Barbara Moraff
Encyclopedia
Barbara Moraff is an American
poet of the Beat generation
currently living in Vermont
. She continues to write, and also creates pottery
and cooks
.
called Moraff "the baby of the Beat generation" because she was just 18 when they met but was already being published by Leroi Jones and in Evergreen Review
. She was reading in various NYC coffeehouses when she was able to get out of a very restrictive home environment—complicated by plastic surgery needed to repair her face after a mutilation. In a 1964 interview with Paideuma (University of Maine), Kerouac called Moraff "the best girl poet writing in America". "
Moraff and her lover moved to Vermont in late 1961, where they built a small one-room cabin on land belonging to a former Black Mountain College
student with whom they exchanged work for rent. At that time Barbara was experimenting writing SOUND poetry. Robert Duncan
sent a poem by her to Denise Levertov
.
Moraff's first child, Alesia, was born in 1966, and shortly afterward Moraff bought a remote hilltop farm in Strafford, Vermont
. She taught herself organic farming practices and for many years raised the family's food and kept a cow and two goats. She made cheese and studied medicinal herbs. Her son Marco was born in 1971. In 1972 he was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis
.
In 1973, Moraff founded Vermont Artisans,http://www.vtartisans.com/ Vermont's first craft sales and educational cooperative. She studied human nutrition and after 3 years of research devised a nutritional plan for Marco, which resulted in the writing of The Cookbook/Handbook to Nutrition for Kids Who Have Cystic Fibrosis. It was considered crazy to even discuss nutritional problems, let alone write a cookbook for children who required enzymes at every meal in order to metabolize food nutrients. Moraff self-published the book; it can be found in the CF Foundation's library, and is used by physicians who agree with her commonsense approach of telling one's child that it is his/her body that is ill, not the child-as-person.
Marco grew healthy and ran long-distance track in high school. He became an artist, and many of his works are now in private collections. He also designed and built furniture using driftwood, branchwood, marble, and slate. He died in April 2007 as a result of his cystic fibrosis
.
Moraff met Chogyam Trungpa
in 1974 through Allen Ginsberg
. She thought she could learn Tibetan Buddhist breathing methods to help Marco develop lungs strong enough to resist the early ravages of CF.
Moraff continued her Buddhist practice and study, attending the last seminary at which Trungpa was present, and later, ngedon school.
Moraff began writing poetry again in 1976 when asked by a feminist lesbian press to sit on its editorial board. There she edited the magazine CONCH
and co-edited an anthology of local women's writings and art. This included the first published work of Louise Erdrich
.
Moraff is currently (2007) editing and collating a collection of previously published and unpublished work and is also working on a new collection (tentative title Machig Labdron Songs). Forthcoming in late spring 2007 is a booklet from Longhouse Publishers, FOOTPRINT.
Although partially disabled, Moraff is still able to produce some pottery, mostly commissioned dinner sets. In the summer, she bakes wholegrain sourdough bread and sells it at local farmers' markets.
Machigma to Chundrak Dorje (Steven Seagal
)
Well, I've given up on time
It's overrated
& simplicity? a few wild
with domesticated
flowers in a simpatico vase.
A letter arrives postmarked April
in July, my month. Got lost. Got found. Found
my box. Well, it's about Stanley. Stanley died.
Of a self-inflicted life.
& someone shot his Beagle. That dog was his
life.
Petra says she finds traces he left
in the woods he loved but wonders why
he drug a wagonwheel upside Boomer Mountain
& left it leaning on his mother's grace
stone instead of flowers even plastic & why he left
backseat of the old blue Valiant
just inside the line of balsams facing
my old house. Well, he had to keep
an eye on the hippies
he believed we were because only crazy hippies
would hv come on purpose to thse woods
back of nowhere. I think I left
someething there also, like a poem about Stan
& his Percherons sugaring in the cathedral
of the cold Spring trees. oh it was real
Copyright Barbara Moraff 2006
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
poet of the Beat generation
Beat generation
The Beat Generation refers to a group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired...
currently living in Vermont
Vermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
. She continues to write, and also creates pottery
Pottery
Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...
and cooks
Cooking
Cooking is the process of preparing food by use of heat. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely across the world, reflecting unique environmental, economic, and cultural traditions. Cooks themselves also vary widely in skill and training...
