In Jonathan’s Office
for Jonathan Holden
On Jonathan’s office wall, a chalkboard
with a big egg drawn. He motioned,
and I sat down among the stacks
of books and papers. One fan gust
and the room would lift up
like a pigeon flock. Jonathan
asked me if I spoke German,
and I said I had been to Erfurt
and Leipzig. I knew a phrase or two.
He spoke to me in quick sentences,
paragraphs of the language. At first,
I struggled to keep up, but later
I surrendered to the waves of German
coming in shutters through his bearded
lips. It was poetry to me, whatever it was he said,
and I knew then I was in an office of genius.
Jonathan motioned to the trashcan, and his hands
brought a poem to its green lip, as if saying,
“This is what you must sometimes do.”
— 30 September 2025, Newton, Kansas
I wrote this poem about two years after my time as a mentee of Jonathan’s, but I worked to get back into that headspace to capture the wonder (and details) of that time.
As a note on my background, I studied at Kansas State University 1996-98, but stayed in town an extra year and worked as a reporter for The Junction City Daily Union and tutored the K-State football receiving team in English composition. Although I never formally studied with Jonathan in the classroom, he was an influential mentor to me, and I spent time with him. Jonathan (and in turn Elizabeth Dodd) turned me to poetry, and I never turned away. I met Jonathan after winning a local poetry contest. Jonathan was the judge.
Jonathan Holden encouraged me and brought me into the fold of poetry. Enigmatic, often quiet, slow moving, but quick in wit and thought, Jonathan focused me on the page—then on how the words pepper or sweeten the air. To me, poetry seemed almost a religion to him.
Years later, after much study and focus, I served as Poet Laureate of Kansas (2017-2019), following in Jonathan’s footsteps. He was Kansas’s first poet laureate. For many of us, he was the model. And still is.
— Kevin Rabas (MA ’98)
K-State English 