As a sequel to the September 6 post on Stink: Poetry and Prose of Detroit, here's a little more information about the poet/author, Mark C. Durfee, quoting him directly:
Durfee is thought to be an Americanized version of the French, Dupris. The family left France in the 16th century during the Huguenot oppression and found itself a hundred or so years later in New England via Old England as Durfys' and Durfees' The Durfees are still a large family in New England with banks and streets, schools and trash bins carrying on the name. My particular branch moved through the upper mid-west with a Durfee settling in MI doing what Durfees do best which apparently is; reproduce. My father Donal* B. Durfee married My mother Mary Elizabeth Stewart not long after they met. The old man was working at a Cunningham's drug store as a pharmacist and mom was just out of college. Mom was first generation American (Scots-Canadian) while pop's family had been here since the Mayflower or thereabouts. The marriage which lasted all of their lives spawned 5 kids of which I was the fourth. Born in 1954 I was not quite at the head of the Boomer generation and not quite the tail end of it. Not quite a hippie and not quite a disco dancer. I went to the same Catholic school from 1st grade to 11th grade when it closed. I had failed 9th grade Algebra twice and was not allowed to graduate early so I went to another HS and was politely asked to leave as soon as I had the 1/2 credit I needed. I have since then dropped basic algebra 5 more times, (my proudest failure).
I entered the US Navy in April of '72 and became a radar operator on a WWII era Destroyer. My sea duty lasted about 2 years and didn't take me any further afield than the Atlantic Ocean, Halifax NS to Jacksonville FL. In mid-74 the ship was running in hurricane seas and I was foolishly outside heading to my duty station when I took a rogue wave off the starboard side. I almost, but not quite got, to meet Poseidon that day and in return for not going over the side to see the old god, I took a fracture to the left elbow instead.Three days later I was off loaded in Newport RI and that was the last time I saw the ship. I went to Philadelphia Naval Medical Center and became drug addicted over the next year. I left Philadelphia in May of '75 in the midst of an extreme drug psychosis, I was 20. July 28th, 1975, the day I turned 21 I left Detroit and spent the next four years walking, hitchhiking and generally avoiding capture. I have seen North America from Cape North NS to San Diego, Chilliwak BC to Key West FL, Moose Factory Ont to New Orleans LA and points between. I've spent fair amounts of time in Philadelphia, New York City, Berkeley, Chicago, and came back to Detroit permanently in 1979.
While the tribe of heathens I was spawned from is well educated, rife with advanced degrees, I myself never completed any formal schooling beyond a for profit trade school that taught me fundamental auto mechanics, which I eventually excelled at as a Master Auto *ahem* Technician. The above paragraph is my Majoris Curriculum Vitae. I began, much to the shame & chagrin of my father, to write poetry when I was 14. I don't remember writing pining teenage love drivel because I am my mothers son. She fought for the rights of people in Detroit's worst neighborhoods as a social worker and she brought me on board at about 11 years old. We'll never know though because when I went in the navy someone burnt my journals. I didn't care but I didn't stop either. I just never kept anything I wrote after wards. That is until I met community college where I found some encouragement in the endeavor. In 2002 I began to keep, in a loose fashion, everything I wrote. I have seven completed full length manuscripts that need editing, over a hundred essays on various matters of social and political interests of mine and as of this writing somewhere between 2000 and 3000 pieces of verse. I used to be humble about the writing, giving the pat answer of "I write because I have to." Bullshit; I write because I can. God within me allowed me this talent, shows me ways to develop it and, I use it unashamedly. My grandmother Mary Stewart started me off in this poetic ideation. She was a housewife who had a professional life before marriage. She encouraged me with Frost, Sandburg, Dickens, Browning and Guest, among others. My personal favorites are Clemens, Crane, Bukowski (of course), Brautigan, with some of the Russians thrown in for measure Solzhenitsyn & Chekhov and some of my struggling contemporaries I read on the Internet.
As a matter of taste I do not struggle for rhyme or specifically defined meter but a simple flow in the patois of a certain piece. I believe that everything written should not only be readable but it also must be presentable in a spoken word venue. It is that balance I am working on now.
