Barbara Moraff (born 1939

Paterson, New Jersey Paterson ( ) is the largest City (New Jersey), city in and the county seat of Passaic County, New Jersey, Passaic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.Beat generation The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Generatio ...

living in

Vermont Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...

. She continues to write, and also creates

pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and por ...

and cooks.

Life

Jack Kerouac Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac (; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Of French-Canadian a ...

called Moraff "the baby of the Beat generation" because she was just 18 when they met but was already being published by

Leroi Jones Amiri Baraka (born Everett Leroy Jones; October 7, 1934 – January 9, 2014), previously known as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amear Baraka, was an American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays and music criticism. He was the author of numerous bo ...

and in

Evergreen Review ''The Evergreen Review'' is a U.S.-based literary magazine. Its publisher is John Oakes and its editor-in-chief is Dale Peck. The ''Evergreen Review'' was founded by Barney Rosset, publisher of Grove Press. It existed in print from 1957 until 19 ...

. She was reading in various

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

coffeehouses when she was able to get out of a very restrictive home environment—complicated by plastic surgery needed to repair her face after a mutilation. In a 1964 interview with Paideuma (University of Maine), Kerouac called Moraff "the best girl poet writing in America". " Moraff and her lover moved to Vermont in late 1961, where they built a small one-room cabin on land belonging to a former

Black Mountain College Black Mountain College was a private liberal arts college in Black Mountain, North Carolina. It was founded in 1933 by John Andrew Rice, Theodore Dreier, and several others. The college was ideologically organized around John Dewey's educational ...

student with whom they exchanged work for rent. At that time Moraff was experimenting writing SOUND poetry. Robert Duncan sent a poem by her to

Denise Levertov Priscilla Denise Levertov (24 October 1923 – 20 December 1997) was a British-born naturalised American poet. She was a recipient of the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry. Early life and influences Levertov was born and grew up in Ilford, Ess ...

. Moraff's first child, Alesia, was born in 1966, and shortly afterward Moraff bought a remote hilltop farm in

Strafford, Vermont Strafford is a town in Orange County, Vermont, Orange County, Vermont, United States. The population was 1,094 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. The town of Strafford was created on August 12, 1761 by way of a royal charter which Ki ...

. She taught herself organic farming practices and for many years raised the family's food and kept a cow and two goats. She made cheese and studied medicinal herbs. Her son Marco was born in 1971. In 1972 he was diagnosed with

cystic fibrosis Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a rare genetic disorder that affects mostly the lungs, but also the pancreas, liver, kidneys, and intestine. Long-term issues include difficulty breathing and coughing up mucus as a result of frequent lung infections. O ...

. In 1973, Moraff founded Vermont Artisansbr>
Vermont's first craft sales and educational cooperative. She studied human nutrition and after 3 years of research devised a nutritional plan for Marco, which resulted in the writing of The Cookbook/Handbook to Nutrition for Kids Who Have Cystic Fibrosis. It was considered crazy to even discuss nutritional problems, let alone write a cookbook for children who required enzymes at every meal in order to metabolize food nutrients. Moraff self-published the book; it can be found in the CF Foundation's library, and is used by physicians who agree with her commonsense approach of telling one's child that it is his/her body that is ill, not the child-as-person. Marco grew healthy and ran long-distance track in high school. He became an artist, and many of his works are now in private collections. He also designed and built furniture using driftwood, branchwood, marble, and slate. He died in April 2007 as a result of his

. Moraff met Chogyam Trungpa in 1974 through

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...

. She thought she could learn Tibetan Buddhist breathing methods to help Marco develop lungs strong enough to resist the early ravages of CF. Moraff continued her Buddhist practice and study, attending the last seminary at which Trungpa was present, and later, ngedon school. Moraff began writing poetry again in 1976 when asked by a feminist lesbian press to sit on its editorial board. There she edited the magazine ''

CONCH Conch () is a common name of a number of different medium-to-large-sized sea snails. Conch shells typically have a high spire and a noticeable siphonal canal (in other words, the shell comes to a noticeable point at both ends). In North Am ...

'' and co-edited an anthology of local women's writings and art. This included the first published work of

Louise Erdrich Louise Erdrich ( ; born Karen Louise Erdrich, June 7, 1954) is an American author of novels, poetry, and children's books featuring Native American characters and settings. She is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indian ...

. In 2007, Moraff was editing and collating a collection of previously published and unpublished work and was also working on a new collection (tentative title Machig Labdron Songs). Forthcoming in late spring 2007 is a booklet from Longhouse Publishers, FOOTPRINT. Although partially disabled, Moraff is still able to produce some pottery, mostly commissioned dinner sets. In the summer, she bakes wholegrain sourdough bread and sells it at local farmers' markets.

Publishers

Moraff's publishers: Toothpaste Press, Potes & Poets Press, Longhouse, Coffeehouse Press, White Pine Press, O'Leary Family, Nomad London, Totem-Corinth (''4 Young Lady Poets''), Snakestail/High risk (''A Different Beat''), and the usual "many magazines & journals" & anthologies including ''Evergreen Review'', ''Yögen'', ''Trobar'', ''Kauri'', ''Femora'', ''Fuckyou'', ''Beatitude'', ''Bluebeat'', ''Beat Scene'', ''The Nation'', ''Yale Penny Poems'', ''Virginia Quarterly'', ''Origin'', ''Longhouse'', ''Wormwood Review'', ''Rosebud'', ''Cedar Rock'', ''Plucked Chicken'', ''Wildflower'', ''Van Gogh's Ear'', ''Valley News'', ''L.A. Weekly'', ''Vajradhaty Sun'', ''Sulfur'', ''Cipher Journal'', ''Abraxas'', ''Bloodroot'', et. Moraff also appears in two movies: an anti-war film ''Button, Button'' (aired on CBS) and ''Enlightened Society'' (Vajradhatu Films).

Works

Poetry

* (Morning Coffee Chapbook)'', * (Scout) * * * * *''Open to the Other'' * * * *''Lotus Petals'' *''Ahh'', Shadowplay, 1992

Anthologies

* * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Moraff, Barbara Beat Generation writers 1939 births Living people Writers from Paterson, New Jersey American women poets 21st-century American women