[New-Poetry] Donald Finkel Tribute

Sat Mar 8 18:26:36 EST 2008

Tho sad news, thanks for sending this Tad. I've not kept in contact with Don over the years, but he was one of first real poets I knew and admired. The students he had a Wash U in St. Louis, almost to a one, loved working with him. And I think was what he brought to the table..they were all in this endeavor called poetry together.
I may try to join you out there in St. Louis. 

Finnegan

-----Original Message-----
From: TheOldMole <Opus40-01 at opus40.org>
Sent: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 1:07 pm
Subject: [New-Poetry] Donald Finkel Tribute

As those who've been posting here for a while may know, Donald Finkel has been my lifelong mentor, friend, role model and inspiration. As you may or may not know, this wisest and most generous of men is now in the iron grip of Alheimer's. This April 7th, there will be a tribute reading for him in his adopted home town of St. Louis. I'll be going there for it. Here's a press release: 

*A Tribute to Donald Finkel* 

*Date: *Monday, April 7, 2008** 

*Time: *8 p.m.** 

*Location:* Duff’s Restaurant 

392 N Euclid Ave 

St Louis, MO 63108 

*Admission:* Free 

*March 5, 2008:* The largest reading ever of St. Louis poets will take place on April 7, 2008 at Duff’s Restaurant in the Central West End. The reading is in honor of Donald Finkel, long recognized as the leading figure among St. Louis poets. More than thirty poets are scheduled to read three of their favorite poems by Finkel, who was poet-in-residence at Washington University for more than thirty years. 

Poets scheduled to read include L.D. Brodsky, Michael Castro, David Clewell, Jane Ellen Ibur, Shirley LeFlore, Curtis Lyle, Eugene Redmon, Steve Schreiner, Howard Schwartz, Jason Sommer, Marjorie Stelmach, Nan Sweet, Eamonn Wall, and Jane O. Wayne. Many of these poets were students of Finkel over the years, and all admire and respect Finkel as a great poet and a great man. 

Born in the Bronx in 1929, Finkel came to St. Louis in 1960 after earning two degrees at Columbia University and teaching at the University of Iowa Writers Workshop (where he met his future wife, the poet Constance Urdang) and at Bard College. 

Finkel’s first poetry collection, /The Clothing’s New Emperor/, was published in 1959, to be followed by /Simeon/ (1964), /A Joyful Noise/ (1966), /The Garbage Wars/ (1970), /A Mote in Heaven’s Eye/ (1975), /What Manner of Beast/ (1981), /The Detachable Man/ (1984), /A Question of Seeing/ (1998). Finkel also published two retrospective collections, /Selected Shorter Poems/ (1987) and /Not So the Chairs/ (2003), and co-translated an anthology of works by contemporary Chinese poets, /A Splintered Mirror: Chinese Poetry from the Democracy Movement/ (1991). A recipient of the Theodore Roethke Memorial Award and the Morton Dauwen Zabel Award as well as grants from the National Endowment of the Arts and the Ingram Merrill Foundation, Finkel was also honored as a Guggenheim Fellow. 

He is perhaps best known for his book-length narrative poems -- /Answer Back/ (1968), /Adequate Earth/ (1972), /Endurance/Going Under/ (1978), and /The Wake of the Electron/ (1987). Tellingly, his fascination with themes of isolation abound in these explorations, from the endless cavern systems under Kentucky, which he prowled with fellow members of the Cave Research Foundation, to the barren wonders of Antarctica, which he was the very first poet ever to visit. 

As much as he has garnered recognition for his own body of work, Finkel is revered for his contributions as a teacher. In a tribute published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 2003, former student David Clewell wrote of his mentor: “I found in Don a teacher who seemed to know exactly when to coax, wheedle, admonish and applaud -- when to stay out of the way and when to get smack into it again. He taught his experience as well as the craft.... He couldn’t help but teach his passion for the art and his compassion for others involved in the same exhilarating, frustrating task: trying to get some small part of the world precisely right -- for a moment, at least -- in words.” 

-- Tad Richards 
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/ 
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/ 

The moral is this: in American verse, 
The better you are, the pay is worse. 
 --Corey Ford 

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