Brenda Hillman
(born 1951)

When I was accepted to Squaw Valley Poetry Workshop (July 1989) with Galway Kinnell, Robert Hass, Sharon Olds, and Brenda Hillman, Mary Jane Moffat, a writing instructor at Foothill College, told me "Brenda is not as well known as the other poets instructor at Squaw Valley. Read her White Dress— she's good. Get to know her better, learn from her writing. It was true. In Brenda's Craft Lecture, she cited three beliefs upon waking up— "that picking up a lost pen will help your writing, that stuffed animals have feelings, that there is no free will." I was encouraged to bring in poems on my philosophical beliefs. She talked about gnosticism and the Nag Hammadi Library, about Beethoven's Last Quartets healing her when her poetry mentor died suddenly. She noticed that I was nodding during her talk, and told me later "Peter— you seem to know what I was talking about." Brenda helped me improve my poetic craft for two summers at Squaw Valley (1989-1990). "Ellipsis" is the last poem of Brenda Hillman's White Dress, with a reference to Whistler's painting of The White Girl. I love the final stanza— the snow scene with "That flock of birds turning like a huge page / White, nothing, white, nothing, white." This is surely a Zen moment, purifying our mind like snow, uplifting our spirit like those birds in flight into the white of nothingness. So sublime and beautiful. (Peter Y. Chou)