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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Divine Innocence

The paradoxes of art are easier to grasp if one is willing to experience the abandonment of rationality. Otherwise, one is blocked and cornered at every turn. Perhaps this divine (discovering through intuition, penetrating the unknown, moving toward prophecy) madness might be better considered as divine innocence.But whether poet or audience, our initial exposure to the poem or work of art much not be tainted by any prior awareness or biases.

In further support of the importance of irrationality to the art is the mystery of art’s origins. The poem’s life-seed springs from a deeply hidden place protected from the light of consciousness…the linguistic symbols necessary for the expressing of the poem are reborn in this hidden place.

from The Tao of Poetry, 1994

“I didn’t arrive at my understanding of the fundamental laws of the universe through my rational mind.” Albert Einstein




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 Against a Wall of Light, 1964

as the city recedes

I read betrayal
in the nearness of trees and toads
the slithering of snakes
and the continual birth of light

I wear an animal mask
and eat acorns and roots
postponing the overwhelm of chaos

in the city I met
concrete and glass presenting brittle facades

metal arms of sprung windmills
turned slowly in their prescribed circles

what's needed is a permanent city
and doors and windows
that have actual rooms behind them

From Flowers of Winter, 2001

Lately

it seems an abundance of life is nearness to death
especially if we seek aspects of living with
determination as though to forestall the very goal
toward which we rush

why should we be afraid
if dying is the chance to rest for the duration of eternity
why fear the future will be empty are we not
in a hurry to use up the substance of ourselves?

death waits at the end of activity
I’m about to flip the paradox
if I lie very still
I will live forever