Joseph Ceravolo

Joseph Ceravolo Poems

Joseph Ceravolo Biography

A poet sometimes associated with the New York School of poets, Joseph Ceravolo began writing poems in 1957 while completing his Army service in Germany. In 1959, Ceravolo earned a degree in civil engineering from the City College of New York and enrolled in Kenneth Koch’s poetry workshop at the New School for Social Research in Manhattan. The New York–born son of Italian immigrants, Ceravolo died at age 54 after publishing several books, establishing a career as a hydraulics engineer, and raising a family in New Jersey. His 1968 collection, Spring in This World of Poor Mutts, was published by Columbia University Press and won the first Frank O’Hara Award for poetry—“intended to encourage the writing of good new experimental poetry.” Ceravolo’s other publications include Fits of Dawn, published in 1965 by close friend Ted Berrigan’s C Press; The Green Lake Is Awake (1994), with poems selected by Larry Fagin, Kenneth Koch, Charles North, Ron Padgett, David Shapiro, and Paul Violi; INRI, (1979); Millennium Dust (1982), which includes poems later anthologized in The Poets of the New York School; Transmigration Solo (1979); and Wild Flowers Out of Gas (1967).)

The Best Poem Of Joseph Ceravolo

O Heart Uncovered

We lived in province snow range
and something that we uncover
is like living
in one Arizona room
when we discover all we owe
to darkness
we never really know.

Tomorrow is the national holiday for independence—
no more left.
For the first time
we see the mountains
with snow on them pulling away
from the mountains and clouds.

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