PROSE WRITERS

S.N. Behrman Robert Benchley Robert Cormier Esther Forbes Thomas Wentworth Higginson Milton Meltzer

POETS

Elizabeth Bishop Charles Olson Stanley Kunitz L. E. Sissman Bill Tremblay Mary Fell Fran Quinn Frank O'Hara Olive Higgins Prouty

QUICK LINKS

Worcester History Book Trade Information Other Resources About this Page

A&SC Home | Library Home | Worcester Area Writers Home

Fran Quinn

Though he is now living in Butler, Indiana, Fran Quinn helped to make the Worcester poetry scene into what it is today. Not only did he write and publish, he was also instrumental in the formation of the Worcester County Poetry Association, which continues to further the local poetry scene.

Quinn was born in Easthampton, Massachusetts on May 5, 1942. He and his family moved to Clinton when he was six and a half years old. He stayed with his family until his junior year at Assumption College, when he moved to Worcester. Until that point Quinn hadn’t been introduced to much poetry other than the classics. That all changed when he met a professor, Michael True. True, one of the founding members of the Worcester County Poetry Association, knew that his student liked poetry and asked him to join a group of people who had the same interest to start a reading series. This group of people would also include Joseph Langland, Robert Bly, Mary Fell, and others. None of the people in the group yet were writing, though, with the exception of Quinn, and he wasn’t showing his writing to anyone. The interest then was more in the reading, and in bringing more famous writers to the area.

At that point in time, Quinn didn’t know poets were accessible people. He was teaching at St. John’s Preparatory School in Shrewsbury when something happened that would change his entire perspective. Michael True had tickets to see Robert Bly give a reading in the area, but took ill and offered his tickets to Quinn so he could take some students. Bly gave an incredible reading, taking time as well to explain the poems he read. After meeting Quinn and talking to him, Bly offered to visit St. John’s Prep the next time he was in the Worcester area. True to his word, Bly visited St. John’s Prep and spent an entire afternoon reading poetry and talking to the enraptured crowd. The experience was so fantastic that even though the school day ended at about two-thirty in the afternoon, no one left until about six o’clock that evening. Quinn was fascinated by the response poetry and poets were getting. With that in mind, when Quinn taught briefly at Rivier College in Nashua, New Hampshire, one of the major things he did was institute a poetry program.

During this time, the Worcester County Poetry Association was busily trying to meet as many poets as its members could. It was Michael True who understood where the poets were, but the exciting thing was that Quinn and Company were actually meeting them. They would do reading ahead of time to “not sound like complete idiots” while talking to them. However, though the Association was running all these readings, the organization was entirely volunteer – no one got paid. Quinn, due to a bet made at a Friendly’s restaurant, was wrangled into becoming the Association’s third president and realized that there was much work to be done. Paying attention to the fact that the name of the group was the Worcester County Poetry Association, Quinn wanted to get poetry and poetry readings out to the rest of the county. He managed to spread readings out all over to place, as far as Athol and Gardner, but it was a hectic schedule. Between September and June they had 57 readings all over the county. This meant that they were sometimes doing more than one reading a week, and all of it was free.

While Quinn was teaching, he was introduced to the state arts councils of Rhode Island and Massachusetts. His last teaching position during this time period was in Rhode Island, but he was heavily involved with poetry in Massachusetts, and his involvement with both of the state arts councils meant he was crossing state lines with poetry. He was taking work he was doing with the Poetry Association to Rhode Island, and taking materials he used with his classes to the Poetry Association. He was made to stop by both State Arts Councils. After Quinn quit teaching, he was forced to take odd jobs such as a janitor and bookmobile driver to make ends meet.

In 1988 when Butler University offered Quinn to come out for one semester a year to do teaching and run a reading series, he jumped at the chance. It was an area of work he preferred to be in, and there was nothing comparable to it in the Worcester area. It was also a job, offering more money than the odd jobs he was taking. The odd semesters turned into a full time position in 1992, so Quinn moved permanently to Indianapolis.

Because of the poetry association, Mary Fell, David Williams, Chris Gilbert, and Fran Quinn got together and starting writing and trading their own poems. That generation of writers was very influential in the poetry scene. At that point poetry was more of a hidden scene in New England, but the Vietnam War situation brought out poets in ways that hadn’t been previously visible to the budding poetry association.

Quinn cites as his three biggest influences: Joe Langland, Robert Francis, and Robert Bly. Quinn wasn’t even aware of what and who poets really were until he was in graduate school because not much poetry was taught in school other than the classics. That Robert Bly was generous enough to stay and continue talking with the children after the conference put Quinn in closer proximity with poets than he’d ever had to that point. Quinn and his friends would ask visiting poets who they thought they should be reading, and would then be introduced to the next literary movement almost as it was happening.

Though Fran Quinn was the first of his group of contemporaries to publicly call himself a poet, he wasn’t sure he really believed it himself. He was immersed in the poetry scene but didn’t know what exactly a poet did. It took quite a while for him to realize that it was what he really wanted to do.

Fran Quinn has published one volume and one chapbook of his poetry: The Goblet Crying for Wine, edited by Robert Bly and published in 1995, and the chapbook, Milk of the Lioness in 1982. He was also featured with Mary Fell in the Spring/Summer 2001 edition of Diner, a journal of poetry put out by the Worcester County Poetry Association. Quinn’s writing style is frank and direct, the simplicity of the words he uses highlighting the complexity of the topics presented both on the surface of his work and between the lines. Many of his poems, especially in the Goblet Crying for Wine, are dedicated to friends, showing that his group of contemporaries from his Worcester poetry days will not be forgotten.

Fran Quinn is still living in Indianapolis, and teaches full time at Butler University.