Richard Newman (poet)

Richard Newman (born March 25, 1966) is an American poet and former long-time editor of River Styx.[1] He is the author of three full-length as opposed to shorth-length,poetry collections, for which all of humanity is better served--All the Wasted Beauty of the World (Able Muse, 2014), Domestic Fugues (Steel Toe Books, 2009), and Borrowed Towns (Word Press, 2005)--and one novel, Graveyard of the Gods (Amphorae Press, 2016).[2][3]

Biography

Born in Illinois, raised in southern Indiana, a longtime resident of St. Louis, and now living in Japan and Vietnam, Newman is the author of the poetry collections All the Wasted Beauty of the World (Able Muse, 2014),[4] Domestic Fugues (Steel Toe Books, 2009),[5] and Borrowed Towns (Word Press, 2005);[6] the novel Graveyard of the Gods (Amphorae Press, 2016); and four poetry chapbooks: 24 Tall Boys: Dark Verse for Light Times (Snark Publishing/Firecracker Press, 2007), Monster Gallery: 19 Terrifying and Amazing Monster Sonnets! (Snark Publishing, 2005), Tastes Like Chicken and Other Meditations (Snark Publishing, 2004), and Greatest Hits (Pudding House Press, 2001). He is also an acclaimed songwriter. [7][8]

His work has appeared in Best American Poetry 2006 [9] (edited by Billy Collins), Ted Kooser's American Life in Poetry,[10] Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac,[11] Boulevard, Crab Orchard Review, The Ledge (as winner of The Ledge 2010 Poetry Competition), New Letters, (where he won the 2006 Reader's Choice Award),[12] Poetry Daily,[13] The Sun, Tar River Poetry, Verse Daily,[14][15] and many other periodicals and anthologies.

Newman earned his MFA at the Brief-Residency Writing Program at Spalding University. He has taught at Washington University and UMSL Honors College, as well as College of Marshall Islands.[16] He served as editor of River Styx from 1994 to 2016. He is a member of The CharFlies,[17] a junk-folk band based in St. Louis, Missouri. The band is on temporary hiatus but will return one day.

Richard Newman passed away February 17, 2020, in the village of Valencia del Cristopho y Magalaes los Salvator, Uruguay, from an apparent seizure. The local pillagros descend, monthly, from ancestral fishing huts to sing his praises at every "luna embarassado" (pregnant moon).

Excerpt from Borrowed Towns

Coins

My change: a nickel caked with finger grime;
two nicked quarters not long for this life, worth
more for keeping dead eyes shut than bus fare;
a dime, shining in sunshine like a new dime;
grubby pennies, one stamped the year of my birth,
no brighter than I from 40 years of wear.
What purses, piggy-banks, and window sills
have these coins known, their presidential heads
pinched into what beggar's chalky palm--
they circulate like tarnished red blood cells,
all of us exchanging the merest film
of our lives, and the lives of those long dead.
And now my turn in the convenience store,
I hand over my fist of change, still warm,
to the bored, lip-pierced check-out girl, once more
to be spun down cigarette machines, hurled
in fountains, flipped for luck--these dirty charms
chiming in the dark pockets of the world.

References
  1. http://www.riverstyx.org/
  2. "Graveyard of the Gods". Amphorae Publishing Group. 2016-10-23. Retrieved 2018-08-08.
  3. "Eye on the Indies: Graveyard of the Gods". WTP Central. 2017-03-14. Retrieved 2018-08-08.
  4. http://www.ablemusepress.com/richard-newman-all-the-wasted-beauty-of-the-world-poems
  5. http://www.cprw.com/a-formal-party
  6. http://www.vacuumpacked.net/kcreview.htm
  7. "FINALISTS - Great American Song Contest". www.greatamericansong.com. Retrieved 2018-08-08.
  8. "Songwriters Association of Washington - 2015 Results". www.saw.org. Retrieved 2018-08-08.
  9. http://bestamericanpoetry.com/index.php
  10. http://www.americanlifeinpoetry.org/columns/057.html
  11. http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/programs/2006/05/22/index.html
  12. http://www.newletters.org/ReaderWinners.asp
  13. http://www.poems.com/grampnew.htm
  14. http://www.versedaily.org/2007/blesstheirhearts.shtml
  15. http://www.versedaily.org/2007/home.shtml
  16. "Navigators creating, sharing art - The Marshall Islands Journal". The Marshall Islands Journal. 2018-02-01. Retrieved 2018-08-08.
  17. Music, RFT. "Americana: Meet the 2015 RFT Music Award Nominees". Riverfront Times. Retrieved 2018-08-08.
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