came very close to priesthood. What failed him, it seems, was a love a woman, and the belief that the ordinary could be made holy by our reverence of it. He claimed one could, and perhaps should, conduct communion with bananas and coconut milk if that's what one had on hand.
I think it was destined that he and the Catholic church should part ways, at least insofar as vows of obedience were concerned.
Unlike many English professors, Dr. Ventre was not a failed, promising, rising, falling, or would-be author. He was born to teach, and what he loved most in the world, second to his faith, was the written word.
He was a passionate teacher, who would read from Gerard Manley Hopkins, and crisscross the room, waving his arms, daring us to follow him into the heights of sprung rhythm poetry. He introduced us to early feminists, and the emerging American voice twentieth century with wit and joy and an infectious enthusiasm. He loved the 101 classes, precisely because it was a requirement and he had the chance to at least infatuate the most cynical student with the love of the possible.
All of our power, he contended, was contained within our capacity to communicate. And, when he was done with us, our minds awake, most of us would never view language the same way again.
I was in the honors English program, but caught every class of his that I could, even if it wasn't mandated by my curriculum. Even though he was not my adviser, I visited him often, and while I attended school, we were friends.
Until the day I came into his office to tell him I was leaving school.
I was a very good student, but I was very poor. Having no family, I supported myself. Two years after I entered University, Ronald Regan fulfilled his vendetta against higher learning and managed to cut the legs out of the grant and aid programs which supported merit scholars. So, after two hard years, working myself in and out of the hospital from sheer exhaustion, the young man I was dating offered to marry me. We'd leave Michigan, relocate, and I would finish school while he worked as a computer programmer. It was a life raft, and I grabbed it. Now, I happened to love Kevin, but I would have (and did) love anyone who was marginally kind to me.
When I told Dr. Ventre I was leaving school to marry, he thought I was pregnant.
I've known a lot of people who were anti-abortion in my live, but none who walked their talk like Ray Ventre did.
"You need to stay in school," he said. "The world will be missing something if your voice is gone."
I didn't understand. Even then I had a plain spoken, simple writing style. In part because I had been told that the average reader would read at 4th grade level by the time I was / if I was / a professional writer. So I struggled to write about complex things in simple language, the sum greater than the parts. But in the two years I sweated through my program, pushing, and pushing, spending as much as 40 hours on my hardest class - I was not "discovered" by the department. As yet, I didn't have a "voice".
Professor Ventre, who loved poetry almost as much as he loved the bible, pulled an worn, thick volume from his shelf. Without pretension, he opened the book and handed it to me.
anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't and danced his did ...
It is and remains one of my favorite poems by ee cummings. I had never read anything like it before.
"He wrote important things with simple language," said Ventre.
You have a voice. Your voice is the beginnings of a new voice. It shouldn't go unheard."
"Um..."
"If you're pregnant, my wife and I would be happy to adopt any baby of yours," he said, to my complete surprise. " Don't get married for the wrong reasons."
"Oh, no" I laughed, "I'm not pregnant."
What I didn't say was "adopt me."
I didn't know how to ask for the kind of help that I needed at the time. A room to sleep in, space to work.
None-the-less, never had a met a christian so willing to live by their values.
He didn't want me to marry for the wrong reasons. And yet he would not encourage me to abort a pregnancy. So he offered his own home to bridge the gap.
I remember he also used to teach in a maximum security prison, in addition to his university duties. There was a riot in the prison that year, and the prisoners got him out, even while they held others hostage.
Sometimes the ability to walk out of a lion's den comes from simple kindness and respect.
Ray Ventre did not profess his faith.
He walked it, much as I can tell, every day of his life.
I think it was destined that he and the Catholic church should part ways, at least insofar as vows of obedience were concerned.
Unlike many English professors, Dr. Ventre was not a failed, promising, rising, falling, or would-be author. He was born to teach, and what he loved most in the world, second to his faith, was the written word.
He was a passionate teacher, who would read from Gerard Manley Hopkins, and crisscross the room, waving his arms, daring us to follow him into the heights of sprung rhythm poetry. He introduced us to early feminists, and the emerging American voice twentieth century with wit and joy and an infectious enthusiasm. He loved the 101 classes, precisely because it was a requirement and he had the chance to at least infatuate the most cynical student with the love of the possible.
All of our power, he contended, was contained within our capacity to communicate. And, when he was done with us, our minds awake, most of us would never view language the same way again.
I was in the honors English program, but caught every class of his that I could, even if it wasn't mandated by my curriculum. Even though he was not my adviser, I visited him often, and while I attended school, we were friends.
Until the day I came into his office to tell him I was leaving school.
I was a very good student, but I was very poor. Having no family, I supported myself. Two years after I entered University, Ronald Regan fulfilled his vendetta against higher learning and managed to cut the legs out of the grant and aid programs which supported merit scholars. So, after two hard years, working myself in and out of the hospital from sheer exhaustion, the young man I was dating offered to marry me. We'd leave Michigan, relocate, and I would finish school while he worked as a computer programmer. It was a life raft, and I grabbed it. Now, I happened to love Kevin, but I would have (and did) love anyone who was marginally kind to me.
When I told Dr. Ventre I was leaving school to marry, he thought I was pregnant.
I've known a lot of people who were anti-abortion in my live, but none who walked their talk like Ray Ventre did.
"You need to stay in school," he said. "The world will be missing something if your voice is gone."
I didn't understand. Even then I had a plain spoken, simple writing style. In part because I had been told that the average reader would read at 4th grade level by the time I was / if I was / a professional writer. So I struggled to write about complex things in simple language, the sum greater than the parts. But in the two years I sweated through my program, pushing, and pushing, spending as much as 40 hours on my hardest class - I was not "discovered" by the department. As yet, I didn't have a "voice".
Professor Ventre, who loved poetry almost as much as he loved the bible, pulled an worn, thick volume from his shelf. Without pretension, he opened the book and handed it to me.
anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't and danced his did ...
It is and remains one of my favorite poems by ee cummings. I had never read anything like it before.
"He wrote important things with simple language," said Ventre.
You have a voice. Your voice is the beginnings of a new voice. It shouldn't go unheard."
"Um..."
"If you're pregnant, my wife and I would be happy to adopt any baby of yours," he said, to my complete surprise. " Don't get married for the wrong reasons."
"Oh, no" I laughed, "I'm not pregnant."
What I didn't say was "adopt me."
I didn't know how to ask for the kind of help that I needed at the time. A room to sleep in, space to work.
None-the-less, never had a met a christian so willing to live by their values.
He didn't want me to marry for the wrong reasons. And yet he would not encourage me to abort a pregnancy. So he offered his own home to bridge the gap.
I remember he also used to teach in a maximum security prison, in addition to his university duties. There was a riot in the prison that year, and the prisoners got him out, even while they held others hostage.
Sometimes the ability to walk out of a lion's den comes from simple kindness and respect.
Ray Ventre did not profess his faith.
He walked it, much as I can tell, every day of his life.
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