The following is the text of a speech delivered by Dr. Werner Beyer at a retirement dinner honoring Dr. Roy Marz, longtime member ofthe English Faculty at Butler University

Beyer, Werner W.

English

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16 MANUSCRIPTSA TRIBUTE TO ROY MARZWerner W. Beyer(Editor's Note: The following is the text of a speech delivered by Dr.Werner Beyer at a retirement dinner honoring Dr. Roy Marz, longtimemember ofthe English Faculty at Butler University.)The retiree whom-unlike Mark Anthony-I "come to praise, not .bury", has been a good and faithful servant at Butler for almost thirtyyears. And yet he is so retiring that few of his many students throughthose years and probably few of his colleagues knew him well or evenknow much about him. Though he and I (and the late Cary Graham)came to Butler in the same fall of 1948; and though Roy and I wereoffice mates for years and worked closely together on sundry depart-mental and university assignments. including the University WritingContest, I can't honestly say that I know him very well.-For he wasand remains a very private person.Even if his health had permitted it, I doubt that he would haveenjoyed being here on such an occasion, since he never liked publicityor baring his heart even to friends. Yet he never wanted for friends,being himself a warm and friendly person, so he has them in manyparts of the world.Roy Marz was born in 1911, a native of Kentucky. He received hisBachelor's, Master's, and Doctorate from the University of Cincinnati,in 1933, 34, and 37 respectively. He taught there between 1937 and1941, when he joined the army and served in Counter Intelligence,among other places, in Italy. He promptly fell in love with the land, itslanguage, its art and culture.After the armistice he returned to teaching at Cincinnati between1946 and 1948 before coming here.At Butler like everyone in the Department he taught FreshmanEnglish, also English Authors, Modern Poetry, and Modern Drama,and latterly Shakespeare and Victorian literature. More than a few ofhis students confessed that they had been captivated by as well asconverted to his easy cosmopolitan culture, his searching scholarshipand careful explication de texte: his passion for understanding everyallusion, every word in the text he was teaching.MANUSCRIPTS 17.,'Roy Marz is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi,Modern Language .The Poetry Society of America, the AAUP. He was aFord Foundation Fellow in 1951-52 and typically spent his timestudying and writing in his beloved Italy. In 1962-63 he was a FulbrightFellow, teaching American Literature at the University of Catania inSicily. On .the side he delivered a series of lecture on Americanism andAmerican Literature for the U. S. Information Service at Bari,Palermo, and Catania. He spent many summers in Italy and taught atleast one summer at the University of Delaware, where, some of youwill recall, Paul Cundiff had gone.Roy was elected to membership in The Poetry Society of Americaand listed in the International Who's Who in Poetry (among otherplaces) by virtue of his having contributed more than 130 poems to suchprestigious publications as Poetry Magazine, The Kenyon Review,Partisan Review, Sewanee Review, The Saturday Review, Epoch, TheQuarterly Review, Accent, The (Canadian) Northern Review, NewMexico Quarterly, and The [Italian) Botteghe Oscure.He won two national prizes for his sensitive poetry-that of theNew York Poetry Center as outstanding young American poet in 1951and the Oscar Blumenthal Prize awarded by Poetry Magazine in 1952.He also wrote some short stories and at least two very poetical, irrestiblycharming plays-After Closing (published in 1962 in First Stage, aquarterly of new drama) and 0 'Fallon's Cup (published by the samemagazine in 1966). After Closing was given nine performances betweenMarch 4 and 20, 1966, by the Judson Players of Washington Square,New York.His plays-rich, warm, tender, poetical and whimsical like themusic of his poetry-reveal the rare spirit which is Roy Marz. He lovesanimals, fantasy, and the fey as he loves art, music, poetry, the stageand beauty anywhere. He spent much time in Florence, Rome, Paris,London. Years ago we surmised he was studying the Italian artists ofthe Renaissance intensively and working on a book on Giorgione.Typically he said little about it. Quite recently I discovered that despitefailing health he has continued working on it in his enforcedretirement, that itis in its fourth draft and under contract to Simon &Schuster! May it soon be published!18 MANUSCRIPTSBut letus hear Roy speak for himself in two of his poems. The.firstis titled "The Elephant Graveyard."From their several hills the sick bulls came to the graveyard(Hunter at dream, it is nearer than any dream)They came. with the great ears apread, and each endeavoredA sick majesty worthy his station at home.They lumbered the easy grassland and told how the trunks,Never to spiral again, hurled tigers aside;At drowse in the shallow river they mumbled of linksOutlasting moons and the marbeling ofthe herd,Or stunned in a ponderous circle to be august,Wise beyond throught, bull sufficient as bull;And when they buckled gargantuan rumps to restThey did not feel the tilt of the earth at allNor notice if there were stars. They told the seasonBy those who tottered; they lurched and. were unafraid.They balanced the morning-unable against the risen,And when it was time to die they openly died./It is only the dream of the 'hunter, long corrected,That one awakened to say he decided to liveOr that the remnant bulls in council enactedThey had not heard him speak nor seen him leave.The second poem is a description of a painting-The DonatelloAnnunciation: Santa Croce" (from the life of the unborn, prophetic.Christ).Naive tlesh that will strain for my miracle,Your eyes do not move, unshadowed the easy cheek;Only the book held to your breastis loved,But you will forget the book when you suckle me.MANUSCRIPTS 19The angel foresees, is moved, but you aloofWill not move to a music beyond your sphereNor pity your private star as inferior, silent;You wait, strung, the full sou nding of grief.If only Who chose so well had chose other,The womb prolific, the eyes public for tears,Bearing children and loss as usual traffic;I could not hurt you then. Forgive me, mother.Thomas Carlyle, speaking of Bobbie Burns, once wrote that "apoet without love were a physical and metaphysical impossibility." RoyMarz's work as teacher and writer reinforces the point. He is a rarespirit, our poet long in residence at Butler, for whom the esthetic ex-perience was and is indeed a "form of contemplation, a loving attentionto" the qualities of things, whether remote or under foot andoverlooked. His poems are part of the memorable creations of theloving human spirit.May 1976TO KATHYRichard RingleyBetter never tell her thatthe funny man in the blue hatsmoking Winston cigarettesis reading The Biblelooking for loopholestrying to slip throughHeaven with a sack of rum.Passport stamped by the church constabularyonly cost me four "Hail Mary's."Better yetThere are no duties.

A Tribute to Roy Marz

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A Tribute to Roy Marz

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