Our Hearts Go Out to All at Virginia Tech

We responded with deep sadness to the news out of Blacksburg on Monday—and with growing despair as the details have continued to emerge.

John T. Casteen IV, a member of our poetry board and a past contributor to VQR on the subject of gun control, has a piece on Slate that deserves everyone’s careful attention. We understand that John has been invited to appear tomorrow (April 19) on NPR’s “Here and Now.”

I rode down to Blacksburg yesterday with Waldo Jaquith, our web developer, who also happens to be a Virginia Tech alum. Waldo took some amazing photographs and shares his thoughts on his blog. Like Waldo, the moment I can’t seem to shake came as a small group of us sat around a television in Squires Student Center. While George W. Bush spoke, a half dozen students sat in their Hokies t-shirts, unspooling black ribbon, snipping it into even lengths, and twisting it into mourning lapel pins. Then others joined in, slowly filling a plain cardboard box. It was such a small gesture, but everybody wanted to be able to do something.