Remembering Paul Violi

Paul Violi 1944 - 2011

Dear Friends of Paul Violi,

Because of the outpouring of sympathy and thoughts about Paul Violi on the Best American Poetry blog, and on Facebook, twitter, and elsewhere, we've created this blog so you can post your thoughts and memories of Paul.  If you have an anecdote to share, a photo, or a poem, please send it to me at [email protected].  Thank you.

-- sdh

Alex Crowley Wins First Annual Paul Violi Poetry Prize

The New School Writing Program is happy to announce that Alex Crowley has won the first Paul Violi Prize. Congratulations, Alex. Honorable mention goes to Lizzy McDaniel and Allison Power. The judging was done blind, with authors' names withheld, by esteemed persons without a New School affiliation. The quality of the work submitted was very high.

The winner will receive a check for $500. We have raised sufficient funds to sustain the Violi prize on these terms for a number of years.

In the next few weeks we plan to run an interview with Alex Crowley and a poem from his winning manuscript.

In addition to being the first in what we hope will be an annual event, this year's prize is unique because many of the contestants worked with Paul Violi, were inspired by him, and mourn his loss profoundly.

The New School Writing Program will be hosting a memorial reading in honor of Paul on Friday, December 2nd, at 6:30 PM. Watch this space for more details.

A raccoon invaded his kitchen . . . by Jo Pitkin

My condolences to Paul Violi’s family, friends, colleagues, students, and neighbors.

In 2006, I contacted Paul to see if he would be interested in reading at my local library. This might not seem like a big deal. But it was. I live in Putnam County, the same one in which Paul lived. At the time, this entire county had one struggling independent bookstore (which has since shut its doors), no open mikes, no regular reading series, and very few, if any, literary readings by nationally recognized writers. Indeed, Poets & Writers dubbed our teeny county “one of the most underserved in New York” in terms of literary programming.

Given the circumstances, it took a lot to have Paul read in Cold Spring. First of all, I didn’t know him personally. I had no idea how he would react to my invitation. After looking up his number in the local phone book, I called him out of the blue. My invitation must have seemed like a prank—I could hear the hesitation in Paul’s voice when I invited him to read. I’m sure he was thinking, “Who is this woman? A reading in Putnam County?” I quickly explained that I had been successfully organizing literary events at Cold Spring’s library since 2002 and rattled off names of some previous readers, including Michael Burkard and Malena Mörling. By the end of our conversation, Paul had graciously accepted my invitation.

Second, I had to get approval to use Cold Spring’s library—one of our few community spaces—as a venue. The director and staff were totally on board and later did a great job of promoting the event with flyers, articles, a book display, and so on.

Finally, I had to secure substantial funding. When I initially talked to Paul, he had rather firmly quoted me his usual reading fee. “I can do that,” I told him. So I did. In the fall of 2006, the library director and I successfully applied for funding from the Putnam County Arts Council, which was all too happy to say yes to a rare application for a literary event.

My idea was to pair Paul, a “local” poet, with someone from outside the community. So I also invited Frannie Lindsay, whom I had met in the late 1970s, to read. (If you know their work, you can imagine that it was an unusual but interesting pairing.) For me, their reading was an intimate experience. Frannie, traveling from another state, stayed with me in my office/guest cottage. Since I wanted to have a chance to meet Paul prior to the reading, I asked him to meet us in Cold Spring for dinner. On the evening of the reading, Paul and his wife Ann drove the short distance from their home to a restaurant, Cathryn's Tuscan Grill, on Main Street.

Over dinner, we talked amiably about things that we tentatively had in common: Boston, my studying briefly with Paul’s colleague David Lehman in the late ‘70s, other poets. But what I remember most is swapping wildlife stories with Paul. My best one involved a six-foot-long black snake that climbed up a tree onto my roof; his was about an intrusive raccoon that invaded his kitchen.

The reading itself, which took place in June 2007, went without a hitch. I was pleased that the audience was attentive and engaged, and I was impressed that some people drove a long way to hear Paul and Frannie. It was an occasion that—like the best of readings—gave the listeners a chance to experience poetry’s breadth of style, tone, and craft.

I’m so glad I made that call.

"a cross between Biggles and Lawrence of Arabia, with Steve Reeves thrown in for good measure. . . by David Pinelli

I drove to the Memorial Service for my cousin Paul and as I sat in the pew, a fleeting thought came to me that maybe this could all be a dream within a dream. That somehow I’d awaken and there would be a new and much different reality with a much happier ending.

Paul and his brother Peter were two of my heroes when I was growing up and for Paul to have passed away is still unbelievable to me, as he was not well stricken in years.

