I’ve said before I don’t venerate poetry. Poetry should not be placed on a pedestal, because it lives and breathes with us. I recorded myself reading this piece while sitting in my doctor’s office waiting room. The background noise is the television, the nurse, another patient.
Robert Lee Frost was born in San Francisco, California March 26, 1874. He died January 29, 1963 in Boston, Massachusetts, two years before I was born. He’s remembered for a small-town, almost rural perspective in his poetry, but if you want a real feel for the man I recommend Robert Frost on Writing, by Elaine Barry. I’m not even gonna tell you.
Today we commemorate the birth of Robert Frost. Be careful what you say if you mention him to me, because how you feel about Frost’s work will impact how I feel about you. Don’t be too shiny, but don’t gloss over. It’s okay to say you don’t know anything about his work. Seek it out.
Peter Kidd formed Igneus Press in 1989 to make a home for the poets and polymaths he’d collected, or who’d collected him. William Kemmett and artist James “Deac” De Crescentis are pictured here; composer William Bland, P.J. Laska, and Richard Martin were part of the early formation of Igneus.
dce: Pete was my guru – he would always answer my questions with complete honesty, and then give me a little tidbit to chew on later. Like this bit on agnotology (n.) – the study of deliberate, culturally-induced ignorance:
S.K.: He fought cancer for 6 years, and not just one kind. A few years before he passed away on June 12, 2020, he was undergoing radiation on his neck for thyroid cancer, which involved him laying down flat (extremely painful for him, due to the lesions in his spine caused by multiple myeloma, the primary form of cancer he was fighting) with his head pinned down underneath this mask.
The mask was made as a mold to fit the shape of his head and shoulders. Dad always had claustrophobia, and told many tales of how he spent the time in the machine under this mask ‘fighting the azuras,’ deep in meditation doing war against forces of evil.
Sophia Kidd and her father Peter Kidd
Azuras are a familiar motif throughout Pete’s writing. I was familiar with the Asuras, a class of beings in the lore of India; but Pete always spelled it with a z, connoting rocky formation azure in my mind. I love a good two-fer. So I spelled that way in my poem “constellations” as I processed my grief upon his passing:
but cosmic trajectory, surely an Azura or two, the exact same footprints on another plane
-dce 06.13.2020, Annandale
Pictured here is Peter, reading from Richard Martin‘s White Quartet series for a documentary we were filming shortly before Peter’s passing…We’re trying to figure out how to release the footage we have in a cogent form.
In the meantime, here’s a still image of a man in cosmic motion.
dce: I knew Pete since 1997 as an online presence. I met him in person in 2018 in Canyon, Texas. Here’s an excerpt from that tale, which can be found at debnation.com:
Peter Kidd, November 2018, Canyon, TX
Over roast chicken we discussed Bill Bland‘s poetry while his music emanated from the neighbor room. We moved on to David Starobin‘s recordings – these are snippets of Pete’s New England history. I took notes in my sketchbook during dinner conversation. Pete’s given me homework: Black Mountain College, the side-stone in a Japanese garden, so many other things. He took us into the bowels of what currently serves as Igneus Press. Several lifetimes are stacked one against the next, and my storyteller’s mind was overwhelmed with juxtapositions. “Kemmett used to say for twenty years he always kept a noose in the trunk of his car.” Pete reached out and tugged on a rope hanging from the shed’s ceiling. “Here’s mine.”
This year we’ve registered the business, repaid the website hosting and maintenance bills, rehauled the bookshop, and engaged a fulfilment center to store all the books and fulfil orders made on our website. It’s expensive. Dad left me a little money to do this, but we’re moving through that quickly. We really want to keep the press going. Our small team is willing to do all the work out of the love in our hearts for Dad. But we can’t do this without your help.
Peter Kidd often compared poetry to gardening. A small business is like a garden. It needs to be guided, nourished, protected, directed.
A gentle reminder and plea, as well, for your support of Igneus Press, the small independent poetry press Dad established in 1989. We’ve really jazzed the place up and as a small group of volunteers, we need your support: not donations, but your patronage of the Igneus online bookshop. Order a book or two, bring them into your home, your bosom, your mind, your spirit, and allow these poems to sing out into the world through your own awareness.
Here’s Dad giving the final reading of his life, from his final set of poems.
Sophia wrote on what would have been Peter Kidd’s 74th birthday: “One year ago today, I celebrated Dad’s birthday with the Stone family in Canyon, TX, with homemade chicken soup, pulled pork and a great cake. It was an evening of bliss. Dad was feeling strong, walking around, even bouncing around like a champion. He was writing poetry again and feeling ready to move into the next best phase of his writing.
