Joe Cardarelli (1944âÂÂ1994) was a poet, painter, graduate of the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars, and teacher of writing at the Maryland Institute College of Art for 27 years. Cardarelli pushed generations of MICA artists to incorporate writing into their creative repertoire, and regularly collaborated with his faculty colleagues on projects and performances. He is noted for establishing poetry series such as the Black Mountain poets, St. ValentineâÂÂs Day Poetry Marathon, and the Spectrum of Poetic Fire at MICA.
In his âÂÂBlack Mountain Poetsâ series in 1983/84, he gathered material for a documentary video, Black Mountain Revisited â a historically invaluable collage of interviews and readings given by Robert Duncan, Robert Creeley, Edward Dorn, Joel Oppenheimer, and Jonathan Williams â in the case of Duncan and Oppenheimer, some of their last readings on record.
Known as the âÂÂGodfather of Baltimore Poetry,â he died at the age of 50 in 1994.
A poem that Joe contributed to Andrei CodrescuâÂÂs and Laura RosenthalâÂÂs anthology American Poets Say Goodbye to the Twentieth Century (New York, 4 Walls 8 Windows, 1996) ends with the following lines: