Morton Marcus (poet)



Morton Marcus (1936-2009) was an American poet who published more than 500 poems in literary journals across the country, including Poetry (Chicago), TriQuarterly, Ploughshares, Chelsea, The Chicago Review, The Iowa Review, Zyzzyva, Poetry Northwest, and The Denver Quarterly. Four times his work was selected to appear in prize poem annuals (The Borestone Mountain Awards of 1967 and 1975, and the 1985 and 1987 Anthology of Magazine Verse). His work has appeared in over 90 anthologies in the United States, Europe, and Australia. He also has served as the poet in residence for several universities, and led workshops at colleges across America. Marcus was also a long time co-host of KUSP radio's The Poetry Show, the longest running poetry radio show in the United States.

Marcus’s extensive poetry archive, working papers, and correspondence with a broad range of 20th century authors have been acquired by University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) Special Collections, where they will be made available to the public.

Outside of the literary world, Marcus created a sixteen part television review of film Movie Milestones which has been shown on cable networks throughout the United States, along with being the main visual source of film history at AFTRS, the Australian national film school. His film reviews became part of a television show Cinema Scene, shown in the San Francisco Bay Area, which he co-hosted with Richard von Busack. In addition to writing and reviewing movies, Marcus also taught film and English at Cabrillo College in Santa Cruz.

Publications
Morton Marcus wrote eleven volumes of published poetry:


 * Origins (6 editions 1969-1974)
 * The Santa Cruz Mountain Poems (3 editions 1972-1992)
 * Where the Oceans Cover Us (1972)
 * Armies Encamped in the Fields Beyond the Unfinished Avenues (1977)
 * Big Winds, Glass Mornings, Shadows Cast by Stars (2 editions 1981-1988)
 * Pages from a Scrapbook of Immigrants (1988)
 * When People Could Fly (1997)
 * Shouting Down the Silence: Verse Poems, 1988-2001 (pub. 2002)
 * Moments Without Names: New & Selected Prose Poems (2002)
 * Pursuing The Dream Bone (2007)
 * The Dark Figure in the Doorway: Last Poems (2010)

In addition to poetry, Morton Marcus also authored The Brezhnev Memo (1980) a novel, and Striking Through The Masks: A Literary Memoir (2008). Marcus also translated the works of Serbian poet Vasko Popa in The Star Wizard's Legacy(2010).