Remembering Paul Violi

"You're the real thing . . . by Steven Panovich

Paul was my thesis advisor and a dear, great friend. I'll never forget the one time at the Cafe Loup, after talking about Longfellow's sonnet structure, he said to me, "You're the real thing, Panovich." It was all the validation I ever needed in being a poet: Paul's word.

- Steven Panovich

"The courtyard is certainly going to seem just a little bit emptier . . ."John

I never had the opportunity to study with Paul at the New School, but I certainly saw him every week for two years. I would usually be sitting in the courtyard between 11th and 12th streets with my notebook and there would be Paul, sitting on the bench smoking a cigarette. I never had the nerve to introduce myself because he always seemed like he was thinking deep thoughts and I didn't want to disturb a mental poem in progress. One night during my first semester there, I was drinking a Heineken out of a paper bag on the bench when Paul came out, sat down, and lit a cigarette. We both kind of just smiled at each other. Realizing that I was being dumb, I finally turned and said "Hi, Mr. Violi. We've never really been introduced," and held out my hand. "Oh, I know you John," he said, shaking my hand. I remember thinking "Wow, he knows who I am!" and then thought about all the teachers who I actually did study with who didn't know my name. From then on we always greeted each other like we had been friends for years. I didn't know Paul well, but he was the kind of person that made you feel like you did - even in just a passing greeting, he made you feel like you belonged. That courtyard is certainly going to seem just a little bit emptier.

"He was the real deal . . . " by Zach Miller

Paul was my teacher and advisor during my time at the New School, and he embodied much of what I’d hoped New York would be like, and moreso what poet was. The first day in Paul’s class he passed out some unattributed photocopies of Apollinaire and asked what everyone thought. Trying to prove how good we were at workshop, we gladly ripped the work to shreds. Paul shrugged and just said he had thought it was “pretty good”. Gradually, you came to realize that he was more than well-read. He had read EVERYTHING and remembered most of it.  He was the real deal and as a student it made you humbled and excited to be part of it.

He was sparse with his opinion, but if he gave you a compliment he meant it and he should know. He didn’t seem to care a bit about whether he was successful or not, and clearly he read and wrote because he loved it. He was a ferocious reader when he read, had a love for the absurd, and he was always up for a drink after class.

One night outside the Café Loup I asked him what his favorite Shakespeare sonnet was, and he told me it was 73, especially the line “Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang” then explained to me (because I’m dense) that the image was that of transforming the bare branches into a ruined cathedral. He then followed it up with a joke “Why are there so many better dead poets than live ones?”

I shook my head. “Because there’s so many more of them.”

Now there is one more better poet on the wrong side. To quote another Shakespeare line, I shall not look upon his like again.

- Zach Miller

"He took over that room, crowded to the bursting point . . ." by Steve Caratzas

Paul's was the very first class of my MFA program at The New School, and his demeanor and acumen immediately made me feel like I had made a magical decision in pursuing the writing of poetry. He was exactly what I thought a poetry professor should be from the way he dressed to his unplummably deep knowledge of all things literary to his endless and hilarious asides.

As considerable as all of this was, it was when I saw him read at KGB that it finally hit me how all of these attributes really came together: this man was a POET. He took over that room, crowded to the bursting point, and there wasn't a soul that did not hang on his every word. The palpable appreciation for his sterling wordplay was topped only by the guffaws he summoned with his incredible wit.

I didn't get to know Paul that well personally, but I can say with complete assurance that he was a very generous and extremely likable man. He gave a lot to the poetry world, and we are all the richer for it.

--Steve Caratzas

Post for Paul Violi (1944-2011) [by Jennifer Michael Hecht]

I am sad about losing Paul. Paul Violi lived as a good man, while he lived. He was everything you want in a textual mensch. It wasn't what you knew about him, it was what he knew about you. You go someplace poetic, he's there and it's like somebody put a nice sun at the bar for you to go tan at. He gave galloping reading, met with apes and featherless birds once a week if they wanted and smoked. He was going to smile at you, sideways and squinting always squinting from I suppose his congenitally vivid view of time's descending thumb. Grinned at it. Grinned at you. My friend Mary, who I’ve known and snuck through life with since I’m 17, took a course with Paul years ago, and we went together to one of his readings and talked to him after. Then five years ago I started teaching where he was, at the New School, and met him again. You probably knew him better than I did, but I just wanted to say I have a memory of he and I saying a line from “On First Looking Into Chapman’s Homer” at each other which we both knew because we both felt the rough of life and also found beauty in it that makes you say “Well shut my mouth,” or instead, “Then felt I like some watcher of the skies when a new planet swims into his ken; or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes he stared at the Pacific and all his men looked at each other with a wild surmise, silent, upon a peak in Darien.” A man doesn’t need to live long, he just needs to have lived standing upon a peak in Darien, which is in Central America, where Balboa (whose name doesn’t scan like buzz buzz Cortez does), led a bunch of European dudes for the first time ever to the Pacific Ocean. Paul Violi saw that ocean, and even sailed it mightily and with great salt. A great turn on the stage of existence. I’d say you’ll be missed but since you are haunting my headspace at the moment that wouldn’t strictly be true. More like I can’t shake you. Traveled continents and realms of gold. I’d have preferred to watch him get old but I’m damn glad we had him. Ah, philosophy fails again. I hate this losing and may even miss some appointments and try having a fit about it. We loved you. It is a heartache to lose old friends. Which goes double for one with such a mind for histories and conversation. 