.
Life
Jack KerouacJack Kerouac
Jean-Louis "Jack" Lebris de Kerouac was an American novelist and poet. He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his spontaneous method of writing, covering topics such as Catholic...
called Moraff "the baby of the Beat generation" because she was just 18 when they met but was already being published by Leroi Jones and in Evergreen Review
Evergreen Review
Evergreen Review is a U.S.-based literary magazine founded by Barney Rosset, publisher of Grove Press. It existed in print from 1957 through 1973, and was re-launched online in 1998...
. She was reading in various NYC coffeehouses when she was able to get out of a very restrictive home environment—complicated by plastic surgery needed to repair her face after a mutilation. In a 1964 interview with Paideuma (University of Maine), Kerouac called Moraff "the best girl poet writing in America". "
Moraff and her lover moved to Vermont in late 1961, where they built a small one-room cabin on land belonging to a former Black Mountain College
Black Mountain College
Black Mountain College, a school founded in 1933 in Black Mountain, North Carolina, was a new kind of college in the United States in which the study of art was seen to be central to a liberal arts education, and in which John Dewey's principles of education played a major role...
student with whom they exchanged work for rent. At that time Barbara was experimenting writing SOUND poetry. Robert Duncan
Robert Duncan (poet)
Robert Duncan was an American poet and a student of H.D. and the Western esoteric tradition who spent most of his career in and around San Francisco. Though associated with any number of literary traditions and schools, Duncan is often identified with the poets of the New American Poetry and Black...
sent a poem by her to Denise Levertov
Denise Levertov
-Early life and influences:Levertov was born and grew up in Ilford, Essex.Couzyn, Jeni Contemporary Women Poets. Bloodaxe, p74 Her mother, Beatrice Spooner-Jones Levertoff, came from a small mining village in North Wales...
.
Moraff's first child, Alesia, was born in 1966, and shortly afterward Moraff bought a remote hilltop farm in Strafford, Vermont
Strafford, Vermont
Strafford is a town in Orange County, Vermont, United States. The population was 1,045 at the 2000 census. The town of Strafford was created on August 12, 1761 by way of a royal charter which King George III of England issued to Governor Benning Wentworth of New Hampshire...
. She taught herself organic farming practices and for many years raised the family's food and kept a cow and two goats. She made cheese and studied medicinal herbs. Her son Marco was born in 1971. In 1972 he was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis
Cystic fibrosis
Cystic fibrosis is a recessive genetic disease affecting most critically the lungs, and also the pancreas, liver, and intestine...
.
In 1973, Moraff founded Vermont Artisans,http://www.vtartisans.com/ Vermont's first craft sales and educational cooperative. She studied human nutrition and after 3 years of research devised a nutritional plan for Marco, which resulted in the writing of The Cookbook/Handbook to Nutrition for Kids Who Have Cystic Fibrosis. It was considered crazy to even discuss nutritional problems, let alone write a cookbook for children who required enzymes at every meal in order to metabolize food nutrients. Moraff self-published the book; it can be found in the CF Foundation's library, and is used by physicians who agree with her commonsense approach of telling one's child that it is his/her body that is ill, not the child-as-person.
Marco grew healthy and ran long-distance track in high school. He became an artist, and many of his works are now in private collections. He also designed and built furniture using driftwood, branchwood, marble, and slate. He died in April 2007 as a result of his cystic fibrosis
Cystic fibrosis
Cystic fibrosis is a recessive genetic disease affecting most critically the lungs, and also the pancreas, liver, and intestine...
.
