Greatness has Left the Planet (and my life), My Brother Dies

I will not be blogging for time now, here is why:


Ray Hinman (June 20, 1956-Jan 24, 2014) He was 57 years old. As he himself once wrote of his own birth, "when I was born there were two of me." I was the other one. He was my twin brother. He died of pneumonia probably form flu. He died in our home. Ray was a remarkable guy: he was a poet and he great literary talent. He tried real hard bot make but never did. He was published here and there, had one book of his poetry. He wrote a fine novel, or rather wrote a large portion of one. Never finished it. This was not due to laziness he sent things to publishers constantly. He spend years and years shuffling papers and getting rejection slips. That's an old familiar story. He really did have talent and his poetry is great. Great poetry doesn't sell. Most publishers dont' want to publish it even if it's top quality. He could not write commercialism crap or do other things. He was one of those people who its easy to look at and say "he just gave up" or "he was lazy" or whatever, but the truth of it is he was just too sensitive to do anything but the one thing he had the real talent for, that one thing doesn't pay bills.

I read one of his poems in a poetry call at UTD. This was graduate class taught by two top literary professors. One of them was Fred Turner the son of famous anthropologist Victory Turner, who is himself a renown poet. He said "I love his poetry" referring to Ray's poetry. The other professor was a woman from Hungary, Zsuzsanna Ozsvath.She was crying and saying "eet ees so be=U-teeful. both of them though Ray's poetry was great.





This is the bio I put on his poetry website.

Born: Dallas, Texas, 1956, with his twin brother Joe.

Education: University of Texas At Arlington, University of North Texas (Denton)

Occupations: Market Researcher; Paid campaign worker; poetry editor (Academic Journal Negations) and fellow of Negations Institute.

Life Experience: Mr. Hinman has lived in Dallas, Arlington, and Austin Texas. He's traveled extensively around North America, Mexico, and Central America.

1970's In the early 70's, as a highschool sophemore Mr. Hinman worked as a volunteer in for the McGovern Campaign in the senator's 1972 Presidential bid. As a young man he hitchhiked from Dallas to Colorado. In a Second trip, up the West Coast to Van Couver. In a Third trip, hitchhiked up the East coast to Montreal. [That hitching odyssey was a major even in his life. He met Joan Baez on the west coast trip. He had many great stories of adventure from those trips.] He also Attended University of Texas at Arlington.

1980's lived in Dallas and Austin. In this decade he travailed in Mexico. It was in this decade that he had his career as a Market Researcher in Dallas,Paid campaign worker in Austin, and attended University of North Texas in Denton. From about 86 to 90 a major portion of his life was occupied with volunteer political organizing over the issue of Central America. Mr. Hinman worked with the infamous CISPES group (Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador) of Dallas which is known to have been spied upon by an FBI informant, and Mr. Hinman may have been target of surveillance.

1990's: Mr. Hinman worked in the anti-Gulf War coalition in the early 90's. He settled in Dallas and began to work for the Negation Institute, first as the contributing Poetry editor for their journal Negations, then as researcher. In the late 90's he spent several years providing full time care for his parents until their deaths.In the 90's that he wrote some of his best work.


After the death of his parents, Mr. Hinman withdrew from society and lives a hermit like existence devoted to study. These are the venues in which he was published. some of them multiple poems were published.

Interstate
The Amoeba
Well Spring
Balcones Review
Negations: an Inter disciplinary Journal of social Criticism
A Rule of Three(chapbook).
Our Cities Vanish (book)

To read samples of his poetry see the blogger site I made for him: Our Cities Vanish.

Ray Loved the Byrds, this was one of his favorite songs by the Byrds:
I am a pilgrim


Buy a copy of his book Our Cities Vanish  on Amazon

or click on the mimage in the right side bar at bottom.