Invitation to the Voyage: Selected Poems of Peter Marshall Bell

By Raymond Boyington

From a review by Jack A Urquhart:
Bell wrote the collection’s final poem a mere six weeks before his death. Entitled “Silent Vigil” (by the editor; several of Bell’s poems were untitled), the poem is steeped in the traditions of romanticism. I count it the most moving and the most transcendent of the lot.
As a writer, I like to think that the reason the poem resonates is that it leapfrogs grim reality—the cold, hard fact that none of us lasts forever (which Peter anticipates for himself in the poem’s first few lines)—to provide a glimmer of hope. That hope is nothing less than love’s enduring legacy, a message—Peter’s message, in this case—so durable, so generic (in the best sense of that word) that as long as there is language and human beings to appreciate it, will comfort and sustain as well a thousand years from now as it does today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Raymond Boyington
• Release date: May 4, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476440224

Raymond Boyington

Born on a farm in central Maine, eighth of nine children, Raymond L Boyington grew up in New Haven, Connecticut. Following undergraduate and graduate studies at the University of Connecticut, and a brief stint at teaching prep school, he returned to UConn to teach in and oversee the General and Honors Chemistry programs. Ray spent most of the final third of his teaching career at San Francisco University High School where he taught courses in Chemistry and Biology. Father of two, Sarah and Katie, and grandfather of four, Danielle, Dedrick, Nate and Emmett (all very much loved), Ray currently lives in coastal California with his life partner, the writer Jack Andrew Urquhart. Editing, formatting and publishing a portion of Urquhart’s work inspired Ray to undertake the same effort on behalf of his former companion, the late Peter Marshall Bell, thus honoring another consummate man of letters. Ray hopes yet to publish a comprehensive collection of Peter’s extant works. Other plans in the works for Ray include a new online guide for beginning students of chemistry, a book about sunflowers for budding young naturalists, and a collection of portraits from five decades of amateur photography.

Book preview

Invitation to the Voyage

Selected Poems

of

Peter Marshall Bell

—with sketches by the author—

Invitation to the Voyage

Selected Poems

of

Peter Marshall Bell

—with sketches by the author—

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2012 by Raymond L. Boyington

Comments from readers

I love Peter's poetry, with its mixture of irony, hidden despair and non-judgmental tenderness.—Véronique Barry

Love’s magic is that in giving it to another you have more, not less. And you become more connected to the people in your life and more aware of what really matters.—Norman F. Jacobs

Profoundly touching to read.—Julia Landis

Truth so simple and obvious that it hurts to be reminded.—Jack A. Urquhart

For Peter

A note from the editor & publisher

The poems collected here are much as I found them: several were typed pages; others were handwritten documents, some of them within the pages of the author’s several journals and travelogues; a few had been digitized. The sketches also come from the journals. I have made an absolute minimum of alterations (the rare misspelling, a title—for indexing—where there had been none before). Even though the author expressed the need for an editor, he did not have one while he was alive and I would rather not second-guess his intentions. I have seen my role as more that