The Wurster Interviews, Part 1: Beginnings

My story begins in Clinton, Iowa. My father’s family is from there, although I was born in Moline, Illinois.

My father’s father was called “Doc” because he was a dentist. I was closer to my grandmother. My grandparents had a good library in their home and I was read to frequently as a child. I became able to read on my own at age 4.

Reading had a lot to do with my becoming a poet. I read a lot of American history: novels; retellings of Greek myths; and fairy tales by Grimm, Anderson, and Lang. I especially loved two books by Maude Warren: tellings of King Arthur and his knights, and Robin Hood and his Merry Men. I loved the justice, truth, honor, and chivalry in the Arthurian legends.

These were influences that took me away from mundane life and a dysfunctional family. Most poets, if not all, have unhappy childhoods. Poetry is a way to make sense of the world or create an alternative world—or both. For me, it was both.

I spent a lot of time reading and in my own dream-world, but I did have friends and usually took on a leadership role in our group.

The first poem that grabbed me was “The Highwayman” by Alfred Noyes. I read more of his work, but at the time this was the poem that impressed me.

My first two publications were in 1954, in the Fredericksburg Freelance Star. One was a Thanksgiving story about a turkey; the other was a Christmas story about Santa. I was so alienated from my parents that I never even mentioned my publications to them. It wasn’t that I tried to hide it from them; it just never occurred to me to tell them. They found out from other people remarking that they’d seen my poem in the paper.

I still have copies of every publication where I’ve been published.

We moved to Media, Pa. between my ninth- and tenth-grade years. There, I hung out with artistic kids and we talked about literature. We would walk in Kirk Lane Cemetery at night having deep discussions. By day I would walk there with my cat, Sandy.

I attended Dickinson College, where I was influenced by the beat writers, especially Jack Kerouac. I rejected suburban culture and was pretty wild in college. This is also where I became interested in jazz and film.

Dickinson had a literary magazine called The Hornbook, which I co-edited with Walter Rosenstein. He was the fiction editor; I was the poetry editor.

I graduated in 1962 and married in 1963. I had started working in the encyclopedia business during college, and I continued selling encyclopedias during this time. In 1964 we moved to Pittsburgh.

The difficult marriage and the demands of sales both contributed to my doing virtually no writing between 1963 and 1969.

In 1969, my wife inherited property near Camp Hill, Pa., and she and the kids moved there for the summer. This was when I renewed my commitment to poetry. In 1970, our marriage ended. The next year, I left sales and became a caseworker for Social Services. This job was more amenable to writing because my weekends and evenings were free.

I had already met Lloyd Johnson, a sort of street person, singer/songwriter, and writer—very talented. I also knew Gerry Rhodes, who was friends with August Wilson and Ed Roberson. Bob Starzenski was a co-worker at the Welfare Department. He had earned an MFA from SF State and studied under William Dickey and James Schevil.

I was living on Margaretta Street across from another poet, Ellen Judson; a group of us formed a workshop. Lloyd would not join. He and Gerry had a sort of rivalry and he felt small. That workshop didn't last long. Lloyd and I later met Dieter Weslowski, then known as Joseph Drexler, who had recently returned from Phoenix, Arizona.

My second wife, Susie, knew Keith Milton from Pitt. He taught a poetry class at CCAC on the North Side. The adult students wanted to continue the class as a workshop. Laura Smith, a librarian at the North Hills Public Library, offered the use of the library facilities to not only hold the workshop, but publish a poetry magazine called Write On. Keith invited me, Dieter, and Lloyd to this workshop. All of the other workshop members were from the suburbs except the three of us.

Different workshop members wanted different things out of the magazine. Some of us wanted a world-class literary journal; others wanted something to show to friends and family.

We left the North Hills workshop along with Vic Coccimiglio and J.W. Jansen to form Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange (PPE). We founded PPE to:

• Hold monthly, open workshops.
• Maintain constant communication among members.
• Develop services for poets in the community—not just poets associated with universities.
• Support poetry events.

In the 40 years since, Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange keeps changing; it's like looking at an amoeba under a microscope. We discovered over time that people were doing stuff that was unconnected to PPE, and we've reached out to them. Across all of the different groups in Pittsburgh, we know each other and are friends. Anyone who's a serious poet in Pittsburgh is at least an honorary member of PPE. As we've gotten old, other people have come up to fill in.

Next in Uppagus issue 4: Wurster's favorite anecdotes from the early days of PPE