I am saddened to hear that poet and activist Bud Osborn has died. I have just been drafting a post on road trip literature, and his prose-poem account of riding the Greyhound across Canada, “Hounded to the Coast,” is seared in my memory. He wrote about the poor and poverty with anger and empathy, hitting hard to a privileged suburban child like myself. Though he will write no more, the power of his voice remains. Thank you, Mr. Osborn, and rest well.

let my words

sing a prayer

not  a curse

to the tragic

& sacred mystery

 

of our

beautiful

suffering

eternal worth

from “Down Here,” Lonesome Monsters, Anvil Press, 1995