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Deceased 9-Apr-1999 in Silver Spring, MD
Poet Jay Bradford Fowler Jr. Dies at 47
Award Winner From Arlington, Born With Spina Bifida, Wrote 17 Books of Verse
Joy Bradford Fowler Jr., 47, an award-winning Arlington poet who was the author of 17 books of verse, died April 9 in Silver Spring at Medlanlic Manor, where he had been treated for three weeks
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He was born with splna bifida, a congenital neurological disorder, and had been treated for degenernative arthritis throughou! the 1990s. He had undergone at least 16 major operations over the years and had been bedridden the past eight years.
Mr. Fowler, who was born in Boston, came to the Washington area with his parents when he was 2. He grew up in Arlington, where he graduated from Washington-Lee High School, serving as editor of the school's literary journal.
He then entered George Mason University, where he edited Phoebe, the univeristy literary magazine. Upon graduating from George Mason wilh a degree in English literature in 1987, he received the American Poetry Association's grand prize. He also won its winter 1987 National Poetry Competition.
Despite increasinly fragile health, Mr. Fowler wrote a prodigious amount of poetry, His work has been published in such magazines as the American Poetry Review, the George Mason Review, Cosmic Trend, Mind in Motion, Shenandoah and Yankee magazine.
The first of his 17 books of poetry, "Writing Down the Light," was published in 1987. A book of his collected poems, "Caged Angel," was published in 1997. His last book, "Outrageous Asylum, Sonnets from the Nursing Home," appeared in 1998. A final volume of his work is to be published this year.
Both hls published and unpublished work has been collected in the archives of George Mason University.
In a 1998 article published in a GMU alumni publicalion, Mr. Fowler, who maintained "there's nothing more precious [to me] than my poetry," said that he had been inspired by the works of such poets as Allen Ginsburg, Anne Sexton, Edna St. Vincent Millay and Robert Frost.
He was a lover of gardens and a self-described mystic who said that he believed in a paradise and that he was going there.
In a 1993 book, "Looking Back on Consciousness," he wrote that "one of the paradoxical and noteworthy things about inspiratioin is that it enlivens me enough to write the poem ... in times of extreme exhaustion and great pain or distress."
He leaves no immediate survivors.
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from The Washington Post, 19-Apr-1999
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Poet and Alumnus Jav Bradford Fowler Dies at 47
Jay Bradford Fowler, Jr., (B.A. English '87), prolific and recognized poet who published 16 books of poetry, died April 9, 1999, in Silver Spring, Md. Fowler was born with spina bifida, a congenital neurological disorder, and underwent a series of 16 operations, mostly to help him walk. Since the early 1990s, he also suffered
from degenerative arthritis.
Fowler grew up in Arlington, Va., where he attended Washington-Lee High School. Upon graduating from George Mason, where he edited the literary journal Phoebe, he received the American Poetry Association's prestigious Grand Prize and won its winter 1987 National Poetry Competition. Over the years, he was
published in numerous literary journals, including the American Poetry Review. He published his first book, "Psalmbook for the White Butterfly," in 1985. His most recent collection, "Outrageous Asylum, Sonnets from the Nursing Home," was published in 1998; a final volume of his work is to be published this year.
For Fowler, Mason was a special place. "It gave me a context -- the context being world literature -- in which I could speak out, in which I could write poetry," he said in an interview in 1998. He wanted to continue his study at Mason and work toward an M.F.A., but his illnesses prevented him. To give something back to
Mason, Fowler donated both his published and unpublished work along with letters and multiple manuscript versions of some poems to Mason's Fenwick Library in 1998; information about them can be found on the library's Special Collections website at http://www,gmu.edu!library/specialcollectionsifow:ler.html.
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from Mason Spirit (GMU Alumni publication)
by Hope J. Smith
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Arlington Poet Looks to Make One Last Impression
"The most I've done on this earth is suffer." said Arlington poet Jay Bradford Fowler Jr. "I've written poetry and suffered."
"Jesus is the only reason I've been able to stand all the suffering so far," he said. "My mother and Jesus. It's a mystical thing."
