Dan Masterson



Dan Masterson (born February 22, 1934) is an American poet born in Buffalo, New York, United States (US). He became a poet after several jobs as an actor, narrator, disc jockey (DJ), lay missionary worker, advertising copywriter, and theatrical public relations director.

Life
Masterson was born to Stephen and Kathleen Masterson in 1934, during the depression era, and was the youngest of three children. He attended St. Paul's Parochial School in the Buffalo suburb of Kenmore, and graduated from Kenmore High School in 1952; Masterson was the president of his graduating class. Both parents nurtured his poetic development.

It is reported that Masterson started writing poetry in third grade and hid it in an orangewood box under his bed. During third grade, in June, he showed a poem to his teacher, Sister Helena. Helena started reading the poem, but stopped and said, "There's an error in the second stanza. Do you know what a stanza is, Daniel? [Masterson did] If you find the error and fix it perhaps I'll read the rest." "No you won't," Masterson replied, "because I won't show it to you." Masterson continued to write, but reportedly didn't show another poem to anyone until he arrived at Syracuse University in New York, where he shared a piece with Professor Norman J. Whitney as part of Norman's short story course. Whitney commended Masterson's poetic talent.

In ninth grade, Masterson started drumming his hands on desk tops, tables, car fenders and any other surfaces he encountered. Masterson's parents consequently bought him a drum kit and he taught himself how to play. Masterson sneaked out to downtown Buffalo on weeknights to visit the recognized jazz clubs. The young drum enthusiast walked into various hang-outs and he was able to sit-in for the professional drummers when given the chance.

Masterson studied at Canisius College and graduated from Syracuse University in 1956, in what later became the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. After college, he worked as a disc jockey, back in Buffalo, on WBNY, hosting "Mystic Midnight," a jazz show, from midnight to 3 a.m. After serving in the Signal Corps, he hired on to promote traveling Broadway plays and musicals spanning 110 cities, while his wife established a career as a Madison Avenue copywriter. Suddenly, they gave their belongings and bank accounts away and became lay missionaries headed for Chile; however, they changed their minds upon the birth of their daughter.

They made their way across the Hudson on a half-tank of gas, to Rockland County where Dan became a substitute high school teacher, then becoming a full-time teacher, before joining the English faculty at Rockland Community College, where he has remained since the mid sixties. He and Janet divide their time between their home in Pearl River and their cabin in the high-peak region of the Adirondacks.

Literary career
Dan Masterson's first book, ON EARTH AS IT IS, was published in 1978, by The University of Illinois Press, and was one of six finalists in The AWP series in Poetry. He is a biographee in CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN AUTHORS, and has been featured twice in "The Writers Almanac" with Garrison Keillor, as well as on the nationally syndicated film series, The Christophers, produced by NBC-TV; the series devoted five programs to him and his work. Since 1965, he has given more than one thousand poetry readings, lectures, and seminars on the national poetry circuit. He has introduced a number of literary evenings at The NYC 92nd Street YMHA Poetry Center, including those honoring Anne Sexton, Miller Williams, Joseph Heller, Anthony Hecht, James Dickey, and Derek Walcott.

His work has appeared in an eclectic array of journals and magazines, including Poetry; The New Yorker; Esquire; Ploughshares; Poetry Northwest; Prairie Schooner; Hotel Amerika; and The London Magazine, as well as The Paris; Ontario; Sewanee; Hudson; Yale; Gettysburg; Massachusetts; and Georgia Reviews.

In 1986, Masterson was elected to membership in Pen International in recognition of his first two volumes of verse: ON EARTH AS IT IS -and- THOSE WHO TRESPASS. The complete texts of those two volumes are available online in the permanent collection of The Contemporary American Poetry Archives (http://capa.conncoll.edu). He's been a manuscript judge for The Associated Writing Programs' national manuscript competition, and continues as a contributing editor to the annual PUSHCART PRIZE ANTHOLOGY. He has also been the recipient of two writing fellowships from The State University of New York, and was the first Writer-in-Residence at The Chautauqua Writers Center. He is the editor of the international ENSKYMENT POETRY ANTHOLOGY (http://www.enskyment.org) which he founded in 2005. In 2006, Syracuse University's Bird Library assumed stewardship of "The Dan Masterson Papers" for its Special Collections Research Center.

