About Peter E. Murphy :|: Press Peter's Principles From New Jersey Lifestyle Magazine, Spring 2010 He's a poet. He's a teacher of poets. Most of all, he gives an ever-widening circle of writers comfortable havens where they can create, cavort, and be shielded from the clang of daily life-for at least a sufficient stint to pen a few glorious passages. by CAROL PLUM-UCCI  At Peter Murphy's January retreat in Cape May, one novelist
flies past him in the Grand Hotel dining hall, realizes this is
the special face among the 250 finishing breakfast, and skids on
the breaks. She hugs him, saying, "Thanks for all of this. If
you ever die, we'll kill you." He disentangles himself aptly.
Murphy isn't comfortable with compliments, and why he does all
he does for writers is a bit of a mystery. You'd think it might
be for lines like "If you ever die, we'll kill you." There's
little money in helping poets etcetera buff up their pages.But life is like the good writing Murphy cultivates in others: There's that small twist wrapped inside that bigger twist that compels a reader onward. The small twist is that one of foremost leaders of the South Jersey arts world says plainly, "‘Profit' is a tough concept for me." Mostly, the retired teacher 'manages the payments at cost' of the hundreds of artists that roost in his rented lodgings for a week or a weekend. He makes sure they find their beds, get their meals, meet with the best group leaders available, and digest a mild threat about losing their meal tickets (he's not paying for that.) There's Murphy's Law, then there's Peter Murphy's Law: "You just keep giving back, and you have plenty to survive on." The bigger twist: Peter Murphy comes from a background you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy. An angel of light was spit from the bowels of hades, and no one can say whether poignant devices can better explain horror-sparking-philanthropy than can simple physics: "For every action, there must be an opposite and opposing reaction." People who attend Murphy's retreats, seminars and getaways might do so for years knowing nothing of his past. They can tell you he's now hosting at least six retreats every year: four in Sea Isle, one in the mountains, one summer stint in Wales, and his Winter Getaway in Cape May. They may know he's had several hundred poems published over the years and that his biggest volume, Stubborn Child, is slightly autobiographic, but they might not be sure how. Some fourteen hundred writers receive his daily emails announcing who's reading, teaching, speaking in the Tri-State area soon. They may find on his web site that several times a year, a school will invite him in to lead a seminar with students. They may know him from Richard Stockton College where he leads a poetry class each semester, an honor shared with Pulitzer winner Stephen Dunn. Take it back to 1972. March 26, a rainy night in Wales. Murphy, 21, awoke in the gutter, soaked through from more than rain. His foremost thought was how to get that next drink. He'd already failed out of three colleges, having been on a binge since the age of 16. The common lay person might erupt with shudders, but writers of the Murphy ilk are more likely to go for the pulsating question: What was his childhood like? Murphy uses the word "miserable" in the same easy tone he uses "okay!" to begin the critique of a poem. His mother committed suicide when he was six. He and his brother were packed off to a camp, then an aunt, then a boarding "home." "We were beaten frequently," he said. "It was the nuns. I remember not wanting to be bad. I just didn't know what I was supposed to be doing." He and his brother, ages 7 and 9, ran away twice before being taken in by an aunt and uncle, who gave him four years of peace. Well, almost. There's the thing with the priest. He was nine and ten. "Just recently that priest was brought to justice. My aunt said to me, ‘At least he didn't get you. Did he?'" Hotwired for his sixteenth year and his first taste of drink, Murphy blew through five birthdays that are a blur. Return to March 26, 1972: "It was a Sunday, and in Wales no liquor was served on Sunday morning. I had promised some Baha'is that I would go to their morning meeting. I reasoned that I had nothing left to offer humanity-nothing except my word, so I should probably keep it. I spent the whole day and night with them and took the last bus back to my flat at night. I kept telling myself I'd gone a whole day and night without a drink. I'd no idea how the next day would go." Baha'i has been central to Murphy ever since, though you might not know that either unless you asked him. He hasn't had a drink since that night, another mysterious fact that lies behind a veneer of calm leadership. His biggest retreat is the Cape May Winter Getaway held Martin Luther King weekend in January. Now in its 17th year, writers come from as far east as Ireland, as far west as Colorado. The Grand Hotel swirls with howling winter wind, symbolic of life's harsh realities that can grind on artistic natures. In the afternoons when most groups have dispersed, it's hard to turn a corner in the hotel without finding a body in a chair, pen and paper in hand, or a laptop resting in front of a face that fails to look out of the screen's light to say hello. Murphy floats in and out of rooms like a hospitable ghost, more interested in accommodating than being acknowledged. "He just creates a feeling of community and safety," says leader Renee Ashley whose volumes of poetry have won her fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. "Yet there's always a dynamic environment where writers can greatly improve. Nobody does it like Peter. He's a sort of miracle man-and a superb poet himself." Murphy's Stubborn Child was born via strange cravings to drink again in his mid-thirties. Instead of succumbing to the urges, he wrote about them. Or started to. Stubborn Child reaches beyond autobiographic shadows to embrace universal "stubbornnesses." More than it mirrors Murphy's past, the volume mirrors his journey toward understanding the human condition. Murphy's real relationship with poetry began early on in his 36-year marriage to wife Sonya. "I was teaching English at Atlantic City High and found there was never enough time to write unless I got completely away from everything." He did the Ramada writing thing a few times a year, and one time decided to ask other writers if they'd like to join him for a weekend. At the first Winter Getaway, fifteen writers accompanied him. Among his current following are many former students from Atlantic City High. "As a teenager, there were three things I swore I'd never do: One, be a teacher. Two, be an English teacher. Three, teach poetry," he said, and can't resist adding in past-prophetic tense: "...at least not the way it was taught to me." Murphy is now retired after 29 years teaching high school English-and much poetry. By its sixth year, the Rutgers statewide high school poetry contest had named seventeen of Murphy's students as winners or runners up. Teaching teenagers to love poetry makes teaching adults at his workshops a breeze in comparison. He leads off his Wales, mountains and Sea Isle retreats with morning exercises meant to trigger imagination, cultivate ideas in progress, and break writer's block. Guests can read from their own work and offer feedback to others. In the afternoons and evenings there's "free time" dotted with outings and excursions, options if one doesn't want to keep writing. He'll be taking this year's Wales group to visit the ruins of
Tintern Abbey, where Wordsworth wrote the famed poem of its
namesake. |
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