The 45-year-old award-winning poet was born with spina bifida, a congenital disease in which the spinal column does not close properly. Instead, part of the spinal cord protrudes. which can result in fluid on the brain or other neurological disorders. Fowler has paralysis below the waist. He could walk as a youngster,
but he underwent eight operations by the time he was in high school.
In a recent interview with the HERALD from his hospital bed in Arlington, Fowler recalled feeling alienated physically and intellectually as a child. His concerns were so far ahead of his contemporaries that he had no friends.
He was a member of the Book-of-the-Month Club in junior high school and an avid horticulturist. He started writing poetry in the sixth grade. He had his first poem published while still in junior high school.
Fowler is an only child. After Jay was born, the doctors told his mother that she would die if she had any more children. Dorothy Fowler, now 85, devoted her entire life to caring for her son, often at great jeopardy to her own health. She now occupies the hospital bed next to her son in an Arlington nursing home.
Fowler briefly attended St. Ann School in Arlington. He graduated from Washington-Lee High School where he was poetry editor of the school's literary newspaper. He later attended George Mason University in Fairfax, where he majored in English Literature.
"My college experience was very rewarding," Fowler said. He read everything he could get his hands on. He attended poetry workshops and took three classes on plays.
Fowler himself had a nervous breakdown when he was 19. He experienced a rebirth and conversion at age 30 and started attending daily Mass at St. Ann Church.
"Jesus doesn't mean constraint," he said. "He means happiness and freedom. What else were we born for, other than to be happy?" he asked.
Roger Lathbury, an English professor at George Mason and editor-in-chief of the Alexandria-based Orchises press, helped Fowler publish two ot his first books of poetry, including Writing Down the Light. Lathbury estimates that between 900 and 1.000 copies have been sold through special orders since 1987.
Other published works include: Laying Siege to the Light (1991). The White Light (1991) and The Longing for Paradise (1994).
Laying Siege to the Light has an entire section devoted to Christian poems. including "Jesus Blue Air Breathing." "The Sheepfold." "In a Privacy of Gospel" and "In Christ."
George Mason's Fenwick Library recently agreed to archive 20 cartons of Fowler's work. Fowler said an anthology of his best poems will be published within the next few weeks. As with most of his works over the years. it is supported by a private patron.
Fowler credits Cosmic Trend, a Canadian company, with publishing three of his books and three tapes.
As with most artists, Fowler has found his inspiration from within. "A line of poetry will come to me," he said. "I listen to the voice of poetry inside of me. I write down what I hear. The voice is the connection between my soul and my mind speaking."
Some of his poems have appeared in America, the Jesuit-run magazine. He regrets that much of his poetry has escaped him, either misplaced or lost during bouts of pain and despair.
The highlight of Fowler's professional career took place in 1987 when he won the American Poetry Association's winter poetry competition. Four of his poems were recognized, including one which earned the grand prize.
Despite this early success, Fowler said he never had anything to put him over the top.
"I was ostracized early for writing Christian poems," he said. "It was like a plague. You couldn't mention the name of Jesus."
He also missed some time because he was writing spiritual poems and poems about nature. "I have a great affinity for trees and flowers," he said. "I can name all the flowers and trees."
He said he has found the most joy in his life in Jesus, his mother and his flowers.
Fowler's entire life has been spent around hospitals. He has had 16 operations. Five years ago he started suffering from blood infections. He's had two colostomies, the most recent taking place more than a month ago at Georgetown Hospital.
He is now bed-ridden and his medical prognosis is not good. Doctors have told him he has, at most, seven months to live. He experiences constant pain and must receive regular doses of morphine to help him through each day.
'Tm washed up," he said. "I'm at the end of my life. I pray to God to die, to go to paradise with Jesus. I feel that is a valid prayer."
Fowler hopes this story. and others like it, will help him make one last impression before he dies.
