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John Mitchell and John Engman: Teachers and poets

By Lynn Mena

Augsburg English Professor John Mitchell doesn't remember the first time he meets many people, but he clearly remembers the day he met Minneapolis poet and alum John Engman '71.

They met at Augsburg in the autumn of 1968; Mitchell was beginning his first year of teaching at the College, and Engman was an undergrad. "Somehow we became friends," says Mitchell. "We shared a mutual interest in poetry, and in some crazy way we shared the same view of the world. He had a presence that I noticed, and now of course, I notice his absence."

Engman died in his Minneapolis apartment in December 1996, from complications related to a congenital cerebral aneurysm. "He was 47," says Mitchell, who is executor of Engman's literary estate. "It was very shocking, as most deaths are -- but his especially."

Devastated by the unexpected loss of his close friend, Mitchell felt obligated to find a publisher for a manuscript Engman had left behind. Eventually, the manuscript became Temporary Help, a collection of poetry published last year by Holy Cow! Press in Duluth, Minn., and nominated for a 1998 Minnesota Book Award.

"The manuscript was considerably intact, so that made the job easy," says Mitchell. "What was painful was typing up the manuscript and feeling all the poems in sequence. One of the weird things about John's poetry is the way he predicted his own fate. His powers of intuition and the nature of his metaphors gave him a knowledge that would not have been accessible to a reasonable, logical person."

In addition, Mitchell left on sabbatical for the 1998-99 academic year to begin gathering a manuscript of Engman's collected works as well as to concentrate on his own writing.

"I have been the most productive of my life," says Mitchell. "I want to be a better poet because of my friendship with John Engman. Once upon a time I was his teacher, but he became MY teacher. He was a temporary angel with cardboard wings and Earth shoes, humorously ministering to the hysterical, the lackluster and the forlorn."

(Mitchell seeks stories, information or memories about John Engman from Augsburg alumni. Send e-mail or mail to: John Mitchell, Augsburg College, CB 48, 2211 Riverside Ave., Minneapolis, MN, 55454.)

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