One speaker told a story about my Aunt taking Paul to our family Doctor to figure out why he wasn’t speaking as a child. All one had to know to figure out what the problem was would be to spend some time in the company of his Mother and/or my Mother, as they talked non-stop and it could be difficult to get a word in edgewise. Especially as my Aunt was in a constant state of panic and a nervous wreck due to Paul not speaking.

The Doctor of the story was Dr. Ciafone of Huntington. He was a very reserved gentleman and a very caring Doctor.

My Aunt has told the story in my presence a hundred times so I know it by heart. Dr. Ciafone was both probing and speaking to Paul during his examination, telling him to try and say something. Out of the blue, Paul blurted out “Shut up and leave me alone, you big dummy!”

I have a sneaking suspicion that he picked up those words from his older brother Peter, who is never at a loss for words.

Peter was the leader of the group of neighborhood boys. When he and Paul were together, they were like “Spin and Marty”, only they could morph into a SWAT team at a moment’s notice. Paul was fearless and as a young boy I thought he was like a cross between Biggles and Lawrence of Arabia, with Steve Reeves thrown in for good measure.

One of Paul’s friends told me years ago that when an argument might just about to get out of hand and Peter was in the middle of it – a common occurrence - they kept their eyes on Paul. They knew if Paul were to jump into the fray to support his brother, it would be like Sherman’s march to the sea, with only slightly less devastation.

Paul was the one person I would seek out if I had a question about language, literature or most any other topic. When I was a kid and the only books that I was interested in reading were about history, adventure and war stories, Paul introduced me to “A Coney Island of the Mind” and to a whole different world.

The day I first met Thalia (the woman I would eventually marry) I knew right away that she was named after one of the seven Greek muses and I still remembered most of their names. I also knew that Tuesday Weld’s character was named Thalia in “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis”, but that kind of knowledge wouldn’t get me to first base on a first date unless we were playing Trivial Pursuit, especially since that series ended 10 years before she was born.

As I was going to see her again later that evening, I quickly telephoned Paul from my car on my way home (this being the pre-internet day and age) and asked what he knew about the muses so that I might use it as a topic of conversation. In several minutes he drilled down into about eight layers of Greek mythology and I quickly realized that this was not a worthy topic for me to bring up over dinner!

Paul was knowledgeable in so many different areas and though there were times when I thought I was pretty good and that I had “cracked it” in a worthy subject, when I spoke with him I knew that I was never, never, ever going to get to his level.

On one of my many visits to the U.K., I had my London friends take me to Dr. Samuel Johnson’s house, but I later found out that Paul had been there before me. I’d try and stump him about the Peloponnesian war, but that didn’t work. How about Sir Joshua Reynolds, Gaston de Foix or Marcus Agrippa? H.L. Mencken or P.G. Wodehouse or Sir Walter Scott? No dice, but it was fun trying!

I did stump him when I steered the conversation into Laurel and Hardy trivia, but I wouldn’t go so far to call it a Pyrrhic victory!

I never hesitated to continually seek his opinion, as he always listened and was never pompous or pretentious.

Paul was a real “man’s man”, tough as nails, and a very fine, clear spirit. I doubt there will be anyone like him again.

The Grammarians Toast Paul Violi: Friday, May 6th, 5:30 p.m. - Dixon Place, NYC

Directions at www.dixonplace.org

The event is free and open to the public. For those who would like to volunteer as readers, please email Marty Correia at [email protected] by April 30th to be included in the program.

"We could talk in terms of song and music . . ." by Michael Schiavo

I knew Paul before I met him, and I don’t mean through his poems. When I decided to move back to Connecticut from Florida in 2001, I found a job at the now-shuttered Borders Books & Music in Simsbury. There I worked with Susan Coes, a woman who’d been involved in politics and PR her whole career, now retired, working with books.

Susan appreciated poetry but, like most people, well-read or otherwise, was afraid of it. As I’m wont to do everywhere I go, I started sharing some of my favorite poets with her, one of whom was Paul. Whom she happened to be acquainted with from her days as Susie Dowling, driving in from Stamford with her friends to hang out in the City. I don’t know how frequently they hung out or how well they knew each other, but later (perhaps not that much later) when I first met Paul—most likely through David Lehman, who’d introduced me to his poetry at Bennington, and most likely at the KGB Bar—I mentioned Susan’s name to Paul and his eyes sparkled with recognition.

Paul’s eyes. That glint, that squint, the examination of the world before him, not for dissection and collection, but for delight. Even when you were saying something that he completely disagreed with, he played a gentle Devil’s advocate, always implying, “Is that really what you think? Really? C’mon, you’re better than that!” And then that half-grin, the smirk, as if he knew something you didn’t, which he did.

