This is Poetry Moment on WPSU, a weekly program featuring the work of contemporary Pennsylvania poets. Your host is poet and author Marjorie Maddox, a 2023 Monson Arts Fellow, author of more than 20 books, and Professor Emerita of English and creative writing at the Lock Haven campus of Commonwealth University.
Welcome to Poetry Moment. I’m Marjorie Maddox
Ask anyone over 70, and most Americans will remember where they were on November 22nd, 1963, the day JFK was assassinated. Jerry Wemple’s poem, “November 1963,” recounts a soldier returning home, only to learn the tragic news. The poet and veteran states, “I was trying to describe what I felt was a shift in America. [Although] I was a toddler at the time … hearing adults talk about it was among my earliest memories. It…mark[ed] a transitional point in their lives…. My mother had a portrait of JFK in her living room until she passed away.”
Wemple is an award-winning poet and prose writer who has published four poetry collections, most recently We Always Wondered What Became of You from Broadstone Books. He is co-editor, with Marjorie Maddox, of the recently published anthology Keystone Poetry: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania, and its predecessor, Common Wealth, both published by Pennsylvania State University Press. He also co-edited the anthology Rivers, Ridges, and Valleys: Essays on Rural Pennsylvania, released earlier this year from Catamount Press.
Wemple, who served seven years in the Navy, including…deployments on an aircraft carrier, includes a service member in his poem “November 1963.” He explains, “In military units there are always comings and goings…. However, service life, especially in those pre-internet days, can be somewhat isolating, each unit a bit shut off from the civilian world. I imagined someone …. headed home unaware of what had taken place.”
Here are excerpts from “November 1963” by Jerry Wemple
November 1963 [excerpts]
Section I.
JFK ruined it,
walking down Pennsylvania Avenue,
hatless, in 20-degree January.
Standing on the platform next to him,
Eisenhower,
with his Khrushchev face,
forced to doff his top,
revealed the bald lie of the fifties.
Even LBJ had to take his hat off
to shade Frost’s poetry.
Now we are all
uncovered, unprotected.
Our sons don’t know how
to wear hats.
They wear caps backwards,
ignorant of our loss….
The rest of us
remain hatless.
Or pretend. Don some
musty felt fedora, but
it’s only a remembrance,
out of place now.
All because JFK
rode hatless, topless,
through the streets of Dallas.
Section III.
I got out
of the Army that morning
and was glad to be going home
for Thanksgiving, for good.
On Route 15, hitchhiking
to save money,
a farmer in a blue pick-up
stopped for me three miles
outside Gettysburg. Told me
the news. Didn’t say another word.
Just dropped me off in Carlisle.
This poem comes from Jerry Wemple’s first collection, You Can See It from Here, which won the 2000 Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award.
Those were excerpts from “November 1963” by Jerry Wemple. Thanks for listening.
Listen for Poetry Moment with Marjorie Maddox Mondays during Morning Edition and All Things Considered on WPSU. You can more episodes at wpsu.org/poetrymoment.
Our theme music is by Eric Ian Farmer.
