Never Without Honor features essays written in Memory of Ben H. Procter, a beloved mentor and friend who taught many people most of what they know about the practice of history, and even more about life. Historians, particularly those who practice their craft through appointments in higher education, fall into distinct categories: those known for publications; those who concentrate on teaching; and those who excel in teaching and sharing the yield of their research with others through spoken and written words. Ben Procter’s record places him firmly in the latter camp. His book, Not Without Honor: The Life of John H. Reagan, published by The University of Texas Press in 1962, remains the definitive biography of this Texas surveyor, political leader, and postmaster general of the Confederacy.

Never without Honor: Studies of Courage in Tribute to Ben H. Procter

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

Stephen F. Austin University Press

Whether silently coveting the birthday gifts of a privileged classmate, trying to connect with a mother’s ghost-like presence, or interrogating the dehumanizing impulse of an Arizona minuteman, the speaker of these poems often finds himself on the “wrong” side of the border that delineates a space of belonging, marginalized or estranged from his surroundings, observing the Other with a sense of both awe and bewilderment.  As such, the poems invite the reader to consider the relationship between life observed and life lived, between detachment and experience, between at-homeness and exile.  In the poem “Backlit”, for example, the speaker is transfixed by the darkening silhouette of a loved one standing before a window, this presence becoming an absence in the shape of a human body; he thinks to speak but doesn’t, foreshadowing the final poem about an intimate friend coming to terms with his imminent mortality through the quiet contemplation of an possum’s skeleton.  These poems, navigating a landscape marked by political, physical, and emotional trauma, ultimately point to the potential of the sensual self – of touch – to transcend the limits of language.

The Backlit Hour

Literature & Fiction

Rodríguez, José

Poetry

<div> Sudden Loss of Dignity represents where Gary Soto is in his life. He finds himself positioned in life as the older gent, or old guy. His poetry mirrors his personality, snarky and full of mockery. Soto writes about mainly aging and the loss of one's dignity as the years pass. It's very funny, poignant, sad, and especially true. </div>

Sudden Loss of Dignity

SOTO, GARY

History & Criticism

Wrestling the Bear is a first collection of nineteen stories. Many of the stories deal with synchronicity – the remarkable moments of coincidence when lives collide. The characters represent a range: male, female, young, and old, including dead Elvis, Jimmy Hoffa and the Emperor of New York City. The stories reveal webs of entanglement and often redemption.
The stories are tinged with the surreal. Their settings work as characters whether it is an unnamed island of Central America, Brooklyn, or the streets of Detroit and its surrounding working class suburbs.
Sirotkin writes with poetic language and rhythm, reflecting her background in poetry and performance.

Wrestling the Bear

Sirotkin, Jeanne

United States

In Stephen Massimilla’s latest book, The Plague Doctor in His Hull-Shaped Hat, self-recognition is found in the loss, beauty, and suffering that define our common humanity. This collection of poems maps overseas and underworld routes by which personal exploration opens onto universal territory. From Capri to Venice, from New England to the tropics, from Ithaca to the prismatic sea, the poems enact a struggle to salvage psychological, social, cultural and ecological landscapes.

The Plague Doctor in His Hull-Shaped Hat

Massimilla, Stephen

The Edge of Known Things is a declaration of reverence, a communication from a nontraditional prophet attempting to both explore and adore the world. What some flinch away  from is held up for examination in these poems, poked at with a stick, as the narrator seeks to understand the line between what is already understood and what is hidden. Returning often to the issue of memory—what we know, what we think we recall, what actually happened, what was dreamed, imagined or pretended—the poems rotate on deep images in an attempt to separate comprehension from mystery.

The Edge of Known Things

Madigan, Kelly

After the Tornado

Hueter, Diane

Scott presents readers with an in-depth look at the Great Depression by providing gripping memoirs from those who experienced it firsthand.

Nuggets from the Great Depression

Scott, Lois

Safe in Your Head is an epic story about war and love. It's about the ambitions that haunt us through decades as the ghosts of our ancestors thrive in our dreams, memories, and our most cherished hopes. Ever since he was a boy, Vittorio wanted to live in America. He remembers cases of chocolate and peanut butter dropping in parachutes from the sky. He remembers American military camps ringing with rock and roll. Then in 1978, as an adult and father of three, Vittorio moves his family to New York to escape the chaos that is Italy under the terrorism of the Red Brigades. But his mother in-law, Liliana, will have to wrestle with the most devastating loss since the death of her husband, Giorgio, who was a resistance fighter. Liliana must face again a wrenching loss so many decades after Giorgio's death when Vittorio takes her daughter and her grand-children to America. The family will all try to adapt to their new lives, honoring the past through recipes, and their belief in magic and good luck. And still they are haunted by the one decision that Giorgio took upon himself so long ago.. [Contains original cooking recipes and ancient good luck charms.]

Safe in Your Head

Valeri, Laura

<div> With Loose Change, James E. Cherry explores those things that&nbsp; make us human.&nbsp;These poems are visceral, honest&nbsp;and possess a vulnerability that will allow you access into the world each day.&nbsp; In&nbsp; this collection of verse,&nbsp;very little is exempt from examination.&nbsp;&nbsp; Family,&nbsp;politics, race, art, aging and much more are placed under the&nbsp; poet's mircoscopic eye to be&nbsp;clearly defined.&nbsp; But these are more than mere analytical explorations.&nbsp;Its Cherry's ability to interpret those findings and how they have impacted his life that moves&nbsp;this work beyond&nbsp; the personal into the universal.&nbsp;He&nbsp;has managed&nbsp;to take the pedestrian and left us with a remarkable second collection of poetry.&nbsp; From the discordant aspects of his life, a melodious solo rises. You'll continue to pat your feet long after the final page is finished. </div>

Loose Change

Cherry, James E.

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the Stephen F. Austin University Press publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Stephen F. Austin University Press