I had the pleasure of hosting Paul at the Vermont Studio Center in 2007. Paul graciously filled in when another poet—John Haines, who also passed away this year—couldn’t attend as a Visiting Writer. I can’t remember the exact month, but I know it was at least a little warm. Why? Because when Paul and Ann arrived from Putnam Valley and got out of their car, there was a dead bird—a finch, I believe, possibly a chickadee—jammed into the roof rack, the victim of a wrong swerve. Paul and I agreed that it was an omen. And we both agreed that it was neither good nor bad.

Paul helped me with my first book, The Mad Song, while visiting Johnson. I could talk to Paul about poets like Shelley and Coleridge without receiving either a blank stare (most younger poets) or an academic discourse (some older poets). We could talk in terms of song and music, we could talk in terms of human.

At VSC, Paul gave one of the best talks on a poem I’ve ever had the pleasure to hear, in any setting. It was on Ezra Pound’s “Cino,” a poem I’m sure he’s discussed countless times with students at the New School and elsewhere. It’s one of Pound’s early poems, in the voice of Cino da Pistoia, a troubadour and friend of Dante’s. Pound took “Cino” as an early pseudonym. The poem begins:

Bah! I have sung women in three cities
But it is all the same;
And I will sing of the sun.

Paul taught me many things, through his poems and through his person. I remember one lesson especially, in which Paul’s Devil was not so gentle. At the end of my stint as Writing Coordinator at VSC, I was trying to find a job, the next place to go, and not having any luck. Paul had been kind enough to act as a reference on a few of these applications. After I failed to secure a position at some other important arts organization, I wrote to Paul, lamenting my lot, throwing ashes on my head in self-pity. He responded:

You’re feeling “utterly defeated” because a couple of jobs didn’t come through? Look, I don’t mean to sound like a know-it-all, but you have to slough it off and keep sending out applications, and in the meanwhile take any job that provides an income; even something you hate doing, if only temporarily. Adversity—in the short run—can be stimulating, in terms of writing; the very aversion you have can stir things up, sharpen your focus, and—who knows how?—allow for ideas and feelings and experiences you never expected. Anyway, you’ve got to take care of business, scramble for money to maintain some kind of freedom and independence, right? You can’t avoid disappointment, no one can, but you can control how it affects you. I usually wallow in self-pity, then get angry, then make something happen or something else just comes along, perhaps a greater disappointment! Perhaps good news, that makes one quickly forget the previous one.

I’d disagree on one point: He did want to sound like a know-it-all. And he could because he was. Because he’d be the first to admit that he didn’t know nearly all of it and that it wasn’t that you have to have all the answers, but that you keep asking the question.

It’s taken me so long to write about Paul because, like so many of his friends and relatives, former students, passing acquaintances, people who only met him once, I can’t believe he’s gone. Even while writing this, I’ve had to stop for long stretches because I can’t stop weeping. Weeping. Salt flats pour out of my eyes. The sun has broken on a beautiful spring morning—there was a hell of a squall last night—and the birds are chirping and Main Street is alive, even this early.

“It’s always alive,” I hear Paul saying. That’s why, even though I weep, I’m not sad. How can I be, knowing him, and having known him? Paul was open to everything. Not that he didn’t have opinions, or likes and dislikes, but, as a poet and a person, exclusivity was anathema, to shut yourself off from considering this or that was stupid. Everything is there and everything has value. A note on an Acura Integra, a catalog of rare books,a ransom note in the form of haiku. Paul was a transcendentalist. He was what Emerson wrote of in “New England Reformers”:

It is so wonderful to our neurologists that a man can see without his eyes, that it does not occur to them, that it is just as wonderful, that he should see with them; and that is ever the difference between the wise and the unwise: the latter wonders at what is unusual, the wise man wonders at the usual.

Paul wondered at the usual. Like Michael Gizzi, whom we also recently lost, he was a real Italian kid, from the streets of Brooklyn, and the shores of Long Island and the Hudson Valley. Paul’s work may be over in one sense, but it is truly just beginning. I know that whenever I look at the world, I’ll see Paul. And I know—now more than ever—that Paul will be there, just like always.

“Anti-Elegy”

“And I will sing of the sun.”

autumn
hangs

spring
falling

rain
damn

how
“now”

&
here

th’ band
veers

imagining
tragedy

a comedy
’snot

you
gave me

me
brave

death
no

so
still

&
all

O
my

Cino—
Paul

4/4/11

 

(Ed note:  This appears on The Unruly Servant)

Veni, Vidi, Violi by Alistair Peebles

 

Veni, Vidi, Violi
i.m. Paul Violi, 1944-2011
 
A sunlit April Monday morning. 
Beautiful. I’m driving around Kirkwall, 
Looking for a newsagent. Too early, 
It seems, wrong day. But still, I’m getting 
A nice, if needling, “grass is greener” 
Feeling – as in, what could make more sense
Than to share the life of these substantial 
Citizens, dressed smartly, on their walk to work?
The pavements oblige them, seem to rise and meet 
Their steps, and spur them on, knowing their way. 
What could be better? How long have I missed out 
On town life, stuck in the stix with nothing 
But cliffs and standing stones and cattle?
 
