Interlude - Hugh Parker

It’s been a while since I wrote any poetry.  Frankly, I’ve been processing my losses a little more quietly.  If you’ve been here before, most of the poems on this site wrestle with the failures, contradictions, losses and occasional absurdities of institutions. This one is different.

On June 22, 2026, I watched the funeral of my friend Hugh Parker. Trying to process that loss sent me back here.

Hugh hired me at Millsaps College more than thirty years ago. During my interview, he offered a simple standard for success: "If you can't teach, you can't stay." At the time, I heard it as a statement about classroom performance. Over the years, I came to understand it as something much larger.

Hugh certainly taught me about teaching, but he also taught me about people. He modeled a version of academic life grounded in relationships, humility, kindness, and service to others. He made those around him feel valued without encouraging them to think too highly of themselves. He possessed the rare ability to combine wisdom, humor, and grace in equal measure.

Many of the poems on this site emerge from my experience watching a profession I love struggle under pressures that often reward efficiency over relationships and accomplishment over community. Hugh spent his life quietly teaching the opposite lesson.

This poem is offered in gratitude for his friendship, his example, and the ways he changed how I see both higher education and the world around me.

One Condition

When I interviewed, full of credentials and certainty,

you offered only one condition:

If you can’t teach, you can’t stay.

At first, I thought it too simple,

but over the years, I learned what you meant:

People are not obstacles to efficiency,

Relationships matter more than resumes,

Kindness outlasts accomplishment

You made me feel important while never suggesting

I was more important than anyone else.

And through stories, laughter, and wisdom

delivered in accents and Mississippi-isms,

you taught me the particular joy

of being less important than the work,

less important than the students,

less important than the people we love.

You convinced me to take a chance

on a small college in Mississippi.

Then you convinced me to take

a chance on Mississippi itself.

You showed me how to use my best eyes

to see beauty beneath complexity;

beauty because of complexity.

Today I stand at the edge of so many endings –

The loss of a friend, the fading of the education we both loved -

And find myself grateful.

Because before either began to disappear

You reached me.

I can still hear your voice.

If you can’t teach, you can’t stay.

I stayed.

Which if I’m being honest,

Was probably your fault, Hugh Parker.