"you knew you'd have at least one fun conversation . . . " by Steve Roberts

When I first took Paul's New School workshop, I was won over so quickly and so fully by him that I knew I had made the right decision by going there. He was so unpretentious, so naturally a poet, that I was envious and awestruck at the same time. And god, was he funny. Not only quick with a joke, but jovial in almost everything he did.

One thing I particularly enjoyed in his workshop was that he would read your poem, and instantly find the cagiest, riskiest sentiment or image or metaphor, the moment that was bordering on complete pretentiousness or nonsense. He would find the weak spot, the point where you were reaching and you knew it. He would find it instantly and then, not unkindly, call you on it, and ask you to defend it. "Is it or isn't it?" You never heard so much sputtering and backpedaling in your life. I loved it, even when I was the one under scrutiny.

Paul was also, always, the guy you wanted to see at a poetry event, and at your event. As you walked in, you might see him smoking out on the street, or quaffing in the middle of conversation, and you'd be relieved, because you knew you'd have at least one fun conversation that night. Paul and I were smoking buddies, and while we didn't always crack jokes and oftentimes would talk about serious subjects, I would almost always walk back in and say to someone "you should have heard what Paul just said."

He was an excellent teacher, a moving poet, and a good friend. I will miss him terribly.

-Steve Roberts

 

"The earth down to its bare magic . . " from Thomas Devaney

The earth down to its bare magic,
wind and glass, water and light.

-Paul Violi from his great poem "In Praise of Idleness," which I first discovered in a landmark essay that on Violi that Charles North wrote. The essay is replublished in North's book No Other Way: Selected Prose (Hanging Loose Press).

"You will be greatly missed." by Audra Violi-Piazza

Uncle Paul,  You will be greatly missed.  Your memory will live on.  Love Audra Violi-Piazza

"hangin' with the African militia in Nigeria . . ." by Amy Lawless

I was a student of Paul Violi's in the fall of 2005, and I worked with him again when he was my thesis advisor in 2007. This was a singular experience -- no one else had chosen to work with him that year, which seems at once totally impossible (considering how awe-inspiring his work and his presence as a teacher was) and also very possible. Paul's workshop was irritating for some in that it operated as a meritocracy (at least the year I took his class). If he didn't like what you'd passed in, it didn't get discussed. Period. If he did like it (or something about the piece), we'd talk about it. I can still hear the chalkboard-nail complaints from my peers as we walked to Spain or Café Loup afterwards. My work, on the other hand, was being discussed constantly. We shared an alma mater in Boston University, as well as a head-turning laugh. We were made for each other (I speak of teacher-student heaven). He truly got my work in a way that went beyond the teacher student rapport and into a kindred-spiritedness.

My favorite moments with Paul are too many in number to reduce into a text-box, so I’ll have to just put my hand in a few times and grab what’s in this bag (my memory) to share with you.

He called me "Miss Lawless,” which was spoken with an ironic head bob evoking all that my surname offers.

When we’d meet to work on my thesis, we would find each other in the courtyard on 12th st. and wander over to Murray's Bagel Shop on 6th Ave and drink espresso. We'd sit and go over all my poems almost every week for four months. He would read a poem quietly, smile, and growl some incredibly witty comment while laughing. Sure there was perhaps a criticism here or there—and each would be presented by someone who knew comedy and the human experience far more than I did: “If you’re working blue, you don’t have to use the word for it to be understood what you mean.” Simple. To the point. Lesson learned. He also turned me on to John Wilmot, the 2nd Earl of Rochester. Oh that reminds me, Paul was a Johnny Depp fan. He loved Depp’s transformations into other characters. This is significant due to Violi’s ability to seamlessly inhabit the various forms of human expression (e.g., Index) in his work.

Paul helped me in ways that surpassed poetry into how to live life. If I had a crazy ex-boyfriend story, he had a crazy story about an old nutty buddy that blew mine away. If I had a crazy weekend story, he had one from when he was hangin' with the African militia in Nigeria. Or maybe a poem aspiring toward math (????) would remind him of when he worked on a project with Bucky Fuller. By no means am I suggesting that there was a one-upping quality to these stories and conversations. Paul had, quite honestly, lived more than I have. I ate it all up. I could hold my own in the wit department with him, and feel so blessed to have been his favorite student of all time. (Good one, huh?)

Hearing his passing put me into a deep funk because I thought of all the knowledge and human experience and laughter he had and exuded. How is it possible that not one more student will ever get the Paul Violi workshop experience? No one will get that "eye" -- that knowing glance and nod. The succinct 10 word précis of what it took a class ten minutes to mull over. No one will converse with their friend Paul again.

Fans and friends of Paul Violi, please be comforted in the fact that he has touched so many of us all with his poems and his teachings. It's our responsibility to take his lessons and laughter and fun perspective into our own classrooms, onto our own barstool, to our own courtyards, behind our own podiums at poetry readings. This man, who was so charitable and talented and will be in our hearts for life. And most importantly, his eleven books will grace the bookshelves far after we-who-are-here-now shall pass.

I miss you, Paul. Who the hell am I going to look up to now?

'Counterman' on the Hudson from Eric Appleby

Fondly remembered.

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