Driving out of town, the radio is Libya, 
Migrant workers, cluster bombs... and now, 
I feel a poem coming on. Because I’m thinking, 
Paul, of you, your obit in the NYT, and those 
Lines of yours it quoted, on the aftermath 
Nearly ten years old now: translation 
Of a barroom joke, chalked up, “Veni, Vidi, 
Velcro” – I came, I saw, I stuck around.
 
You’re one less on the road today, 
From Putnam Valley into NYU, 
In your big automobile (as it seemed to me)
Your cigarette and your smile.
But I hope you’re remembering Orkney
On a day like this, as I think of your poems, 
And of you, down by the lake, at martinis 
In Grange Hall, or shouldering the rain
On one of your huffy “Bloomberg Breaks”.
 
Or now, over there, on the “other side”,
Where the grass must look so green
When you get close enough to see it.
And how you’re still sticking around
Where it matters, smiling at the rational 
Way to respond to a feeling that you’d 
Ever really rather be elsewhere.
 
 
Alistair Peebles
April 2011

Saturday, April 30: A Half-Hour for Paul Violi - Pier Arts Center, Orkney

from Alistair Peebles, [email protected], also on behalf of Todd McEwen

Paul Violi, who passed away in New York on April 2nd, was a wonderful poet and teacher, and a man of great integrity and warmth. We extend our sympathy at this time to his family and all who knew him as a friend or colleague. It is a sad loss, which will be felt in many parts of the world – and that includes Orkney, for a number will remember his reading here, at the Pier Arts Centre, in August 1999. To commemorate that occasion, and to mark his passing, an event has been arranged to take place at the Pier on Saturday. 

The Orkney connection with Paul was originally made via Todd McEwen, writer in residence here in late 1997. I’d been responsible for organising that residency, on behalf of Orkney Arts Society, and when Todd wrote to say that with his wife Ann, Paul would be making a visit to the county, a reading was quickly arranged, again with the Arts Society’s support. In December that year, OAR 13 featured his poem, Light Rain Falling on Deep Snow, which was later included in Overnight, published by Hanging Loose Press, Brooklyn (2007). 

Todd McEwen is back in Orkney for a few months at present, and when the sad news arrived, he suggested an event be held in memory of him.

Thus A Half-hour for Paul Violi will take place at 1pm in the Robertson Room of the Pier Arts Centre, Stromness ,on Saturday 30th April. All are welcome. The programme will mainly comprise a reading by Todd and myself of a selection of Paul’s work. You may be interested to know that among the poems will be Heap, his so-far unpublished list of all the jobs – apart from writing and teaching – that he’d had over his lifetime. He assembled this last year as a contribution to a forthcoming Brae Editions folio, itself entitled Heaps: of which more anon.

Paul’s work is immediately pleasurable and very rewarding – as funny as it is full of learning: generous and wise. The reading he gave here was one of the most memorable I’ve attended. Another was when I heard him in New York. His poetry might have been better known, but it won many awards, and it really should endure. And it got around, as did he: I remember the day in 2007 that two Brooklynites came into Porteous Brae Gallery – separately and unknown to one another – both of whom turned out to have known Paul in New York and worked with him.

“Unswervingly original, he’s also one of the most entertaining poets I know... a rich, rambunctious poetry.” 

We look forward to seeing you there, if you can make it. For further information on Paul and his work, you should visit http://paulvioli.com. Review of Overnight at http://jacketmagazine.com/33/quattrone-violi.shtml.

Todd and I are grateful for the generous assistance of the Pier Arts Centre in helping to make this event possible. 

There will be an opportunity to make a donation to MacMillan Cancer Support.

Two Anecdotes about Paul Violi

The first of these anecdotes comes courtesy of Paul Auster. "Paul Violi told me the funniest story I've ever heard about somebody's childhood," Auster told me.
Apparently Paul [Violi] didn't speak until he was three, going on four years old.
No one had ever heard him say a word.
Finally his mother got worried enough to take him to the doctor.
"He hasn't learned to talk," she said.
The doctor chided her. This is very serious. The boy could be in real trouble. Shame on you for waiting so long before taking him to me.
At which moment Paul uttered his very first words: "What are you, some kind of a jerk?”

Paul and I used to teach our poetry writing classes on the same night, Tuesday night, with our classes ending at the same time, 10:30 PM. Afterward we would meet at the Cafe Loup on West 13th Street, where a lot of our students, former students, friends and colleagues would also congregate. We used to drink. . .seltzer. A lot of . . .seltzer. And then he drove back to Putnam County. I didn’t even realize until yesterday, when we drove up the Taconic to Peekskill Hollow Road, where we attended a memorial service for Paul, that this was a fifty-mile journey. I just had to walk a few blocks to get home. Paul had to take the Henry Hudson to the Saw Mill River to the Taconic in the dark. Well, at least there as no traffic.

