{"id":7209,"date":"2021-02-05T09:23:10","date_gmt":"2021-02-05T14:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/?p=7209"},"modified":"2021-03-13T14:16:37","modified_gmt":"2021-03-13T19:16:37","slug":"get-to-know-john-cal-freeman-celebrating-detroit-mercy-through-poetry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/2021\/02\/05\/get-to-know-john-cal-freeman-celebrating-detroit-mercy-through-poetry\/","title":{"rendered":"Get to know: John ‘Cal’ Freeman, celebrating Detroit Mercy through poetry"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"Cal
John Freeman ’02 publishes under the name Cal Freeman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Professor
Professor of English John Freeman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Detroit Mercy is in John Freeman\u2019s bones.<\/p>\n

His father, John Freeman, was a beloved English professor whose lectures examining connections between the lyrics of Tupac Shakur and themes in William Shakespeare\u2019s Hamlet<\/em> were popular with students and taught young John to think in creative ways. The father and son also spent many afternoons and evenings at Calihan Hall, cheering on the Titans men\u2019s basketball team and the younger John and his sister, Emily, both graduated from Detroit Mercy. John met his future wife when they were both students at the University.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s obviously a place that meant a lot to me over the years,\u201d said Freeman, who is a professor of Writing and Rhetoric at Oakland University. \u201cIt has such a great English department and I remember being in awe of all the wonderful professors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many of those professors make an appearance in \u201cUniversity of Detroit: A Memoir with Basketball and Poetry,\u201d a poem Freeman wrote that was published recently in the journal Permafrost<\/em>. The poem will also be included in \u201cPoolside at the Dearborn Inn,\u201d Freeman\u2019s second book of poetry \u2014 he publishes under the name Cal Freeman \u2014 due out in April 2022.<\/p>\n

It is a love letter of sorts to the University and the people and events who shaped him. It weaves together names of Titans men\u2019s basketball greats and professors who influenced him and his writing into a brief and moving memoir.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just thinking of experiences that I had at the University and started to write them down,\u201d Freeman said. \u201cI included the names of people because I am in favor of using proper nouns when you can in a poem, even if the readers won\u2019t know who those people are, because I think they carry a certain resonance. And I think readers will go along with it and trust you know what you\u2019re writing about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Written more than a year and a half ago, Freeman never imagined that it would become, in a way, an elegy for his father, who died unexpectedly in January.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe cool, spooky things about poems is that they take on meaning from things going around them.\u201d Freeman said. \u201cI received the galleys for proofing in the mail the day after he died.\u201d<\/p>\n

It seemed tragically fitting to him, as his father often lectured and wrote about \u201chauntology,\u201d a concept in literary theory that, roughly speaking, concerns itself with the interaction between the past and the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope when people read this they will remember my dad as a teacher and will read his writing,\u201d Freeman said. \u201cIt\u2019s really good, and I think it should be remembered.\u201d<\/p>\n

University of Detroit: A Brief Memoir With Basketball and Poetry<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/header>\n

\n

a poem by Cal Freeman<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 The basketball players<\/em>
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 collapsed in their red jerseys.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 A thin dust fell<\/em>
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 from the rafters.<\/em><\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

I was born with the ponderous name
\nJohn Calvin Freeman III,<\/p>\n

what Father Justin Kelly,
\nwho taught the class, \u201cPoets, Mystics,<\/p>\n

and God,\u201d referred to as \u201cA Protestant
\nname that belies the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

You might know my father,
\nJohn Calvin Freeman Jr.<\/p>\n

He teaches English in a brick building
\nwhere the ceiling tiles<\/p>\n

regularly peel from their glue
\nand plummet.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m convinced he\u2019s among the last men
\nto shoot a sky hook,<\/p>\n

anchoring his left leg and swooping
\nhis right arm across<\/p>\n

his body like a crane\u2019s wing.
\nHe does not sleep.<\/p>\n

My father teaches Tupac\u2019s lyrics
\nto his poetry classes.<\/p>\n

He reads the rapper\u2019s tattoos
\nthrough the dialectics<\/p>\n

of elegy and self-protection:
\nnames of murdered friends,<\/p>\n

the words,\u00a0My only fear of death<\/em>
\nis coming back reincarnated<\/em>,<\/p>\n

on Shakur\u2019s left bicep.
\nTupac\u2019s fear was realized<\/p>\n

when they brought him back
\nas a hologram to perform<\/p>\n

at Coachella in 2012.
\n\u201cOutsourcing here takes on<\/p>\n

the quality of outsourcery,\u201d
\nmy father writes\u2014<\/p>\n

amortization, immaterial
\nlabor performed by the dead.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

In the early-90s my parents
\nwould take me to see<\/p>\n

Ricky Byrdsong\u2019s teams play.
\nLater that decade<\/p>\n

Byrdsong would be gunned down
\nby a white supremacist<\/p>\n

while jogging with his children.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

In a windowless white room
\nClaire Crabtree writes a poem<\/p>\n

about a woman sewing
\ngreen thread through her iris,<\/p>\n

an eye to be looked at, not through,
\nturned inward.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

My mother takes an independent study
\nwith Father Kelly<\/p>\n

and stages a dramatic reading
\nof \u201cThe Leaden Echo<\/p>\n

and the Golden Echo.\u201d<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

A clocktower squeezes out the minutes
\nand chimes the half-hour,<\/p>\n

the names of the long-dead
\nsoldiers of the War to End<\/p>\n

All Wars etched into its base.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