Moraff met Chogyam Trungpa
Chögyam Trungpa
Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche was a Buddhist meditation master and holder of both the Kagyu and Nyingma lineages, the eleventh Trungpa tülku, a tertön, supreme abbot of the Surmang monasteries, scholar, teacher, poet, artist, and originator of a radical re-presentation of Shambhala vision.Recognized...
in 1974 through Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
. She thought she could learn Tibetan Buddhist breathing methods to help Marco develop lungs strong enough to resist the early ravages of CF.
Moraff continued her Buddhist practice and study, attending the last seminary at which Trungpa was present, and later, ngedon school.
Moraff began writing poetry again in 1976 when asked by a feminist lesbian press to sit on its editorial board. There she edited the magazine CONCH
Conch
A conch is a common name which is applied to a number of different species of medium-sized to large sea snails or their shells, generally those which are large and have a high spire and a siphonal canal....
and co-edited an anthology of local women's writings and art. This included the first published work of Louise Erdrich
Louise Erdrich
Karen Louise Erdrich, known as Louise Erdrich, is an author of novels, poetry, and children's books featuring Native American heritage. She is widely acclaimed as one of the most significant writers of the second wave of what critic Kenneth Lincoln has called the Native American Renaissance...
.
Moraff is currently (2007) editing and collating a collection of previously published and unpublished work and is also working on a new collection (tentative title Machig Labdron Songs). Forthcoming in late spring 2007 is a booklet from Longhouse Publishers, FOOTPRINT.
Although partially disabled, Moraff is still able to produce some pottery, mostly commissioned dinner sets. In the summer, she bakes wholegrain sourdough bread and sells it at local farmers' markets.
Poem
Here is one of the Machig poems:Machigma to Chundrak Dorje (Steven Seagal
Steven Seagal
Steven Frederic Seagal is an American action film star, producer, writer, martial artist, guitarist and reserve deputy sheriff. A 7th-dan black belt in Aikido, Seagal began his adult life as an Aikido instructor in Japan...
)
Well, I've given up on time
It's overrated
& simplicity? a few wild
with domesticated
flowers in a simpatico vase.
A letter arrives postmarked April
in July, my month. Got lost. Got found. Found
my box. Well, it's about Stanley. Stanley died.
Of a self-inflicted life.
& someone shot his Beagle. That dog was his
life.
Petra says she finds traces he left
in the woods he loved but wonders why
he drug a wagonwheel upside Boomer Mountain
& left it leaning on his mother's grace
stone instead of flowers even plastic & why he left
backseat of the old blue Valiant
just inside the line of balsams facing
my old house. Well, he had to keep
an eye on the hippies
he believed we were because only crazy hippies
would hv come on purpose to thse woods
back of nowhere. I think I left
someething there also, like a poem about Stan
& his Percherons sugaring in the cathedral
of the cold Spring trees. oh it was real
Copyright Barbara Moraff 2006
Publishers
Barbara's publishers: Toothpaste Press, Potes & Poets Press, Longhouse, Coffeehouse Press, White Pine Press, O'Leary Family, Nomad London, Totem-Corinth (4 Young Lady Poets), Snakestail/High risk (A Different Beat), and the usual "many magazines & journals" & anthologies including Evergreen Review, Yögen, Trobar, Kauri, Femora, Fuckyou, Beatitude, Bluebeat, Beat Scene, The Nation, Yale Penny Poems, Virginia Quarterly, Origin, Longhouse, Wormwood Review, Rosebud, Cedar Rock, Plucked Chicken, Wildflower, Van Gogh's Ear, Valley News, L.A. Weekly, Vajradhaty Sun, Sulfur, Cipher Journal, Abraxas, Bloodroot, et. Barbara also appears in two movies: an anti-war film Button, Button (aired on CBS) and Enlightened Society (Vajradhatu Films).Poetry
(Morning Coffee Chapbook), (Scout)- Open to the Other
- Lotus Petals
- Ahh, Shadowplay, 1992