E.D. Ridgell [Ed] is versatile and prolific in his interests. He has BFA and MFA degrees from MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art) with a minor in Art History. He taught secondary art for the Baltimore City Public Schools and retired from teaching in 1999 after thirty years as teacher, department head, and grant writer.
In a career paralleling teaching, Ed has been an active antique dealer and is still the sole owner of Line State Antiques, LLC, a business founded in 1980. He has participated in antique shows up and down the East Coast and his principle establishment is currently in Golden Lane Antique and Art Gallery in New Oxford, Pennsylvania.
Ed has deep roots to Maryland especially to the lower Chesapeake Bay; its history, culture, and environmental preservation. His other interests include world history, art history, genealogy, and art therapy.
Ed lives in Northern Maryland with his significant other and is the proud grandfather of three grandchildren.
Ed wrote his first poem shortly after the death of Tom, his significant other of twenty three years in 1999.
He immediately knew he had embarked on that search for the soul or the solid self.
Since those beginnings, Ed has read poetry in readings hosted by The Samaritan Counseling Center of Lancaster Pa.
For awhile he was a movie critic for Walt's World an online GLBT 'zine' on the social network site Journalspace. Some of these 'crits' can be read on pages 18 through 20 along with some short stories.
For some two years Ed acted as a moderator at Wordflair another online zine that is part of the Yuku network more British than American. He led a forum on Wordflair called "Taking Risks" where he encouraged his peers to "try one thing that frightens you every..." poem.
Six poems appear in 'A Bouquet of Poetry' an anthology compiled by S.M.Zang and Jean Lewis, c.2007. The word "bouguet" is derived from the Greek meaning a collection of. Details on ordering can be found at the bottom of page 5...a great gift and age appropriate for the older child or teenager who may be tomorrow's budding poet laureate although Ed is anything but a advocate of censorship in general regardless of age or circumstance.
Ed can be found meandering through cyberspace under the pseudonym of Hephaestion [AKA Heph] or variations on the name thereof.
Should any other poets, writers, zines, etc. wish to share links, please email the artist, and if both share similar feelings and considerations as to the Art of Poetry and art in general, it will be attempted to link any one to the other.
The above poem is very significant for me. I had occasion to see an exhibit of Courbet's and noticed how crudely some deer were rendered in some of his paintings. Upon research I found that Courbet came late to the vocation of painting and consequently had no formal training. I have come to the art of writing late, not until the age of fifty.
I was formally trained as a visual artist and for some thirty years the vocabulary I brought to any work of art was that of the elements and principles of design as used to describe painting or sculpture- the fine arts. That does not matter, however, as these are universal to all forms of art. The words are often different, however. The term meter and movement, for example would mean the same thing. Alliteration is simply a kind of pattern. I'll never have time to learn the extensive vocabulary that is unique to poetry and writing alone, but like Courbet I will use the time remaining to me to try and do so, while concentrating principally on the making of good written works without any real formal training in literature or writing. To some degree, I think this may very well work in my favor as I have less restrictions and presumed expectations to live up to. Art is universal and can be reduced to simple and easily understood principles and elements of design, but change in art often comes from thinking outside the box and by sheer accident resulting, in my opinion from the artist embracing the untried- the habit of taking risks. EDR.
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We sat on the field just below the Palace Green
and watched the fireworks
bursting o’er the Governor’s Palace
empty now of any foreign lord or lady.
It could be assumed that the company we kept
were all as one in their fidelity
to principles set in sacred and secular documents,
many of them seeded here in this city two centuries before.
I was so happy in that day’s company.
I was so happy sitting by your side.
We had many more years yet and many more fourths
before the coming of what all love affairs must assume.
We visited that city sometimes twice a year.
It was our blissful retreat. It fit us perfectly.
And so when you had passed o’er
taking with you half my deadened heart,
I mustered the strength to spread your ashes personally
between and under the Catalpa trees
on a cool July night that secreted
my private grief and that of those who chaperoned me.
the stark predator
back dropped by the dazzling sun.
I measure and reckon upon details;
the direction and velocity of winds.
My talons clutch in a last grip
and the beak, razor edged, rips and tears.
The aerie lies near the lake
in the shadow of the high mountain,
unlike the hawk roosting in the valley nearby,
deep within the screeching woodland.
Many take no heed of me
bewaring nothing soaring so faraway,
meandering in a distance too foreign
for them to see, or fear.
But, coming into that geography,
the boundary and parameter of my sharp sight,
I only need to pounce in a lightning catch and
swoop them up into some convenient perch.
Unlike them, trapped in a scheme
not of their making, no carrion do I seek.
No trap awaits me.
They are sited movement caught by my eye,
a tribute to be taken; ripped and torn,
pieced just so, for ripe and particular appetites.
The first course is mine and measured to my need.
The second, gleanings of the harvested carcass,
the smaller, savory pieces, I deliver to
frenzied, nestled eaglets hungry for my return.
I am forever soaring above,
seeking an unguarded opportunity,
when they chance a safety that does not exist.
This is my eminent rank. This is their lower link.
They feed me and mine according to that covenant,
governing all things, including me the eagle.
"Remember upon the conduct of each depends the fate of all.” - Alexander the Great
"I am for those who believe in loose delights, I share the midnight orgies of young men, I dance with the dancers and drink with the drinkers." – Walt Whitman
