Will Inman (born William Archibald McGirt, Jr.) (May 4, 1923 – October 3, 2009), was born in

Wilmington, North Carolina Wilmington is a port city in and the county seat of New Hanover County in coastal southeastern North Carolina, United States. With a population of 115,451 at the 2020 census, it is the eighth most populous city in the state. Wilmington is the ...

, and graduated from

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

in 1943. He took his mother's maiden name, Inman, in part because his name became "Will In Man". He worked in a shipyard during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, and became an activist in 1947 after summers of work in the

Blue Ridge Mountains The Blue Ridge Mountains are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains range. The mountain range is located in the Eastern United States, and extends 550 miles southwest from southern Pennsylvania through Maryland, West Virgin ...

where Inman attempted, unsuccessfully, to organize tobacco industry workers. Like many in the American left, he joined the

Communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

party, but became disillusioned with its lack of humanity and left the organization. He was called before the

House Un-American Activities Committee The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloy ...

in 1956 where he was accused of being the head of the Communist Party in North Carolina. Inman pleaded the fifth in response to all questions. Attempting to begin life anew, he moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, working in libraries while focusing on writing in his free time. From 1964 to 1977 he edited and published the seminal poetry newsletter ''Kauri'', part of the Mimeo Revolution of the Sixties, where he published the work of

Charles Bukowski Henry Charles Bukowski ( ; born Heinrich Karl Bukowski, ; August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994) was a German-American poet, novelist, and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural, and economic ambience of his adopted ...

Clarence Major Clarence Major (born December 31, 1936) is an American poet, painter, and novelist; winner of the 2015 "Lifetime Achievement Award in the Fine Arts", presented by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. He was awarded the 2016 PEN Oakland/Reg ...

Walter Lowenfels Walter Lowenfels (May 10, 1897 – July 7, 1976) was an American poet, journalist, and member of the Communist Party USA. He also edited the Pennsylvania Edition of ''The Worker'', a weekend edition of the Communist-sponsored ''Daily Worker' ...

, William Packard,

Ron Silliman Ron Silliman (born August 5, 1946) is an American poet. He has written and edited over 30 books, and has had his poetry and criticism translated into 12 languages. He is often associated with language poetry. Between 1979 and 2004, Silliman wr ...

, John Sinclair. The title, Kauri, is the Hindi word for the seashell known to English speaking peoples as a cowrie shell. In 1967 he was appointed Poet-in-Residence at

American University The American University (AU or American) is a private federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Its main campus spans 90 acres (36 ha) on Ward Circle, mostly in the Spring Valley neighborhood of Northwest D.C. AU was charte ...

, teaching there and at

Montgomery College Montgomery College (MC) is a Public college, public community college in Montgomery County, Maryland. Founded officially in 1946 as Montgomery Junior College, its name comes from the county in which it is located. The earliest start date that c ...

in Rockville, Maryland. He has also been an activist for many humanist causes including

anti-war An anti-war movement (also ''antiwar'') is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term anti-war can also refer to pa ...

and gay rights efforts. Inman moved to Tucson, Arizona in 1973. His anthology ''Fired Up with You: Poems of a Niagara Vision'' was one of the earliest anthologies to include the poetry of Jimmy Santiago Baca as well as the pioneering feminist writer Barbara Mor. He completed a memoir in 1998 but Red Crane Books decided not to publish it. A copy of his memoir has been donated to the Rubenstein Rare Book Library at Duke University. Inman died in 2009 after suffering from

Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms becom ...

. His letters, manuscripts, and publications are collected at

and at the

University of North Carolina Wilmington The University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW or UNC Wilmington) is a public research university in Wilmington, North Carolina. It is part of the University of North Carolina System and enrolls 17,499 undergraduate and graduate students eac ...

Selected bibliography

* ''Surfings: Selected Poems'' (Howling Dog Press, 2005) Jimmy Santiago Baca * ''Leaps of Hope and Fury'' (ed. David Ray, Pudding Press, 2008) * ''I READ YOU GREEN, MOTHER'' (Howling Dog Press, 2008) * ''Surfing the Dark Sound'' (Pudding House Publications, 1998) * ''108 Verges Until Now'' (Carlton Press, 1964) * Fired Up with You: Poems of a Niagara Vision (Border Publishing Co, 1977)

References

1923 births 2009 deaths American male poets Trade unionists from North Carolina Duke University alumni Neurological disease deaths in Arizona Deaths from Parkinson's disease 20th-century American poets 20th-century American male writers Members of the Communist Party USA Writers from Wilmington, North Carolina {{US-poet-1920s-stub