Michael Fondanova I was born 9-22-49 and grew up in a housing project on the East coast.

My
parents were deeply and sensibly devout. As far back as I can remember I was conscious of
something "other worldly." Consciously seeking the balance, not only in the objective sense of my
family, but also in the subjective sense that I internalized the desire to "know." We have a peculiar
responsibility to exhibit our dreams to those who might observe or talk with us.
This does not mean that I was a "good" child. At times, I was quite inconsistent, vacillating
between ardor and extreme forms of nature mysticism. I was often uncomfortable doing things that
would be wholesome. A forgivable joie de vivre continued throughout high school. Still, I could
find no lasting satisfaction. There was unquenchable thirsting for something unknown. Yet, I
remember how infuriating it was when people questioned my life-style. So when did I become a
poet? One never really knows how to answer that question. Therefore, as far as I am aware I had
been a poet before I began to make decisions about it. Looking back now, I try to appraise the
"seeking" of my youth. At least, looking over my shoulder at the dedication elicited, as I
understood it seems admirable. I think it also encouraged a healthy self-criticism and the ability to
see myself objectively as one among others.
Shortly after attending high school, I "dropped-out" for lack of interest in 1966. This led to
entering the U.S.M.C. on 1-20-67. About three months later, the Marine Corp. sent me off to "boot
camp." Here I became acquainted with their style of behavior modification. I experienced a gentle
persuasion that I had erred in entering. Now, I was shaken, and did not know what to do about it. I
continued in the course I was in out of cowardice. That taught me something about myself. Until
then I had believed that if I felt convinced about something I would do it at all cost. That was an
arrogant and foolhardy belief. After graduation, I finished sniper training before going to Vietnam
in 1-68. I experienced the moral dilemma in Vietnam. I shared a secret phantasy about coming
home to a hero's welcome from a cheerful family, a proud hometown, and a grateful nation.
Between these images of joyous homecoming and bitter return lay the tension-filled experiences of
combat. I managed a relationship with family, studies, and moved out purposefully to make up for
those days "lost" in
Vietnam. The "journey back" has been a long one. Tales told in a mystic jargon - learned metaphors
that unconsciously integrated killing and dying with C-rations and mail call. Tales that frighten
family, embarrass friends, and sometimes provoke hostility among peers. In tacit agreement with
society, I negotiated the price of reentry: silence. I rarely talked about what happened to me in
combat. Silence turned into welcome forgetfulness. However, silence only transformed the conflict
of the jungles and rice paddies to the terrible personal battlegrounds of the heart and mind. The
essential and purifying ritual of coming home short-circuits. An emotional deadness began when I
first entered "boot camp." I learned that we label the Vietnamese as "gooks" not people. When I
arrived at the battle zone, it was much easier to kill a "gook" than another human being was. I
remember on my first in-country "Rest & Relaxation" I engraved my "Zippo."
The epitaph read, "The only thing I feel when I kill is recoil." We "zapped" "gooks." Lancing
wounds in not a pleasant process, however, and we must wield sharply pointed proclamation. We
were young, not old enough to vote or drink yet; we were old enough to die. Our attempts to
articulate this frightening dichotomy gave a surreal, childlike quality. Like Alice, we all stepped
through the looking glass. Vietnam was boredom punctuated by short periods of stark terror. It
seems, for the most part, to have been a chance to "play war." This innocence did not last. Now I
unravel first confrontations with death: friends blown apart by mines, ripped by shrapnel: men
killed by an "unseen" enemy. Because no one could tell us what "winning" meant, we discerned,
with the "wisdom of children," that in Vietnam it made no sense to die. We changed the rules so
that Vietnam became a new kind of war, a game with the goal of surviving by whatever means. The
enemy was "anyone" whose actions might endanger that survival. Thus, Vietnam became, a "never-
never land . . . little boys did not grow up, they just got old before their time." Self-styled sanity
had become the only camouflage that worked in that immoral jungle. No one can always blame the
war for changing us, but we can transcend it. Some of us are still afraid - not of the memories of
killing, but the inclination we found in it. Poetry provides the atmosphere where individuals
undergo a symbolic rebirth, losing ego self-image and become enlightened. On 9-27-68, I
experienced critical wounds, got sent home for convalescence, and received a Medical under
honorable discharge. I received my high school equivalency diploma in 6-69 while recuperating.
