UNC Student Organization for Undergraduate Literature

As I think of our loss--our school's loss--

Well, what could I say? Words are hardly enough, and they really might be too much. Art--literature--might need to be quiet in the face of Disaster, might not be capable of anything. I don't know. What I think we can do together, at least, as a school, and as a smaller community within a school, is grieve.

How often, when these things happen, we say: "It's terrible, and so strange to think 'it could have been anyone. It could have been me.'" Let's look away from ourselves tonight. It wasn't anyone--it was one of the best.

Perfection Wasted

By John Updike

And another regrettable thing about death
is the ceasing of your own brand of magic,
which took a whole life to develop and market --
the quips, the witticisms, the slant
adjusted to a few, those loved ones nearest
the lip of the stage, their soft faces blanched
in the footlight glow, their laughter close to tears,
their tears confused with their diamond earrings,
their warm pooled breath in and out with your heartbeat,
their response and your performance twinned.
The jokes over the phone. The memories
packed in the rapid-access file. The whole act.
Who will do it again? That's it: no one;
imitators and descendants aren't the same.