We lost two amazing poets last week. Ed Ochester passed on August 22 and Maureen Seaton on August 26. Since 2000, Ed was my editor University of Pittsburgh Press. Maureen was my best friend and collaborator since 1987. I know they both also impacted the lives of so many of you. In addition to giving us their wonderful poems, they also were inspiring teachers, advocates, and poetry citizens. RIP (Rest in Poetry), Ed and Maureen!
Here is a poem by each of them from the Best American Poetry 2013.
New Year
after calling our son & daughter
to wish them happy & good luck
we get to bed early but get
a phone call from my mother
who died in April she doesn't
say where she's calling from though
I can hear laughter in the background
and she says Uncle Frank is making
his famous Manhattans which are
she adds gratuitously as always
a lot better than I was ever able to make—
"one of his really puts you to sleep"—
and I have to reply "Mom do you know
that you never once so far as I can
remember have told me 'I love you"'
and she says rather sadly
"You've always been somewhat of
a fool; don't you remember how,
that time you passed out at my birthday party,
one of your cousins told you later
I cried out 'My son, my only son!'?"
–Ed Ochester
Chelsea/Suicide
In every myth there is a secret. Like the time I went looking for my childhood around the next bend in the Palisades and missed it, or the time teeth were discovered in my favorite uncle’s yard and he disclaimed ownership and sang falsettos.
I went to a meeting on 28th Street. The guy next to me had eyes exactly like yours, corpuscles hardening inside blue irises. He stood too close when he told me I would die if I didn’t ease up on myself. I thought he was right but I wanted him to step back so I didn’t have to see inside his liver, which was sodden, like mine, with tinges of red, white, and rosé.
He talked to himself in the middle of the room, the way he would talk to anyone who used hyperbole. He said: I tried suicide but it didn’t work. When he stuck out his hand I shook it.
I walked with him down 8th and we parted at 21st. I thought of all the times I’d dozed in my car near the river, how cops would come to my window and tap, telling me it wasn’t safe for a woman in the middle of the day in a car by the river in a world like this one.
–Maureen Seaton
A wonderful tribute, complete with many poems, by Maureen is up on SoFloPoJo:
https://www.southfloridapoetryjournal.com
And here is a loving remembrance of Ed:
https://www.wesa.fm/arts-sports-culture/2023-08-24/ed-ochester-pitt-poet-educator-obituary