[Wendy Sloan]

There's an obituary for Ray Pospisil in today's (Sunday February 3rd) New York Times. I'm sure some of you won't want to miss it.

[Quincy Lehr]

Wendy--

I couldn't find it on the web site. Is there any change a New Yorker could post it?

I did, while Googling, find a bio from an old reading where Ray was a feature:

Ray Pospisil is a strong advocate of poetry as a verbal, performing (and listening) art, and he appears in various clubs around the city. Ray usually writes in formal meter, sometimes with rhyme, but in a colloquial voice. He rejects the notion that formal poetry can only articulate conservative social views, or focus on flowers and Greek gods.

Ray hosts the monthly Modern Metrics reading, and his work has been published by The Lyric, Iambs & Trochees, The Newport Review, Rogue Scholars and others. His chapbook, Some Time Before the Bell, is available from Modern Metrics Press.

Ray lives in Brooklyn and works as a freelance journalist, covering environmental and energy issues for publications in the US and the UK.

'He rejects the notion that formal poetry can only articulate conservative social views, or focus on flowers and Greek gods.' Amen, brother.

Quincy

[This message has been edited by Quincy Lehr (edited February 04, 2008).]

[Wendy Sloan]

OK, -- here it is:

NY Times Sunday February 3, 2008:

Pospisil- Ray, colleague of journalists and poets, is remembered dearly by them after his death last week at home in Brooklyn. Pospisil, 54, was born in Bogota, Columbia and early in his life moved with his parents to Union, New Jersey. He spent most of his life in New York City. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Rutgers University in 1975, Pospisil began his career in energy and environmental journalism in 1981 working for Fourchild Publications. In 1984 he joined McGraw-Hill and later became a free lance journalist, working for two years in the early 1990's in San Francisco before returning to New York. Until his death, he worked chiefly for McGraw-Hill's stable of energy publications, although throughout his career he worked for other publishers in the United States and the United Kingdom. It was poetry, though, that was his passion. Pospisil's poems, which he often read for audiences in the East Village and elsewhere in Manhattan, were intensely personal, filled with vivid imagery and ranging from the humorous to the harrowing. His work has been published by Lyric, Iambs & Trochees, The Newport Review, Rogue Scholars and others. In 2006, his chapbook of poems, Some Time Before the Bell, was published by Modern Metrics Press. A collection of his work is scheduled to be published in Ireland by Seven Towers Publishing in 2009. In recent years, Pospisil enjoyed tutoring immigrants in how to read and write English at the Brooklyn Public Library. He is survived by a brother Carl, sister-in-law Mary, niece Brook and nephew Bryan, all of Daytona Beach, Florida. Other survivors include cousins Scott Fisher, of Hollywood, Florida, Joe and Irene Pospisil of New Jersey, and Sue Arave, of Columbia, South Carolina. The date for a memorial service has not been set.

[Terese Coe]

It's also at
http://www.legacy.com/NYTimes/DeathN...=SearchResults

You may have to put "Pospisil" in the search box (not sure). There is a Guestbook to view or sign.

[Janet Kenny]

I feel so sad that I missed a chance to have a friend. In an earlier life I devoted a considerable amount of time to the topic of energy . I would have found him a deeply sympathetic character.
How sad to learn all this after he has gone from us.
Thank you Wendy for posting this.
Janet

[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited February 04, 2008).]