John Gaumond is a retired teacher whose poetry and writing have appeared in The Leaflet, The Issue, Worcester Magazine, The Lancaster Times, Vox Poetica, The New England Educator, The Worcester Telegram and Gazette and The Longfellow Journal.  He was a finalist in the 1997 English Journal Literary Festival and a semi-finalist in the 1997 Worcester Magazine Poetry Contest.  John has been the featured reader at The Poetry Oasis, The Poet’s Parlor and Tatnuck Bookseller.  He hosts a poetry workshop at Borders in Shrewsbury on the first Wednesday of the month from 10 to 11:30 a.m.
     John is also an actor and director.  He has worked with The Barker Players, Blackbird Radio Theater (on WICN 90-5) and with The Audio Journal.
     He has a collection of 10,000 costumed super hero comic books, hundreds of radio shows from the Golden Age of Radio and most of the Saturday Matinee Cliffhanger Serials from the 1930’s and 40’s.
     John is an avid reader with a strong belief in literacy.  He brought the Reading Is Fundamental program to the McKay Campus School of Fitchburg State College in 1983 and, with the support of the PTO, has given over 40,000 books to students at the school.  A documentary film featuring John at the McKay School, Teachers’ Stories Children’s Lives, was broadcast nationally on PBS.  He (along with parents, teachers and children from McKay) was filmed by South Carolina Educational TV as part of the RIFNet series to be broadcast across the country.
     As a result of his commitment to children and reading, John was selected by the national headquarters of Reading Is Fundamental as the 1999 “Volunteer of the Year” for the Northeast Region.

     One of John’ poems is about having seen Jane Russell, Terry Moore, and Marilyn Monroe in person.  He has three slides of Marilyn that he took while on duty with the Air Force in Korea.
 

Samples of the poet’s work:

Finding the Words

With words I fiddle
some I whittle
just a little
in the middle
I try my wit
only a bit
to find a fit
for the fun of it

To complete my mission
I take a position
without permission
hoping for fission
in the commission
of each emission
to plan a submission

The aggregate I create
the amalgamate I perpetuate
may aggravate or infuriate
agitate or nauseate
medicate or motivate
saturate or satiate
facilitate or fascinate

I contemplate and cogitate
meditate and mediate
concentrate and calculate
deliberate and fluctuate
manipulate and eliminate
Sometimes even salivate
over each word’s weight
as I formulate and perpetrate
what I hope you appreciate
 

Hammurabi’s Code: 1998, 1945

In the Louvre I stand
before the slab of basalt
inscribed with
two hundred eighty-two transgressions.
I recall the infraction
recited by Miss Cronin
in her sixth grade classroom.

“If a man destroy
the eye of another man,
they shall destroy his eye.”

At recess, the class bully
slaps my face.
The stain of his challenge
shows raised and red.
Miss Cronin  demands
to know what happened.
“James slapped me.”
She orders us to stand
facing each other
in front of her and the class.
Her dark gray eyes squint
into stylus-formed impressions.
Her body stiffens
as she invokes Babylonian law.
“Slap his face!”
 

Jane, Terry and Marilyn

Summer, 1952:
East Park, Worcester, Massachusetts
I work as a stage hand for Jane Russell’s
One night only performance.
Billboard posters from “The Outlaw”
Show her reclining in the stable
Project no image of a virgin in the manger.
I stand ten feet from her full figure
It takes an act of Contrition and three Hail Mary’s
To absolve me of my impure thoughts.

Christmas, 1953:
K-2 Air Force Base, Taegu, Korea
Terry Moore is featured in Bob Hope’s USO show.
Forbidden to wear her mink bikini,
She sashays on stage in a full-length mink coat,
Flings it open revealing the skimpiest bikini imaginable.
I sit in the front row as she struts her stuff.
The chaplain understands loneliness
Grants me absolution for sins of the flesh.

March, 1954:
Headquarters, 311th Fighter-Bomber Squadron
Marilyn Monroe arrives on a morale building tour.
My C. O. heads the “brass only” welcoming committee.
In the military rank has its privileges.
Being necessary is a privilege regardless of rank.
“Grab the keys, Gaumond, you‘re taking us out to the runway.”
“Permission to bring my camera, Sir.”
“Permission granted. Just don’t get in front of any officers.”

I remember Jane and Terry.
But, every day, I enjoy my photo of Marilyn
Looking over an officer’s shoulder
Smiling at me.
 

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