ABSTRACT
I never met Jim Corder, but I feel a strong affinity for his work on several levels.1 My father was in the Army but born a generation earlier than Corder, in 1918.1 was born in 1953 in occupation Japan while my father fought in the Korean war. I’ve not spent time in West Texas though I’ve driven fast and long
through its expanses, and I sometimes think I’ve constructed an imaginary TCU simply from my reading of Jim’s work and imaginings of him there. He was published often but is not someone most would consider widely published: That is, he was known and respected but not canonized in reading lists, not a major player-according to documentary evidence-in the professional battles of his years. Nor did he appear to feel obliged to battle it out for professional visibility. His writings read, always, like those he felt moved to write, compelled to write, not those that a professional trajectory commanded or demanded he write. “I yam what I yam,” fits, perhaps.