The year before Clint Hurst dies
\nI visit his office every Thursday<\/p>\n

to go over Keats\u2019 Odes and Letters.
\nI come to admire the way he stared<\/p>\n

at poesy\u2019s blank margin
\nafter that first spatter<\/p>\n

of blood had spelled his doom.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Chris Gilliard lectures
\nabout digital red-lining<\/p>\n

and the surveillance state,
\nhow it\u2019s no abstraction<\/p>\n

for black bodies harmed
\nby Silicon Valley innovations,<\/p>\n

how resistance movements
\nare forged in the very private<\/p>\n

spaces carceral surveillance
\nseeks to penetrate.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Spencer Haywood, to my knowledge,
\nhas not returned.<\/p>\n

His time in the NBA was marred
\nby drug addiction and paranoia.<\/p>\n

He was the first player
\nto utilize the hardship clause<\/p>\n

and go pro early.
\nDick Vitale returned a decade ago<\/p>\n

for a court dedication
\nin his name. Former players<\/p>\n

John Long and Terry Duerod
\nwere on hand.<\/p>\n

After his retirement from the NBA
\nTerry Duerod served 27 years<\/p>\n

with the Detroit Fire Department,
\nEngine 55 on Joy Road<\/p>\n

on the city\u2019s northwest side.
\nHe played on the firemen\u2019s team,<\/p>\n

never once bragging to the young guys
\nabout the 1980 NBA Finals<\/p>\n

or the \u201977 Sweet Sixteen.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

As a kid I\u2019d sneak into
\nthe empty press box at Calihan Hall<\/p>\n

while my dad played pick-up games,
\ntrying to sort the dull<\/p>\n

action into language,
\nmimicking George Blaha\u2019s<\/p>\n

and Dick Vitale\u2019s play-by-play.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

My mother has MS now
\nand cannot drive,<\/p>\n

can barely walk. My father
\nspends a year-long sabbatical<\/p>\n

writing about George Antheil\u2019s
\nand Hedy Lamarr\u2019s collaborations,<\/p>\n

the signal-jamming qualities
\nof Antheil\u2019s noise, the birth<\/p>\n

of wifi. He drives my mother
\nto therapy and doctor\u2019s appointments,<\/p>\n

reading Abraham and Torok
\nin antiseptic waiting rooms.<\/p>\n

My mother speaks of her illness
\nin clinical terms, the degradation<\/p>\n

of the myelin sheath and scarring.
\nMy mother\u2019s myelin sheath<\/p>\n

is a hopelessly encrypted code,
\na jammed signal,<\/p>\n

an erstwhile technology.
\nShe writes a poem<\/p>\n

about Van Eyck\u2019s\u00a0Arnolfini Wedding<\/em>,
\nthe convex mirror<\/p>\n

behind the hearth revealing
\nthe painter at work, a curious<\/p>\n

black dog at his feet,
\nthe sort of mirror one finds<\/p>\n

in Detroit party stores for the purpose
\nof surveilling black youth.<\/p>\n

My mother argues that this painting
\nis a holographic image, writing,<\/p>\n

\u201cThis \u2018violent perspective\u2019
\nis a diverging lens that splits<\/p>\n

the original laser beam
\ninto reference and object beams.\u201d<\/p>\n

An epithalamion of sorts
\nfor a man who stayed with her<\/p>\n

through several suicide attempts
\nand years of manic paranoia.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Sarah Pazur reads Anne Sexton
\non a coffee-stained orange couch<\/p>\n

in the writing center.
\nShe tells me Sexton would drink<\/p>\n

vodka martinis while chain-smoking
\ncigarettes every afternoon in the sunlight<\/p>\n

by the pool, thumbing through
\nher dog-eared rhyming dictionary,<\/p>\n

letting the inherited sounds of the language
\nitself punctuate her thoughts;<\/p>\n

that\u2019s precisely what she\u2019d like
\nto do with the rest of her life.<\/p>\n

Five years later we are married
\non a grey September day<\/p>\n

at Gesu Church in a ceremony
\nofficiated by Father Kelly.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

My mother recites
\n\u201cThe Wreck of the Deutschland\u201d<\/p>\n

to a synthespian
\nGerard Manley Hopkins:<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 I am soft sift<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 In an hourglass\u2014at the wall<\/em>
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Fast, but mined with a motion, a drift.<\/em><\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

In my Western Civilization course
\nClaire Crabtree speaks of<\/p>\n

Odysseus in the mead hall
\non the island of Scherie<\/p>\n

sobbing as Demodocus sings
\nof the disguised hero\u2019s decades<\/p>\n

of wandering and wrack.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Demodocus fuses epithet to melody<\/em>
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 and rests the lyre\u2019s tortoise shell<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 against his stomach to feel<\/em>
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 the exiled creature\u2019s reverberating<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 voice, and in this gesture<\/em>
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 we begin to understand<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 the subtle difference<\/em>
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 between poetry and song.<\/em><\/p>\n

Outside the hall, young Phaeacians
\nhold contests of skill<\/p>\n

in honor of the gods.
\nA hook shot clanks<\/p>\n

from a back rim, soles
\nsqueak over maple planks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Detroit Mercy is in John Freeman\u2019s bones. His father, John Freeman, was a beloved English professor whose lectures examining connections between the lyrics of Tupac Shakur and themes in William Shakespeare\u2019s Hamlet were popular with students and taught young John to think in creative ways. The father and son also …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":7246,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4,2],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/88\/2021\/02\/freeman.jpg?fit=600%2C315&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8Kcng-1Sh","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7209"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7209"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7291,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7209\/revisions\/7291"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}