I remember once chatting with a friend at the bar, Matthew Yeager, who suddenly bade me turn around. Here is how Matthew recollected the incident in an e-mail:
<<<
I have been thinking about Paul a lot. In my final image of him, he is at the center of a throng of worshipful students at Cafe Loup, all of whom happened to be female.  Do you remember that night?  We were talking to each other, on stools.  Ten feet away, Paul Violi looked like a painting of Plato in his prime, if Plato had taught women.   He was glowing like a champion woman's basketball coach (whose team of also happened to be inexplicably good looking).... It is sad that he is gone.
>>>

-- DL

"the last thing he said to me - just one word - was "Macaulay"" by William Barnett

I wasn't aware until last week just how profoundly Paul Violi affected me. While many people knew him for years, in contrast I spent very little time with him, one of about twenty students in a course at NYU called "Writing Workshop II" in 2009.

I remember his wry humor and deep knowledge of language, how he derided the term 'workshop' in our first class ("Workshop? Hm. I guess that's what they're calling it these days…"). I also remember our first assignment, that same day: an analysis of John Keats' "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer". I had never read Keats. I was saddened after I had, not because of the poem's language, but because I also learned its author died so young. It made me reflect on the inevitability of death and what we leave behind when we are gone. Now someone I knew, a poet, a teacher, a mentor, dear to many, has died too soon. 

So it is ironic that I received the sad news from my semiotics course professor, because during the next class a student gave an intensely personal presentation, a "narrative" about the passing of loved ones in her family, instead of a purely intellectual treatise on signs and symbols. It is ironic that the presentation was called "The Death of The Author," which analyzes a work called "The Labyrinth of Lost Sounds" about people, animals and objects that no longer exist and of whom all that remains are recordings of the sounds they made, because she both wrote and delivered it.

And it is ironic that the last thing he said to me - just one word - was "Macaulay" as I left his class one night. He was suggesting he found my writing similar to that of Thomas Babington Macaulay, implying I could write and encouraging me to write...and yet I still have such difficulty writing.

Finally, it is ironic that "The Death of The Author", ended up not being about what its author intended or the class perceived, and instead so aptly and painfully spoke to me of the loss of Paul Violi. He will be deeply missed.

William Faulkner, whom I studied for our second assignment, perhaps said it best when he proclaimed, "The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail."

Breakers by Michael Quattrone

BREAKERS

after Paul Violi

Watch the sea and sky move together
Like memory and imagination—
But never watch them move apart.
That rendering is too difficult to bear,
Even for the most stoic among us,
Who practice in front of mirrors
The invisible act of painlessness.
“Never,” cry the gulls of desire.
“Again,” says somebody on the beach.
Which way is it the white sail moves
On the horizon? Toward salt or sand.
Human breath condenses in the cold,
Indelible a moment before rising
On the mystery of the water and the wind.

--Michael Quattrone

"Walt Whitman meeting Bret Harte by way of Oscar Wilde." by David Pinelli

My older cousin, Paul Violi is gone and I'm still in a state of disbelief. I always looked up to Paul and he embodied what it was like to be a fine young man growing up after WWII in a rural setting, which was Greenlawn in those days. A period in time; both good and bad; which is forever gone.

I remember his love of adventure, his curiosity, love of the outdoors and his knowledge of the many American Indian tribes. He read everything about their love of the land, of nature and about their survival skills, which he put into practice in the forests and rivers on Long Island.

I remember Paul as a teenager, taking off and spending many days by himself with his canoe on the Nissequoque River, stopping to study the wildlife and flora, get in adventures and make friends along the way.

In my eyes at that time, he was like Samuel Clemens and his Life on the Mississippi, only 2,000 miles closer to New York.

Knowing Paul as I did, his writing seemed to me to be a combination of Walt Whitman meeting Bret Harte by way of Oscar Wilde. Great charm, wit and humor.

From an early age, I always sensed that Paul found what we all want and very few of us get. I don't think that anyone could fail to be a better person for having known him.

Goodness is the greatest force in the world and Paul had it in abundance.

"we cooked up the most wonderful idea . . . " by Martin Stannard

Paul Violi with kittens, chez Martin Stannard, early 1990s

(The poet Martin Stannard is working in China and unable to post to this blog, but asked me to post this for him. Do follow the link to his interview with Paul if you have time. It's well worth reading.  David Belbin):

2011 is turning out to be a lousy year, and things just got lousier.