Teaching
A recipient of the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching, Masterson has taught at Rockland Community College (RCC), State University of New York, since the mid sixties. During eighteen of those years, he also served as an adjunct full professor at Westchester County's Manhattanville College, directing the poetry and screenwriting programs. He continues his affiliation with the school through a graduate poetry writing course he offers online. Upon his retirement from Manhattanville, the college's Board of Trustees established The Dan Masterson Prize in Screenwriting.

Masterson remains grateful to many fellow poets who have supported his work from the beginning, including Richard Eberhart, Anne Sexton, James Dickey, Miller Williams, John Allman, Derek Walcott, and Donald Hall. Two of his earliest mentors were the Pulitzer Prize winning poets, Marya Zaturenska and her husband Horace Gregory, who lived in Rockland County for many years. Recognizing the importance of critique and citing the lack of this availability for young writers, Masterson created a website called Poetry Master (http://www.poetrymaster.com) where any aspiring poet can personally send a poem, to which he will respond with constructive criticism. Ever the teacher, Masterson continues to work with young poets from the states as well as others around the globe including Croatia, Syria, UK, Ireland, France, Greece, Sweden, Australia, Tibet, Uganda, Poland, Kenya, Turkey, South Africa, India, Sudan, and Indonesia among many others.

Writing
Masterson's writing has been characterized as extensively layered, narrative, free verse. His poems deal with a variety of subject matter: from our universal existential dilemmas to our relationship with the natural world. Human suffering is a recurring theme as seen vividly in his first two volumes, ON EARTH AS IT IS and THOSE WHO TRESPASS. Masterson does not portray suffering for suffering's sake. In his third collection, WORLD WITHOUT END, he creates poems that celebrate life's eternal beauty, weaving beaver, bear, lynx, and humans into a world that is not filled with romantic ideals, but a realism that recognizes that pain is unavoidable and even necessary in life's cycles. His forthcoming fifth volume of poetry, THAT WHICH IS SEEN, is a collection of 36 ekphrastic poems inspired by such paintings as Picasso's "Le Repas Frugal" and George Bellows' "Stag at Sharkey's," after which the poem "Fist Fighter" was written.

Masterson's approach to poetry is rooted in the physical. He uses specific techniques that he has developed over the years to aid him in his writing. When he was seven and having trouble with a bully, his father mounted a speed bag on their basement ceiling, stood him on a milk crate, and taught him to use his fists. It became a habit, and he still has it. Each morning, he pounds out the 26 poetic meters on the bag. He does the same with sticks, sitting behind his drum kit. Both exercises infuse his body and mind with the rhythms that make their way into his poems. He also carries "relics" in his pants pockets, such as one of his father's stubby screwdrivers, a drum key, and the latch-hook from a screen door. They keep his mind on the poem in progress throughout the day, helping him to think as his characters might, and react as they would. While working on "Fist Fighter," a hunk of rubber hose was a reminder of the rods boxers held in their palms while wrapping their fists with gauze and tape before gloves were introduced to the sport. Masterson is a strong believer in revision and research, investing as much as 400 hours in the creation of a poem.

Recognition

 * Poetry Northwest Bullis Prize
 * The Borestone Mountain Poetry Award
 * Pushcart Prize 1978
 * Pushcart Prize 1988
 * The CCLM Fels Award
 * Rockland County (NY) Poet Laureate 2009-2011
 * Rockland County (NY) Poet Laureate 2011-2013

Poetry

 * On Earth As It Is - University of Illinois Press 1978
 * Those who Trespass - University of Arkansas Press 1985
 * World Without End - University of Arkansas Press 1991
 * All Things, Seen and Unseen - University of Arkansas Press 1997

Anthologies

 * Contemporary Poetry in America - Random House
 * The Best Poems of 1976 - Pacific Books
 * The Pushcart Prize Anthology III - Pushcart Press
 * Light Year - Bits Press
 * Patterns of Poetry - LSU Press
 * The Pushcart Prize Anthology XIII - Pushcart Press
 * Vital Signs - The University of Wisconsin Press
 * After the Storm - Maisonneuve Press
 * The New Geography of Poets - The University of Arkansas Press
 * The Intercultural Nation - McGraw Hill
 * Heart to Heart: New Poems Inspired by 20th Century Art - Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
 * Elements of Literature - Houghton-Mifflin
 * Holt Language Arts - Holt
 * Poets Against the War - online anthology
 * Caught in the Net - Poetry Kit UK
 * Perfect in Their Art: Poems from Homer to Ali - Southern Illinois University Press
 * The Poets' Guide to the Birds - Anhinga Press