Durfee is thought to be an Americanized version of the French, Dupris. The family left France in the 16th century during the Huguenot oppression and found itself a hundred or so years later in New England via Old England as Durfys' and Durfees' The Durfees are still a large family in New England with banks and streets, schools and trash bins carrying on the name. My particular branch moved through the upper mid-west with a Durfee settling in MI doing what Durfees do best which apparently is; reproduce. My father Donal* B. Durfee married My mother Mary Elizabeth Stewart not long after they met. The old man was working at a Cunningham's drug store as a pharmacist and mom was just out of college. Mom was first generation American (Scots-Canadian) while pop's family had been here since the Mayflower or thereabouts. The marriage which lasted all of their lives spawned 5 kids of which I was the fourth. Born in 1954 I was not quite at the head of the Boomer generation and not quite the tail end of it. Not quite a hippie and not quite a disco dancer. I went to the same Catholic school from 1st grade to 11th grade when it closed. I had failed 9th grade Algebra twice and was not allowed to graduate early so I went to another HS and was politely asked to leave as soon as I had the 1/2 credit I needed. I have since then dropped basic algebra 5 more times, (my proudest failure).
I entered the US Navy in April of '72 and became a radar operator on a WWII era Destroyer. My sea duty lasted about 2 years and didn't take me any further afield than the Atlantic Ocean, Halifax NS to Jacksonville FL. In mid-74 the ship was running in hurricane seas and I was foolishly outside heading to my duty station when I took a rogue wave off the starboard side. I almost, but not quite got, to meet Poseidon that day and in return for not going over the side to see the old god, I took a fracture to the left elbow instead.Three days later I was off loaded in Newport RI and that was the last time I saw the ship. I went to Philadelphia Naval Medical Center and became drug addicted over the next year. I left Philadelphia in May of '75 in the midst of an extreme drug psychosis, I was 20. July 28th, 1975, the day I turned 21 I left Detroit and spent the next four years walking, hitchhiking and generally avoiding capture. I have seen North America from Cape North NS to San Diego, Chilliwak BC to Key West FL, Moose Factory Ont to New Orleans LA and points between. I've spent fair amounts of time in Philadelphia, New York City, Berkeley, Chicago, and came back to Detroit permanently in 1979.
While the tribe of heathens I was spawned from is well educated, rife with advanced degrees, I myself never completed any formal schooling beyond a for profit trade school that taught me fundamental auto mechanics, which I eventually excelled at as a Master Auto *ahem* Technician. The above paragraph is my Majoris Curriculum Vitae. I began, much to the shame & chagrin of my father, to write poetry when I was 14. I don't remember writing pining teenage love drivel because I am my mothers son. She fought for the rights of people in Detroit's worst neighborhoods as a social worker and she brought me on board at about 11 years old. We'll never know though because when I went in the navy someone burnt my journals. I didn't care but I didn't stop either. I just never kept anything I wrote after wards. That is until I met community college where I found some encouragement in the endeavor. In 2002 I began to keep, in a loose fashion, everything I wrote. I have seven completed full length manuscripts that need editing, over a hundred essays on various matters of social and political interests of mine and as of this writing somewhere between 2000 and 3000 pieces of verse. I used to be humble about the writing, giving the pat answer of "I write because I have to." Bullshit; I write because I can. God within me allowed me this talent, shows me ways to develop it and, I use it unashamedly. My grandmother Mary Stewart started me off in this poetic ideation. She was a housewife who had a professional life before marriage. She encouraged me with Frost, Sandburg, Dickens, Browning and Guest, among others. My personal favorites are Clemens, Crane, Bukowski (of course), Brautigan, with some of the Russians thrown in for measure Solzhenitsyn & Chekhov and some of my struggling contemporaries I read on the Internet.
As a matter of taste I do not struggle for rhyme or specifically defined meter but a simple flow in the patois of a certain piece. I believe that everything written should not only be readable but it also must be presentable in a spoken word venue. It is that balance I am working on now.
Here's a link to Mark C. Durfee aka Walking Man's blog:
http://themanwhowalksalonewalksfaster.blogspot.com/Today's Rune: Flow. *This is correct.
4 comments:
I like these follow-up commentaries. Good to learn a bit more about Mark.
Thank you again Erik. The curious spelling of my fathers name was one of the few things I never was able to find out. It seems that after his mother got divorced and remarried he became a persona non grata to his cousins and such.
Thanks y'all -- many thanks, indeed.
nice.
oh and it's someone you know too. cool.
Post a Comment