I knew Paul for almost 30 years. We met back in the very early 80s, through the magazine (joe soap's canoe) I was editing at the time. I think the canoe was the first place to publish him in the U.K. We then met in person on my first trip to the U.S. in 1983, and a friendship soon developed that I valued more highly than I can say. Paul visited England on a number of occasions, sometimes for readings I organized, and for one especially memorable tour when he curated an exhibition of Kenneth Koch's collaborations with artists at an art gallery in Ipswich. I was the town's local government's arts officer at the time, and my friend Rebecca (who is now married to printmaker Dale Devereux Barker, with whom Paul collaborated on some marvelous art books) managed two of their art galleries. Between us we cooked up the most wonderful idea: Paul would curate the exhibition, helping Koch gather the works, and we'd get them both, Paul and Kenneth, over to England for the show. And I'd organize a reading tour for them both, so when they were finished in Ipswich they didn’t just have to fly home. I can't begin to describe what a stellar experience the whole thing was. Wonder and laughter and erudition in almost equal measure, I think. Exactly like their poems.

But the truth is that I have too many great memories to mention. Paul and I read together on several occasions, both in the U.S. and in England, but it's not just poetry memories that come flooding back. My son Andy today reminded me of a photo that exists somewhere in an album of Paul seated on our couch with one of our kittens perched on his shoulder. That would have been the very early 90s, I guess. And on one occasion in Aldeburgh I remember Paul running into the North Sea in his underwear. Why? Well, it's the sea, and it was there. The fact that it was a cold bleak day, and the North Sea is never warmer than freezing, was not going to stop him.

When he told me about his illness a few weeks ago I was stunned, and struggled unsuccessfully to hold back the tears. I'm struggling to hold them back now as I write this, but I know he wouldn’t want any of that sadness. In his last email to me he insisted upon talking about something else, even though he evidently didn’t really have the energy to talk at all.

Because I've been working in China since 2005, the last time I saw Paul was 2004. I was in New York for a few days, and spent a couple of them at his home where I interviewed him for the English poetry magazine "The North". That interview subsequently ended up online at my website, and you can read it here. His energy and enthusiasm for the poem is in every word he says. He was a great poet and, more importantly, a great friend. I'm not going to apologize for crying. What the hell.

Photos:  Paul Violi & Martin Stannard, Coleridge Cottage, Nether Stowey, early 90s

"he did NOT surprise me by asking if I had been to the "Ring Cafe" on Saturn . . ." by David Nelson

Lunch with Paul in Lagos and Burma
As Jim Periconi (and extraordinary man as well) has noted in this blog, I met Paul and Ann once, however, in fact, Paul and I met in many secret places around the world throughout the years. No global citizen ever knew but us. Indeed, Paul and I could not stop sharing thru the evening in his back yard near the lake all the places in the world we had both traveled. We had not merely visited. Separately, we both knew of an aqua painted cafe around a corner in Marrakech, a monk in Rangoon who refused to age, the exact spot where we found spent cartridges on the Khyber Pass, our both stealing a shred of gold leaf from the Reclining Buddha in Bangkok. Talking with Paul was to relive my travels in 66 countries, however, after hours of bent over laughter and countless "...have you ever been to...." , he did NOT surprise me by asking if I had been to the "Ring Cafe" on Saturn. He was one up on me there. Indeed, Paul and I, w/o exaggeration, had been to the very same tiny places worldwide but at different times over many years. His knowledge of current affairs and politics made it seem that he read every newspaper from every country every day.
As Jim Periconi notes, "Police Blotter", posted in Paul's bathroom forced me to drink as much beer as I could that evening for the sole purpose that I could take more than my allotted time(s) to read and re-read it. With laughter bellowing from the bathroom, I'm sure the line outside thought something else was going on inside until they muscled their way in and found their own experience with Paul's unquestionable, unchallengeable humor. No, make that wit and observation.
Paul, the entire globe knows you are not gone, however, I just learned something curious: the Earth is indeed not perfectly round, rather, it has large bulges, gigantic imperfections and is NOT round. Of course, this is YOUR doing. One of your tricks. But of course.
Thank you for this gift and so many others. Let us meet at Ang San Suu Kyi's house for tea. The Rangoon porch side. David Nelson

"He had a way of saying ‘Nice going’ or ‘Nice goin’ in a rather quiet voice . . ." by Ariana Reines

Paul Violi has died. The internet has known this for more than ten days, but I only learned he had died two nights ago, from a friend who knew him too, and she I think found out on her way from Russia to New York, because there was a New York Times obituary, a late one, and she told it to me, she told me Paul Violi has died, I learned this from her, and I can thank him for my friendship with her, and I have thanked him, and I learned from her that Paul Violi had died alongside a piece of news about her father that she told me, her father who died a year ago and whom I loved very much, her father has a starring or a semi-starring role in a French film that is playing in New York, and although her father was not an actor he was exceedingly charismatic, and because I am fatherless her father was for a brief period fatherlike for me, as was Paul Violi, for certain limited times and in ways that on the one hand need not be made anything of and in other ways helped me not go crazy and this I suppose is no small thing, and in any case, this film in which the late and widely beloved father of my friend has a starring or supporting role, this film is called I am not dead.

