Harvey Shapiro, 1924-2013

Shapiro was the quintessential New York poet, editor of the New York Times Book Review when it was still a guide to good, as opposed to profitable books; a tail gunner in Europe in World War II; poetry editor of the Village Voice when it was the best newspaper in New York; a supporter of Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement, and the editor of Poets of World War II--published by Library of America.  I have The Sights Along the Harbor, published by Wesleyan University Press (2006) in front of me--here is a favorite poem of mine from that collection:

Nights
Drunk and weeping. It’s another night                                              at the live-in opera, and I figure it’s going to turn out badly for me. The dead next door accept their salutations, their salted notes, the drawn-out wailing. It’s we the living who must run for cover, meaning me. Mortality’s the ABC of it, and after that comes lechery and lying. And, oh, how to piece together a life from this scandal and confusion, as if the gods were inhabiting us or cohabiting with us, just for the music’s sake.