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from Arlington Catholic Herald, 1997
by Michael F Flach. Herald Editor
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Jay Bradford Fowler, Jr. Poetry Collection
Jay Bradford Fowler, Jr., was born in Boston, Massachusetts on July 7, 1951. In 1987, he received a Bachelor of Arts in English at George Mason University where he was editor of Phoebe -- The George Mason Review. That same year Fowler won the American Poetry Association's Grand Pnze and two other awards in their Winter 1987 National Poetry Competition. A prolific and well-recognized poet, his poems have appeared in national magazines, such as The American Poetry Review, America,
Anthology of Magazine Verse & Yearbook of American Poetry (1984 and 1988), Bouillabaisse, The Classical Bulletin, Yankee, and Cosmic Trend of Canada. Books by Fowler include Psa!mbook for the White Butterfly (1985), Writing Down the Lght (1987), Who Will Remember? (1989), The Onlooker (1990), Living at the Light House (1990), Laying Siege to the Light (1991), Looking Back on Consciousness (1993), The Longing For Paradise (1994), and The Soul (l995).
The following poem,''Dawn," is from Fowler's Psa!mbook for the White Butterfly:
1.
after the painful tuning for the song,
after the dog sounds,
the feverish legs in the long wool socks,
the pushing off at midnight, fog
calls, crossings from the kitchen, kisses
from deep coats, an Atlantic poem, after
the music of the lights, the cherished
small life, the ache that seems alive
in the thermal house, after these
there will be
2.
the open boat,
the exorcism of the pig-eyed lights
the painful florescence, slaying of the animal -
his huge dark side, the sacrifice of this
time, devistation, soon, of the moon cropped
fields and houes, kill of the squirrel black -
all this by the blue swarthe, the healing
bandage, ointment of color, the ring in
the upstairs out of doors, 0 the hand on
the latch of the gate, flower to my wrist, love
in the midst, visitation, he gown on
the stair window frames, until we step
on the open boat
3.
without reluctance, at last
the shift from the natural, ride up to the rail
to climb on the water with a wing, the melting
of suave before the sun
is there
like a burning
crucifix, like a gull we watch like
a mountain turning into a flower,
the fruition of a destiny, coming alive
for a child, like a poem in a book of psalms
we know we could write if we
could die like the final emptiness
that is pulse, that is the beauty in the cell, music
in time, loss like water, the garden of
our way, entering the trees, an evening
of twilight where there is always
more to be loved, of your life bending like
twilight over the corn stalks
forever.
Outstanding critical response to Fowler's distinguished poetry includes the following:
"Jay Bradford Fowler, poet and philosopher, embodies the true spirit of Aloha. He has much to say about the meaning of compassion and how its expression can improve the lives of all of us. Like a modern-day Job, he has questioned God and the universe, and has continued to find himself confronting ever greater 'Mystery'. Yet, even if many of the questions cannot be answered satisfactorily, is it not the nature of the human being to ponder, to ask, to seek? To want to understand, even if only a limited understanding is possible. Is not such questioning an essential step in extendinq the boundaries of our knowledge? But Fowler does not stop
with the questions. He arrives at answers to what is really valuable in our daily lives, and provides an essential key to life - growth and survival as individuals, as a species, and as a planet."
"One of the greatest lyricists of the decade" - Norm Moser, Illuminations Press
"Jay is a magician of true inner vision" - George Le Grand, editor, Cosmic Trend
"[Fowler was] meant to show people their souls" - Dr. John Heath
"Terrific and original" - CK. Williams
"Very good poetry" - The Boston Literary Review
"Greater than Ginsburg!" - Roger Lathbury, Professor of English, George Mason University
"[Fowler is] here to help out the great spiritual leaders of the world" - Dr. John Heath
In addition to Fowler's published works, the collection contains multiple manuscript versions of many of his better known poems. As the collection is processed, it will become generally available for research and study.
Special Collections & Archives preserves and makes available to all students, faculty, and researchers many kinds of original and scholarly materials. Subject areas in SC&A include Northern Virginiana, Planned Communities, Congressional Papers, Performing Arts, Maps, the Ovil War, and George Mason University.
Formats in SC&A include manuscripts, rare books, playbills, musical scores, audio and videotapes, architectural drawings, photographs, and slides.
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from www.gmu.edu/library
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