Taken from Joanie DiMartinos facebook page and the piece in The Day on Sunday, May 18, 2014. I realize space in newspapers is always a necessary consideration when cutting copy, but this was the paragraph I wish hadnt been left out (and since its MY facebook wall, Im adding it): (with Charlie Ipcar ): However, the sea poet I probably have the most similarities with is Cecily Fox Smith, an obscure late 19th-early 20th-century English poet rediscovered by sea musicians, many of whom have put her poems to music. Ive recently worked with the editors of her poetry to get a complete collection of her work back into print. The similarity between her and I is not in style; Smith wrote in formal meter (hence its ease in being matched with a tune), and I predominantly in free verse, but more from how we both approach inspiration. C. F. Smith wrote about sailing, but was not herself a sailor. She published under her initials, and many thought she was a man, and spent time on the sea, as she captured that world so very well, but that was not the case. She was a sailors poet, not a sailor poet, and maybe in a similar vein Im a whalers poet, not a whaler poet. I strive for the poems in Wood to Skin to have the same honesty, the same authenticity, that is found in Smiths work, and maybe, with my experience as a 38th Voyager on the Charles W. Morgan, I can attain that.
Posted on: Mon, 19 May 2014 17:31:53 +0000
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