9 NE Ohio Forepoets:Citino

Continuing a series I abandoned in April, I now finish with five Ohio Forepoets, those no longer with us bodily, but remaining in our hearts and heads, where their words reverberate.

Part 3

David Citino (1947-2005)

 

Five facts you may not know about Citino

*He played football for St. Ignatius High School

*He created a riotously funny nun as the storyteller for The Appassionata Poems

*A beloved father and professor, he is lauded in this former student memoir from 2005

*You can read many of his poems at the Poetry Foundation site and hear him read in his expressive voice here

*His late book, Broken Symmetry, dealt movingly, in part, with M.S., the disease that took his life, as in the lines from this poem:

...The best I can hope for,

semi-invalid half-life,

calls from that sycamore 

igniting another day,

one blaze of redbird

high enough to trill

all Ohio from despair.

I can't quit now.

I'd dying to hear

the last words.

          (from "The Reckoning" in Broken Symmetry by David Citino