Remembering John Domini 1951-2025

A professor who had an impact on my life

Recently I had the privilege of attending the service for a man who had a pretty sizable impact on my life as a young person. John Domini, the prolific author, educator, and all-around good dude passed away at the end of last month. He was an accomplished author and literary critic with several books written, articles drafted, and a clear love of life and what all it could offer to us.

John Domini

There are other obituaries out there that you can read about this man that probably capture his life in its entirety in a way that I can’t do here. But I wanted to write about what this man meant to me in the small slice of my life he was in and how this strangely recurring character stood as a force for good in not only my life but in the world.

I met John when I first attended classes at DMACC (Des Moines Area Community College) after coming back from my yearlong deployment in Iraq. I’m pretty sure he was in the first semester I had ever taken there. I had recently moved to central Iowa and was looking to get something going for the future since I didn’t really have much in the way of education before this. It was Comp I, a class where I was supposed to show I could learn how to write something coherent. I’ll leave it to you to judge how good a job he did in that class, but I like to think it went pretty well.

When he came into class it was all business. Not in the “everyone has to shut their books (this was pre smart phones) and lock it in 100% or face massive penalty” but “hey just pay attention when he’s here”. You’re here for a reason, he’s sharing his time with you, let’s get this under way. It was less that he was a stickler for strict order and more he wanted to share what he had prepared for the day, so lets show some mutual respect.

He often spoke about his time at Harvard. He made it a point halfway through the course to ask if anyone had thought they would ever go to a school like Harvard. When one of the students in our small 5 person class said “you know that would be pretty great actually” he scoffed. Not because he didn’t think she could do it but because she wanted to. He exclaimed that he had loved his time at Harvard and wouldn’t want to trade it in, but it was woefully overpriced and exclusionary, and the students he dealt with there weren’t any better or worse than what he saw in his career afterward.

I distinctly remember John standing at the front of the class saying after the exchange above, “you could get into Harvard, and you could get into Harvard.”, gesturing at each student in turn. “The writing you’ve submitted here is good enough to get in at least. The difference is you just don’t have the money or the connections. But are you ‘smart’ enough to get into Harvard?”. The air quotes around “smart” were spoken as he rolled his eyes at the term with a smirk.

“Absolutely”, he answered himself.

Now, John could have been, and likely was, attempting to build confidence into his students much in the same way a coach who is trying to rally his players at the half time of a losing game, late in a busted season would. But some part of me think she really did believe that. If not about that specific batch of students at that specific time, but throughout his life as an educator. He took his writing very seriously from what I could tell, but also took being honest and open about what it took to write successfully as well. The rest of the course and my future interactions confirmed to me that when he said that, he meant it more about how little he thought of Harvard and ‘traditional and correct ways’ of doing things than how much he thought of us. What matters is how much of yourself you put into something, not what prestigious title you have to justify it. “Go do the thing” is what his daughter, Vera, said at his remembrance and yeah, I think I picked that up from John.

It has really stuck with me. Someone could be so talented and prolific and knowledgeable and still care about building folks up around him instead of relying on pedigree to shut them down.

Another thing that John did was introduce me to Bob Dylan. No, I hadn’t heard any Bob Dylan or at least not knowingly. I really didn’t know what to expect at the time. While I haven’t found as much love for Dylan as John did, he absolutely taught me the importance of looking behind the cultural face of someone and seeing what they really stood for. Rather than using them as a token or shibboleth but digging down and learning what they stood for. You’ll always come out the other side better for it and more enriched. You won’t run the risk of misquoting or misinterpreting a meaning, a person, or a movement, and you’ll be better positioned to build upon those ideas you’ve uncovered.

John was instrumental in my learning path that way.

The last few times I saw him were quite recently. I took those classes in 2006, more than a decade ago, back when my name was something else, in a different town, in a different time.

One of John’s books.

Fast forward to 2023. I had just announced my candidacy for city council. This was early in the process of getting things together for the campaign, so things were pretty low key at the time. I walk into a clothing shop in Des Moines, Iowa with my whole family with the intention of getting a new suit. This was a big deal! I was going to have a suit that actually fit me with it tailored and everything, something I hadn’t ever had done before outside of a rental in high school!

Guess who is there at the desk chatting up the clerk.

It was John who hesitated at first, but then recognized me, if not by name, then by sight. I reached out and shook his hand, he shook mine and I reminded him where I knew him from. His eyes immediately lit up as he remembered I was a student of his. After a quick glance to my family and then a look back at me there was a certain recognition that I had, as far as he was concerned, “made it”. I had a beautiful wife, two beautiful children, and had good taste enough to come into a shop like that to get the “good stuff”.

I told him who I was running against and that was all he needed to know, he wished me well in my election and was happy to run into an old student of his. It was nice to see him and know that he was around, still chatting folks up when he wasn’t writing for the register. He made sure to note that he was still writing and had an upcoming article that I should absolutely check out!

The last time I met John was, again, by accident. I had just finished up a panel at Demicon regarding the relationship between religion and science fiction. After the panel, I was in the lobby getting ready to take off when up comes John talking to his unbeknownst-to-me at the time partner Lettie Prell. He was exhorting her that they were going to be late to dinner with some friends so it was ever-so-nice to see everyone but they gotta go!

Can’t keep good food and company waiting. He was, once again, correct.

John had a definite impact on me and my learning as an adult. He was one of the first professors I ever had that took a serious interest in teaching and I took a serious interest in understanding. I dare say I may not be the inquisitive person I am today and probably wouldn’t be writing the things that I do without John Domini. He taught me that learning is more than a grade or adherence to a rubric, its something you take ownership of yourself. That may seem obvious to many, but I can tell you it absolutely was not obvious to me at the age I was, and I suspect, not obvious to others when they are taking their first course after years of….lets say not using that intellectual muscle very much

The last thing I want to say is: I knew I was right to take you seriously when I heard the words your daughter said of you at the remembrance this past week. If my children say half the things she said of you; the care you took of her and your grandchild, how much you prioritized the well-being of others, the endless thirst for knowledge and adventure, I would consider my life very well lived.

John will be missed and we are all lesser for his absence, but I do know that I am greater for his presence in my life. Thanks for everything John.

We should all go “do the thing” as he would say, even if its scary or uncertain. That is what he’d tell us to do.