MFA Greensboro Faculty David Roderick Discusses the Place He Writes

The Orion Blog
The Place Where I Write: David Roderick
On occasions when the muse deigns to visit me, I’m usually catty-cornered and nursing a latte at the Green Bean in Greensboro, North Carolina. It’s the only café in town that could survive if situated in one of the world-class caffeinated cities like Seattle or San Francisco. I’m drawn to the Green Bean because of the quality free-trade beans, but also because there’s a southern mellowness to the atmosphere, and because the baristas are friendly and sport garish tattoos on every square inch of their arms, and because I can go wireless for free all day. The clientele is business/slacker, black/white, old/young. Bohemian is hard to find in this city. I’m more fauxhemian, but the Green Bean is the only place downtown where it’s maybe normal for a gawky, bald dude to lumber through the door every morning and wrestle with poems in the corner.

Right now I’m studying the scene from that very corner. The layout is narrow but deep. Gouges and scuffs mar the wide-board floor. There isn’t a wobbly table or chair in the joint. A white stamped-tin ceiling stares down at me when I beckon the heavens for inspiration. In years past this place might have been a salon or refectory; it might have been a pool hall, a bookstore, a gastro pub.

Read the full article here: http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/newsfrom187/entry/6684/

Find out more about the MFA Writing Program here:http://mfagreensboro.org