Michael Cuddihy papers and Ironwood Press records

Michael Cuddihy was born in 1932 in New York City. His family was steeped in literature and publishing; his grandfather and father headed the publishing firm Funk and Wagnalls.

Cuddihy was 19 and a student at Notre Dame University when he was stricken with respiratory polio on Labor Day 1951. For nine months, he lived in an iron lung, after which he shifted to a rocking bed. Eventually, he used a wheelchair and was able to walk with assistance. .

Cuddihy resumed his education in the fall of 1953 at Columbia University. In 1956 he moved to Tucson, Arizona, and continued his studies at the University of Arizona. Cuddihy graduated in 1959 with a B.A. degree in History. Throughout the 1960s, Cuddihy worked as a translator and attended graduate classes in American and European history at the University of Arizona. In 1966 he dropped out of graduate school to devote himself to his translating work and published an English version of Jacques Maritain’s (1967). While in Tucson, Cuddihy discovered his love for poetry, and wrote: “I was hungry for personal experience, anxious to get close to my feelings. Poetry might be a way. I began writings, spending hours with poetry, or alone in the desert or along dry riverbeds listening...” He began reading poetry journals and submitting work to journals; six poems were accepted by , a magazine known to publish new poets.

In 1971, Cuddihy attended a summer workshop at Cornell given by his second cousin’s husband, poet William Mathews, and it was there the idea for his poetry magazine was born. The name for the magazine was chosen both for the symbolic and physical qualities of the ironwood tree. In he wrote that while reading over his poems, he ”… came to realize, rooted as he was in a wheelchair, how deeply he felt drawn to trees, themselves deeply rooted yet reaching well into the sky.” It seemed an apt metaphor for a poet. magazine was published from 1972-1988, and the Ironwood Press published 14 chapbooks.

In 1979, Cuddihy married Mary Cusick, the sister of his college roommate at Norte Dame University. Mary, a poet, had flown to Tucson to assist with the magazine and became the business manager for Ironwood. Mary and Michael spent their summers in northern California where they were able to mingle with poets, and developed close relationships with George and Mary Oppen and Czelaw Milosz, among others. In 1983, Cuddihy was one of the founders of the ongoing Tucson Poetry Festival. On July 13, 2000 Michael Cuddihy died at his home in Tucson from complications of pneumonia.

magazine was founded in Tucson, Arizona, in 1972 by Michael Cuddihy. It was projected as a bi-annual collection of poetry with occasional reviews and essays, although the number of prose works increased as the magazine became more established.I magazine quickly became known in the poetry world and attracted such names as Diane Wakoski, Philip Booth and Alberto Rios, and received numerous state and federal grants. Many of the poems that were printed in magazine were unsolicited. Poets eagerly submitted work for the final issue of (no. 32/33, Spring/Fall 1988). Michael Cuddihy was proud of his accomplishments and the influence of his magazine in the literary world.

published a number of special issues devoted to the work of a single poet. Issues of note highlighted the works of George Oppen (no. 5 and no. 26), James Wright (no.10), Czelaw Milosz (no.18, which was published prior to his winning the Nobel Prize), and Tomas Transtromer (no.13). Ironwood (no. 5), the first special issue, included seven of George Oppen’s poems, including the long poem , and an interview with him by David Gitin. These were complemented by a memoir from Oppen’s wife, Mary, and appreciations by Charles Tomilinson, Diane Wakoski, Bruce Andrews, Rachel Blau DuPlessis and Theodore Enslin. Memoirs and essays from Oppen’s fellow “objectivists,” Carl Rakosi and Charles Reznikoff, rounded out the issue.

The diverse range of special issues focused on aspects of poetry or literary criticism, including (no. 7/8), with a section on Ten Young Tucson Poets; (no. 17), Chinese Poetry Symposium; (no. 20) Language Poets; and (no. 24) Poetics. Ironwood (no. 17), titled featured essays and criticism by Robert Bly, Gary Snyder, Jonathan Chavez, Stanly Kunitz, James Wright, Kenneth Rexroth and others in a "symposium” format along with translations of selected Chinese poets. Ironwood (no. 20) was a dual issue featuring the works of Hilda Morley and a section titled “Realism and Anthology of Language Poets,” edited by Ron Silliman. The issue provided an introduction to the influential West Coast-based movement and its strong national participants.

Slight in appearance, aimed to publish younger and lesser-known poets, several of whom were published for the first time in . One of Michael Cuddihy's objectives as editor was to provide a wider publications venue for women poets. In the first four issues of the journal, only 23 of 138 contributors were women; it was not until Ironwood 12 that women comprised half of the contributors. Another defining feature of Ironwood was its regular inclusion of work in translation. Ironwood 1 had inaugurated this feature by including poetry by Jean Follain in translations by William Matthews and Mary Feeny. Other poets presented in translation included Pablo Neruda, Antonio Muchado, Paul Eluard, Rainer Maria Rilke, Rene Char, and Rafael Alberti.

Michal Cuddihy ceased publication of magazine in 1988 because, he said “…it had become increasingly difficult to handle the endless flow of manuscripts with the kind of care and attention they deserve and that good editing requires.”