Ottone M. Riccio

Ottone M. Riccio, age 90, of Duxbury, better known as "Ricky", passed away peacefully on September 23, 2011 at the Weymouth Health Care Center in Weymouth. He is survived by his loving wife Dolores Stewart Riccio of Duxbury MA, his step-daughter Lucy-Marie Sanel of Plymouth MA, his sister Anna Riccio Morin of Florence MA, and six nieces and nephews. He will also be remembered warmly by the many devoted students he considered his "family". Ottone had many careers: he played alto sax and clarinet for the Ray Bellaire band in Providence RI, in the big band era. During WWII, he served as a corporal and radioman with the 18th Fighter Control Squadron in the Pacific Theater. After the war, he became Circulation and Acquisitions Librarian for the Air Force's Geophysical Research Library at Hanscom Field in Bedford MA. During the late 60's and 70's, he then left the library to pursue his own writing interests and to publish a literary magazine "Pyramid". By the end of the 70's, he had become a teacher of creative writing, a role he enjoyed fully and for which he will be especially remembered. He is the author of numerous books of poetry, a novel, and two influential texts on writing poetry.

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From The Tao of Poetry, 1964

You will experience a great deal of joy in writing poems. To discover your way into the poem is the holiest adventure of all. Your journey is into your ocean-self, there to become the poem. You feel; you hear letters vibrate, taut and resilient; lines pull inward, stretch out, close to circles; circles expand, contract, come into each other; features take their own shapes, float together; rhythm and sound deliver themselves, separate and in union. Form remains fluid. Meaning bursts through your poem-skin, breaking free in moment particles of moments. And the poem, in being released, is captured forever.

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From Pieces of Time, 1962


The Last Park


money strains through a bright copper colander
and all time is for sale

rubies x-rayed for laser potential sell cheaper
everything twists to beyond looking at

this daring we spawn in sweet enthusiasm
circles us in our sleep

the shops where we remembered are torn down
we leave our cars there now

no one thinks of tearing up the asphalt
to look for rusted sundials

we lift the days into a realm of blue music
hoping to wake ancestors with our drums

one last park
where the factory produced tranquilizers

you and I walk once at least
as if we owned the afternoon

no one roasts the trusting pigeons
over an impromptu fire

tomorrow
the ladies set up their bazaars



From On Pain of Discovery, 1968


Tea-Reads Leaving /​ Friday /​ 13 October 1967


how painful wide
guitar
guitar
this stained with pride
for us
for us inside
now strained and wide
guitar
guitar
that makes dark chords
glow red
live coals of why
the strings how words
unsaid
unsaid
whole words rise high
our kinds
our minds
of how wide dread
guitar
guitar

now frets glow red
and strings twang down
the keyboard town
they make
they break for us
for us inside
we hear the rain
against the roof

the chords
are words
the chords
are words

the words are sound
struck in the round
by fingers tight
with focused light

and on the wall
the brightdark sea
cracks into all
the forms
the forms
that cannot be

how painful wide
it all spells out
pain strikes the slide
augments the shout
backs up
backs up the glide

diminished pride
in round
struck sound
guitar
guitar
guitar


From The Tao of Poetry, 1994

(untitled)

the way the fan closes
an eyewink of grace
flashed against my watching
is the way my thought folds into itself
and in a breath
sketches your image on parchment
all the warmth
curved in the edge of love