With Laughter On His Hair: Dale Shaw Remembered

Dale Shaw (left) with Ralph Nazareth

If artistic expression is at its best when it casts a playful, reflecting light on the conventional, then Dale Shaw was all about basking in it, right to the end.

Recalls Ralph Nazareth, visiting Dale in Fairfield February 5, two days before his passing at 94, “I saw him appear suddenly next to me. 'Ralph',” he said, 'look, the ducks are flying backwards!' That was vintage Dale, with eyes to see the miraculous on the back of his palm!"

Ralph's friend Lynda Sorensen, who worked extensively with Dale, along with Ralph, similarly marveled at how his personal whimsy and wonder translated into his work. "Dale was a living poem, moving through this world on his legs of poetry, his heart of rhythm, his vision of light, and his soul of magic."

First encountering him over forty years ago, Ralph collaborated with the former Field & Stream writer on numerous poetry projects over the years, becoming “a steady and wonderful presence in my life and in that of (my) little family.”

Upon learning of the sad news, Lynda drew attention to the closing, elegiac line from “I Am One”, one of Dale's contributions to the 1986 companion anthology to his workshop, On This Crust of Earth (Yuganta Press), which was co-edited by Ralph and Lynda: “'I am the one with no shoes and no horse', and so Dale takes his leave; we live on, holding close our memories of him, as if they are a precious bowl that we hold high between heaven and earth.”

When the PoemAlley group meeting at Curley's Diner began sharing their work via Zoom in 2020, Ralph introduced his friend with a brief tribute during one reading: “'I am the one with laughter on my hair',” says Dale Shaw. He had it when I first met him in 1980, and he still does, now at 93—laughter on his hair, a twinkle in his eye, a chuckle in his throat, and surprising, often stunning, wisdom on his lips.”

A poet and poetry guide par excellence, Dale led an impressive group of writers with fellow poet Janet Krauss, including Doris Lund, author of the national bestseller Eric, children's book writers Freya Littledale and Ruth Krauss (collaborator with Caldecott Award-winning illustrator Maurice Sendak), author of The Carrot Seed. 

PoemAlley co-founder
Ann Yarmal

Ann Yarmal credits the discipline of Dale's weekly Clay Place writing workshop with nothing less than giving her the strength to rebuild her life: “He never let us get away with anything. If we wrote it, we owned it... We had to examine what we wrote and thought and intended and we had next week to work for.” In partnership with Catherine Ednie, Ann went on to found PoemAlley at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation in 2000.

From the 1980s to the mid-1990s Dale's role in the Westport and Norwalk poetry communities lit up every kind of venue, be it someone's living room, an art gallery, or a town hall, anticipating today's popular “performance” poetry scene by many years.

Ralph alluded to the gift of Dale's continuing impact on peers and creative aspirants, alike: “His original combination of “gnomic sayings, a seemingly quirky but original vision and love of all things (oddly) human, distinguishes him among

most teachers of poetry.”

As many in PoemAlley will recall, his style of delivery, so laced with irony and embracing humor, was so much of a piece with his writing that to read “the following sample of his work is to get only a faint impression of the real Dale phenomenon,” says Ralph. “I know you’ll enjoy it all the same!” 

Bread

bread of sun, sun bread rising

            wheat of the dawn, dawn-wheat

bread of the mother’s belly

            sweet bread belly

bread of the sea, lifting

            upon the rock, bread rising

crash of the sea bread, rising

            bread of grass, growing

out of the bread loam rising

            bread loam rising

bread of child, bread of moon, on

            cooking hill baking

bread of brain, thought rising

            thought shining, moonbread

in the brain, hill, cooking

            sun bread and dawn bread, belly bread

and sea bread, bread of money

            in the oven bank lifting

bread of the forest in the heat of ages

            green growing, bread of streets

filling, bread of night, fermenting

            bread of laughter, leavening

bread of dreams, pocketed with fear

bread of duck loaves and chicken loaves

            rooting, bread of autos parked

in asphalt pans, bread of graves

            bread of friendship,

best bread of all

            bread with

                        raisins

I Am the One

I am the one who makes mathematics the dark angel

                     I am the one who burrows the earth

I am the one with laughter on my hair

I am the one to butter bread with steel

I am the one wired to the wings of dead birds

I am the one playing darts in a cave

I am the one with strings on my nose

I am the one laughing in the cathedral

I am the one with money in my eyes

I am the one with snakes in my hair

       I am the one who has tattooed my whole body

I am the one who has scalded my babies

I am the one peeking through ferns

I am the one who sees what you are doing

I am the one who must wonder aloud

I am the one who asks why you can stand this

I am the one with the puzzled expression

I am the one with no shoes and no horse