There was a lightning storm going on while these things were being told to me. I felt a restful and strange feeling to be letting the lightning storm be itself or do itself while I sat with my back to it and tried to know what had happened.

This disturbance in time of learning a thing that is already known, but recent, and of there existing so many ways a thing demands that it be said, be written by one.

By one, or rather, by me.

Paul Violi was my teacher. He was extremely good to me during a time that as I recall I said more than once in those days and also in later days I said it, that I would have or should have lost my mind at that time if it weren’t for him.

It’s weird to say this because this week I have been thinking about the mystery of teaching and of teaching by irritating, as some do it, and of teaching by declaring, as others do it, or by seduction, in any case teachers and why people have them, I’ve been thinking about it lately, viz the quotation from Patthabi Jois below, it may not make immediate sense to you, but I have been thinking about the transmission of truth and how the world is shaped in the mouth and in the body and why, why do people call a man Guruji, why and how an aspirant seeks out an elder and for what reasons and how between the aspirant and the elder something delicate that in one way cannot be made too much of and in another way is so ineffable that it can be strenuous to describe— well, how to say or to think a thing about all this.

Paul Violi  had a rugged and unpretentious erudition, but I mean real erudition, that made him an extraordinary teacher, because he knew when and when not to use this erudition, he knew when to take out the scalpel and make use of it, and he knew also when and when not to use the ruggedness, how not to overdo the streetsmarts, how not to overdue the shall we call it the Hemingwayesque. Young people and many older people are showy

"getting one of those side-long glances with a smirk and a nod was like winning the lottery.." by Jody Cherry

I knew Paul Violi as a teacher of two ways of writing. As my expository writing Prof. he could be INFURIATING – there’s a hole kicked into the wall of my apartment that will attest to the veracity of this. He was unflinching in demanding excellence – he kicked my butt every class, every assignment, never couched his criticism never did me the disservice of saying my work was good enough, always seemed to believe that I could do better. I came out of that class confident in my writing abilities as honed by Paul. Being Paul’s poetry writing student was one of the most exciting and expanding experiences of my life. He was generous but not sloppy with approval so getting one of those side-long glances with a smirk and a nod was like winning the lottery. He was a great teacher in all the ways teachers should be great.

The most important thing I know about writing in general I learned from Paul. Paul Violi taught me that writing is process. I share this moment that was the flipped switch to gaining this knowledge.

You could no longer smoke in the classrooms of NYU buildings so during break Paul would stand in the doorway smoking his cigarette and talking with whomever was in the classroom. During one of these break/smoke/talks one of my classmates was bemoaning his inability to get his essay going. I don’t remember exactly what my colleague said it was something about starting and perfection. I do remember exactly Paul’s response. He was leaning against the door jam. As my classmate spoke he took a long thoughtful drag, almost closing his eyes. Squinting at my classmate he exhaled, leaned forward a little raising his shoulders and said, “What do you mean? Write something, ANYTHING. Then change it.”

To Paul’s Family – my deepest sympathies. I hope that the profound way Paul touched so many lives is some comfort in your loss.

Paul – this is my third draft, and I’m not ashamed to say I’ve wept a little as I wrote it, so wish I could get it back from you all marked up with smart-alecky comments. Thank you Paul you introduced me to so much I’ve come to love and value in my life not the least of which is Whitman, “And to die is different from what anyone supposed, and luckier.”

Good Luck Teacher.
Jody Cherry

Memorial Reading at the Poetry Project (June 13, 2011)

There will be a memorial reading for Paul Violi at the Poetry Project at St Mark's Church on  Monday, June 13, at 8 PM.

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Please join us as we remember the life and work of Paul Violi.  Paul wrote eleven books of poetry, including Overnight, Fracas, The Curious Builder, and Likewise, from Hanging Loose Press, and a selection of his longer poems, Breakers, from Coffee House Press. He taught in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and in the graduate writing program at New School University. Violi was an interim Artistic Director for The Poetry Project and a frequent featured reader and contributor the the Newsletter.  With Tony Towle, Charles North, Eileen Myles, Bob Hershon, Donna Brook, David Lehman, David Shapiro, Michael Quattrone, Karen Koch, George Green, Reagan Upshaw, Ed Friedman, Amy Lawless, Allison Power, Andrew McCarron, Bill Zavatsky & Mark Statman. FRE

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http://poetryproject.org/program-calendar/memorial-reading-for-paul-violi.html

"His obituary caught my eye . . ." by Catherine

I did not know Paul. His obituary caught my eye because he died at 66..young. I am sorry for your loss of Paul. It sounds like he was a great guy with talent.

