Celebrating a Beloved Teacher:
Cambridge Poets Contribute to New
Anthology
By Susie Davidson
CORRESPONDENT
Boston Center for Adult Education
poetry teacher Ottone Riccio is venerated in the 54-poet marathon “Do Not
Give Me Things Unbroken: An Anthology Of Contemporary Poetry To Honor and
Celebrate Ottone Riccio.” In the work, his students pay tribute in the
the most appropriate medium – the pen and the verse. The book, which was
edited by Lana H. Ayers, Martha Miller, Mary R. Collins, John Wunjo, Peng-Ean
Khoo and Ellen B. Siegel, is available from the publisher, iuniverse.com,
where it can be downloaded for $6, or through Miller for $20.
Riccio, 81, authored “The
Intimate Art of Writing Poetry.” A onetime fellow student of noted poets
Anne Sexton and George Starbucks, among others, he took over their BCAE class
nearly 40 years ago. On Oct. 2 from 7-9 p.m., Riccio will be honored at a wine
and cheese reception at the Center.
Interspersed within the
book’s rich and voluminous literary offerings are prints and photos by
Mary Collins, Sheila Twyman, Martha Miller and other contributing poets who are
artists as well. The title comes from a request made by Riccio of his students
in a class, "Do not give me things unbroken." Poet and painter
Peng-Ean Khoo recalled Riccio’s ultimately fruitful challenges: "We
always found ourselves being flung away from the farthest corners of our
comfort zones."
Represented within the collection
are Cambridge poets Wunjo, Victor Ocampo and Beatriz Adelrio, who are all
noteworthy in their own right. Wunjo (the Celtic Rune of joy), born John
Osborne, has lived in Cambridgeport since 1994 and Cambridge since 1987. He
hosts the weekly live call-in radio program “Moonglow with Wunjo”
on WCCR, which broadcasts every Monday at 6 p.m. out of Cambridge Cable/CCTV;
on the two-hour show, he reads poetry and discusses current events. A high
school dropout, he studied acting in New York in 1956, where he met his wife,
whom he was married to for 22 years. He has three sons and five grandchildren,
and along the way, attended Yale Drama school as a playwright and acquired a
master’s in social work from Smith College. “It's been an
interesting and exciting shamanic journey indeed,” he said.
Cambridge resident Ocampo, a
Philippine native, came to the United States as a young teen in 1974 when his
father was pursuing graduate studies at Harvard. At Cambridge Rindge and Latin
School, he studied with English teachers Ms. Mary Sullivan, Mrs. Mary
Eisenhaure, Mr. Burns and Mr. Hurley. “They were really some of the first
people to help me appreciate the possibilities of language,” he said.
“Ricky (Riccio) helped me to transform that appreciation into
poetry.”
Ocampo holds a B.S. in biology
from St. John's University in Minnesota, an M.S. in Zoology from the University
of the Philippines, and an M.S. in Clinical Investigation from the
MGH-Institute of Health Professions. He presently is a Project Manager at the
Division of Preventive Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital. Among other
journals, his poetry has appeared in Soundings East, Modern Haiku,Wind
Magazine, The Cape Rock and StarLine.
“I always think of Ricky
when I am stuck with a line,” he reflected. I ask myself, ‘What
would Ricky do here? How would he handle this?’"
Adelrio is a lawyer and a mediator
in the U.S. and in her native Argentina, with the core of her legal practice
involving representing abused and neglected children and parents. In her
mediation practice, she facilitates family and other potentially non-litigious
conflicts.
With a Master of Laws from New
York University Law School, she has lived in the Harvard Square area since 1982
when she arrived with her ex-husband, who taught physics at Brandeis. She read
poetry at the Living Wage Tent City during last year’s sit-ins, and is a regular
at Stone Soup Poetry. She reads annually at the Marshfield Art Fair and was
featured in the Art Speaks recital at the Marshfield Art Gallery. In Argentina,
her collection "Youth" was published when she was 17 years old; this
past January and Feburary, she read poetry on the weekly radio program Tango.
She has three poems in the anthology.
“Ricky was my first teacher
of poetry,” she said. “Not only is he an exquisite artist and
teacher, but he inspires in me the passion I need to create and the inquisitiveness
to reinvent the existing. I feel he is a fine artist and teacher who has an
exceptional sensibility. He has the ability to change a word, a comma, a title,
or the order of maybe two words, and create an extraordinary poem.”
For information or to R.S.V.P. for
the Oct. 2 reception, please call 617-267-4430. To order the anthology, send a
check for $20 to: Martha Miller, 100 Brackett Rd., Newton 02458.