I think that when I first met Lee Perron, I had just left my first sophomore year of college. I had gone to high school at the Dana Hall School in Wellesley, MA. Whereas for some people, boarding school was a great problem, for me it was stupendous fun. (Thanks to Susan Lodge, Kay McGee and others). I was very stimulated by the academics there. I had teachers and mentors who met and exceeded any hopes I had from them.
But huge changes were in the air. I had been infatuated by the bohemian life of dark coffee houses where good and horrible poetry was being read, where shit wine was served, where people looked full of angst and existential pain. By senior year I had the most sought after wardrobe in my dorm. I had black tights, saggy short wool skirts and over sized sweaters that I had gotten from my brother.
We had to apply to college and I applied to Connecticut College for Women. Mom had gone there and she had gone to Dana. When the acceptance call came during spring break, I told them that I wasn't interested. The picture that kept popping into my head was that it would be four more years of Dana Hall, just in another gorgeous setting. I had done Dana. I had loved my experience. I had managed not to be kicked out, which was necessary because I was a scholarship kid. (No second chances) I wanted different.
Well, after all the acceptance letters had gone out, options of different were somewhat limited. I ended up going to Hartford College for Women and living at home. God. But this progressive little college was just the right thing for me at that moment. (1962). The idea behind the school was to provide a top notch education at a very affordable cost. My father was involved in this in some way. So, the school had no faculty of its own, and the profs came from several local colleges; Smith, Mt. Holyoke, Trinity, and maybe Yale (I can't remember). I met really brilliant women and teachers. I met guys. (remember that almost all the schools were single sex in those days).
I met Bobbin, one of the smartest people I have ever known and lots of fun. I had one advantage over Bobbin which was Dana Hall. I didn't have her smarts, but I had had a better secondary education. We vied for every honor in the school and we were neck and neck. I won. But that was just our personal friendship, the thing that was amazing was that every class we took was better than the next and it was one of those magic years when everything came together. I have heard that today a lot of freshman classes are kind of repeat stuff. We took World Religions which focused on great revolutions in thinking and social changes. We read Les Mis in french class. We studied art history. Everything flowed. We won tennis matches.
We went to Yale for weekend parties. We met the DKE house at Trinity College. The DKE house could have been the model for the movie Animal House. Right time, Right cast of characters, except for some unknown reason, it had collected the great writers of the school. It was a notorious party house, but everyone was in their spare time from social activities, writing, writing , writing.
There were two recent graduates who were the stuff of myth and legend when we hit the scene. They were the most brilliant, the most quirky, the most revered Lee Perron and Peter Fish. I have talked before about "more' Peter Fish. I was nervous when I met Lee the first time. What if I came across as stupid? What if I didn't understand his genius? What if he didn't like me?
What if, as it turned out, nothing like that mattered? It didn't because here was a man I could sit at the feet of an soak up poetry, ideas, as well as party hearty. Lee was larger tan life at that time. I mean he was then a huge guy. He ate and drank and smoked more than anyone I had ever known. He had (has) a mind that remembers and puts together ideas. More about Lee's ideas and humor at another time. Later when he was at Stamford he taught me Medieval poetry. He took (takes) me on nature walks that open my eyes to myriad beautiful things that I miss. He wrote poetry his whole life. He, made books, he created art. In my cosmology he is still among the walking Gods.
I am sharing a poem of his from a recently published book. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. You can see what I mean about nature, probing ideas, big thinking. Enjoy!
FALL ARRIVES
Fall arrives, time’s most favored season—
at last the heart, the mind loosens its fist
so that I no longer need to know who I am
I return to the hills and the great presences—
light, heat, clouds, the bull pines—
to recover for myself the purity of the falling world
to enfold it like a pearl in the mind’s silence
I read the calligraphy of the oaks against
the fading skies, the grass bending in the meadow,
the last robins— I’m a circle reaching
the first place for the first time
for in youth among fall leaves I refused
to acknowledge the ancient writing—
that the basket of summer empties, that
the hours of men are as wind-driven clouds—
and yet among fall leaves
I was overjoyed with the beauty of loss
now I stand on autumn’s wooded knoll
that my life too may vanish,
that night may fall into the earth’s arms
time is calling her trout
from their playgrounds in the sea
to river mouth, and redemption, and fury
it is by means of the long delay
that we come to the righteousness of passion.
Celtic Light
Poems 1985-2010
by Lee Perron
published by
Word Palace Press, San Luis Obispo, CA 93406
wordpalacepress.com
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