I've been a fan since I stumbled on a book called Monolithos at a used book store in Denton, TX in the '90's. He was a Yale Younger Poet in '62, I believe, probably chosen by James Dickey, and Monolithos, which didn't come until 20 years later, collected some of the poems from Views of Jeopardy, his debut, along with new poems.
In his latest book, The Dance Most of All, there's a wonderful poem called The Spell Cast Over, which describes old men in "the Pittsburgh of my days" watching dancers in the old burlesque houses:
"The waning men longed to escape from the spell
cast over them by time. To escape the imprisoned
longing. To insist on dispensation. To see
their young hearts just one more time."
He's been writing in his unique inimitable style (though you can hear a very strong influence, I think, in the poems of Linda Gregg) for over four decades, and he hasn't lost it, even in his eighties.
Except for the hard to find and expensive Views of Jeopardy, I've got all his books. An original, and one of my favorites.
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