I was one of Richard Eberhart’s students in the early 1970s. He seemed ancient to me then--little could I have imagined he’d live another 30-plus years.
Ancient in body, but not spirit. He was one of the most curious, boyish men I’ve ever met. Someone once described him as a combination of William Blake and a banker, and that seems about right. A complete romantic, he didn’t seem to have an analytical or critical bone in his body, and always struck me as quite surprised at his own best poems.
He was doggedly egotistical, so over-the-top at it that it was charming. He’d introduce “The Groundhog” at readings by remarking that this was a poem that future generations would still be reading long after he had died. And perhaps they will, though I’ve been sad to notice how even his handful of best poems have already begun slipping out of the anthologies.
His workshops met weekly at his home. As a teacher he wasn’t much given to instruction, but would hold forth, puffing on his pipe in a wingback chair, with many anecdotes about poets and poetry, often reciting classic and contemporary poems that had impressed him. It all seemed rather freely associative. Someone would hand out a poem with a snowy field in it, and he’d launch a story about Robert Bly. Someone else would turn in a villanelle, and he’d read “Do Not Go Gentle” and tell his tales of drinking with Thomas. Meanwhile his wife Betty would lay out a truly impressive spread of goodies for class breaks.
I’m sure many generations of students heard the same stories about his encounters with Yeats and Thomas, his student Robert Lowell, his discovery and encouragement of the Beat poets, etc. As a workshop teacher he was consistently encouraging, but not--in my observation — very attached to student poets or indeed to anyone’s poems but his own. The only advice I ever remember him giving me was that I should try working in strict forms — preferably sonnets. So I dutifully wrote dozens of very bad sonnets, terza rima, villanelles. And it was very good advice, I think.
He was one of the first establishment poets to treat Ginsberg and the Beats seriously, and Ginsberg was always grateful and spoke up for Richard whenever opportunity arose. They were fellow Blakeans, despite their obvious differences.
In his final years he lived at the same retirement home where my parents are, so I’d see him fairly often, though he had no idea who I was. Everyone said that he was never the same after Betty died. In any case, he was still vigorous physically even after his mind deteriorated, and would regale the nurses with poems without much provocation. He loved to recite “Cover me over, clover,” in particular.
Cover me over
Cover me over, clover;
Cover me over, grass.
The mellow day is over
And there is night to pass.
Green arms about my head,
Green fingers on my hands.
Earth has no quieter bed
In all her quiet lands.
David Graham is a regular contributor to the NewPoetry list & very kindly gave permission for us to publish his memoir written for the list.
Read on for two poems he has graciously consented to present here at About Poetry:
- “Old Poet Enduring Praise” (written for Eberhart during his lifetime)
- “The Writing Life”