Last yr, I lost my 66 yr old mother to pancreatic cancer (1943-2010). From dx to death..it took about 4 mos. Hardly time to process the situation. I will never get over losing her like that. She was healthy and fit and very productive..and..she was MY MOTHER.

The medical community CAN do better by these people who get handed a death sentence when they hear the words "pancreatic cancer", but for some reason it chooses not to....economics..ie: insurance company restrictions, or maybe pharmaceutical company $$$. I don't know. However, since PC is always deadly..let's face it, it really is...every person over the age of 60 should be offered a blood test every yr to detect small pancreatic tumors. I don't see how that would cost more than all of the costs of chemo, hospitalizations etc (not to mention the hidden costs to society b/c heartbroken loved ones suffer so much and that cuts into productivity) for patients with terminal PC.

I hope my mother and Paul really are in a better place. Some say so, but it is of little comfort to me..a motherless woman with two small children whom their young grandmother adored.
Sincerely, Catherine

"It was an adventure to spend time with him and Ann." by Jim Periconi

There's so much to say about Paul, it's hard to know where to begin.

The mischievousness in his poetry was matched by that of his personality. Always a unique perspective on some political or legal issue, as well as poetical one, it was an adventure to spend time with him and Ann. As a book collector, I rarely have the chance to get to know the subject of my collecting personally - Paul was an exception. I collected just about everything Paul has ever published. It was an homage to him, as well as giving me the satisfaction of linking a personal friendship with my reverence for the written word, and for the text, and his exceptional text integrated with the luscious prints of Dale Devereux Barker. At the same time, our friendship had its light side, too: silly as it sounds, I looked forward to a visit to the bathroom at the Violi house when we were there of an evening, because I'd get to reread "Police Blotter" once again, and I never tired of it. The humor is always fresh; it's always as if I've never read it before; and his sense of the perverseness of the human race is timeless.

Never ponderous: by deflating and demystifying what poetry sometimes tries to do, Paul enhanced its power and mystique. Then soon after it was published in 2002, I read "Selected Accidents, Pointless Anecdotes" - of course, they were anything but "pointless" - and I thought to myself: "no one who is as good a poet as Paul has the right to be this good a prose stylist, too." And his prose voice is, to my thinking, not an assumed one; he was as wise and thoughtful actually talking about current events or historical places as he was writing about them.

I just spoke with a close friend of mine who lives in Park City, but who on one visit to us in New York came along with us to meet Paul and Ann. David, an accomplished environmentalist who has travelled widely in or lived in Vietnam, China, Hong Kong and the Philippines, and Paul really hit it off, they connected instantly. I texted David to tell him of Paul's death, directing him to the NY Times obit published today. David called me, utterly devastated, crying uncontrollably and spoke about those rare qualities he sensed in Paul, though he'd met him only once.

That is the kind of impact Paul Violi had on people. What an honor to have known him, and what fun, too.

"I remember serving Paul single malt scotch . . . " by Beth & Ken Appel

Paul & Ann had dinner with us years ago to celebrate the birthdays of Ann, our friend Lynn, & me - in one October. I remember serving Paul single malt scotch and just having a wonderful evening. We always meant to do it again - to share our birthdays again, but it didn't happen.
We will miss Paul and the possibility of having another evening together.
Beth & Ken Appel, Putnam Valley

"Paul took me to a favorite place, one with steak and fries and character and cigarette smoke. . . by Scott Gendel

I first came across Paul's poetry in an anthology in college, and scribbled down his poem "Envoy" on an old notebook, hiding in the back room of the school bookstore, because I couldn't afford to buy the book. Later, in graduate school, I found a number of his books in the college library, including the elusive In Baltic Circles, which I just adored.

I'm a composer, and I wanted to make a set of art songs for voice and piano out of Paul's words. On a whim, I wrote him at an address I found on the internet, and to my surprise, he wrote me back, and was extraordinarily helpful and kind and convivial. When I finished the songs, I sent him a recording in the mail. He was flattered by my interest in his work, seemed to be amused by the songs, and invited me out for a meal next time I was in New York.

I was still in my late 20s, and Paul took me to a favorite place, one with steak and fries and character and cigarette smoke. He was an amazing dinner companion, full of great stories, and an excellent listener, and so tolerant of my youthful foolishness, and just a fine upstanding gentleman. I felt, and still feel, honored to have met him and spent that wonderful evening with him in NY, where he showed me kindness and class, with a healthy dose of sarcasm.

Later, he mailed me copies of his newer books, because he thought I'd enjoy them... and I did. No big reason, no ulterior motive that I know of. He just wanted to share more of his poetry, and I was thrilled to share. What a great poet and a great man Paul was. Thanks for the laughs, and for the steak.