Who Am I To Say Goodbye

Bill Stucky’s debut poetry collection, WHO AM I TO SAY GOODBYE, contemplates experiences of transformation, growth, and loss, on the eve of his 70th year of life. In an age where there are mobile apps for meditation, and spirituality is packaged in posts on social media designed to ‘get the most clicks, ’ Stucky’s deeply sincere, almost guileless approach to the divine strikes a pure chord throughout much of this book-reminiscent of Hafez’s ecstatic poems, and Kabir’s lyric calls of devotion. In that sense, many of these poems feel at home in the Bhakti movement of Eastern religious traditions -alternately meditating on both the forms and the formlessness of God, in a lifelong pursuit of knowing truth. Stucky can also be funny, though, with a sense of humor that can run the gamut from unabashedly silly to incredibly dry-and that can be seen in some of these poems too. From the book, here is the poem I Dreamt, in its entirety: I dreamt I was beheaded and my first thought was, Not a bad way to begin my seventies. Perhaps now I will wake up and think up only great after head poems.