On this episode of Grief & Gratitude, we’re delighted to be in conversation with Peter Quinn, poet and novelist. Peter reads two of his poems, “Dad’s Words” and “Double Tap,” both around his father’s death. When Peter was eight, his father’s death at sea was reported while his father survived. “Dad’s Words” combines Peter’s experience with believing his father died with his father’s reportage of what happened. Peter asks, “How do you talk about what happened to you while understanding what happened to them at the same time?” When Peter was nineteen, his father died at sea.
In this tender conversation Peter shares how his grief has shifted over time, how he supports others in their grief by being a listener. He’s learned to be with people who are grieving. “Their grief is what needs the tending. I try not to talk about my grief when somebody else is having grief. It’s not a comparing.”
Every year on the anniversary of his father’s death, Peter toasts him. He’s raised a scotch all these years and shared the toast, the remembering with others. He tell us, “Anyone grieving the loss of someone or something. You’re lucky you had somebody worth missing.”
Peter Quinn is a graduate of Lewis and Clark College, and studied with poets Vern Rutsala, Tony Ostroff and William Stafford. In 1976 he received and Academy of American Poets Award.
His first book of poetry, Painting Circles on Straight Highways, was published by Irenicon Press in 2012. His second book of poetry, small things, was recently published by Turning Point Press. He hopes his almost finished novel, Lady, Lucifer and Coward will fill in the many blanks of his grandfather's life through the alchemy of fiction.
You can find out more about Peter here: https://www.petergquinn.com
Anne Gudger's memoir, THE FIFTH CHAMBER, a memoir of loss and love, is available for pre-order at your local bookstore and on Amazon https://bit.ly/3nZIvEy and Barnes & Noble https://bit.ly/3Mt7Xg1
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