Perhaps this affected me existentially in two ways. First, I realize the importance of all life.
Secondly, my youth died and an old man returned in >222my place. I mention these incidents
because I experienced in them for the first time the deep divide between certain kinds of
worldviews. When I returned home, it was a world of "peace and love." I just did not seem to fit the
social norm. After noting social integration problems around 1-71, I left home to see the country. I
kept a journal noting all my experiences. After visiting each state in 1978, I felt an intense desire to
go to college. I have mentioned isolated events, but more importantly was the intellectual
stimulation of those years. Through contact with those diverse people, I came for the first time to
recognize that my "world view" was only one. I planned first to undergraduate study in a
Humanities division. After those years, I discovered that my understanding of "life" melted away
through my exposure to modern thought. I experienced what some call "the death of God" and it
felt very much like my own death as well. New questions that were flooding in upon me.
Therefore, I decided to enter graduate school 9-81. In that atmosphere, I felt myself drawn into a
community of unrestrained inquiry centered on common concern for fresh, contemporary
articulation. That was what I needed for a season. I continued studies and finally felt at home. In
this supportive and accepting atmosphere, I gradually began the process of putting together, a new
understanding.
Allow me to digress for a moment. The destruction of my youth had come primarily
through exposure to war. The beginning process of reconstruction can be in philosophical terms
alone. In addition, I seem temperamentally an incorrigible poet and philosopher. During my time at
school, I realized that esoteric commitment involved efforts to act responsibly in society. To aid my
search, I attended postgraduate school and completed in 1988. Amid the current information
explosion and rapid expansions of contemporary consciousness, I feel guided by a vision of a
balanced, wise, and wholesome life. My vision is one in which contemplation and action, solitude,
and service blend for the betterment of human life. My overriding concern has been to explore
basic ways of integrating development with our physical, intellectual, aesthetic, technical, social,
and cultural participation in the world. Formal studies offered me the opportunity to reflect upon
and assimilate the wisdom of the classical traditions in creative dialogue. Simultaneously, the
studies merged creative contributions of contemporary arts and sciences. Those contributions
pertinent to the full development of persons and communities resulted in my thesis, "Moral
Discernment as a Vehicle to Wholeness." Yet, I sense that my studies encompassed much more than
that.
I respect those I met for their unique richness of life's experience. I learned more about
whom I am and how I can fulfill my life. Fortunately, among these rewards, satisfactions of serving
others rank high. I hope that it will function to call us to creative response and not to a frantic
effort. I suppose that for most life has always been a tissue of compromises as mine has been. The
efforts to produce communities that could be free from such compromises have also had ambiguous
results. We have no choice but to accept "being" precisely in the midst of endless ambiguity.
Healthy criticism has at least kept the tension alive. Simultaneously, for me "to be" is no longer so
much a matter of what I do. Society hears persons of genuine commitment living out their
convictions. I acknowledge without question and use the existing contributions of the philosophical
and psychological sciences. Integration seems to call for nothing less than the establishment of a
new paradigm. I have asked myself searching questions. Specifically, how can the lion and the
lamb of ageless wisdom be wed in a community that remains true to the best of both? I am an
incorrigible poet and philosopher.
I chose to try to be close to people's suffering, misery, and despair. Also, out of anger and
joy because it is so poignant, so vital, and so real. Through it, my own ills and fears take on a kind
of dignity and meaning. I have to face myself in the company of others, who also struggle, who
will not let go. Looking back over the last few years, it is amazing, exciting, and frightening to see
how much achievement came out of utter confusion. Perhaps the confusion helps expose more than
my expectation. It helped me get behind well-built psychological defenses. It has forced me out of
the philosophers' closet. That is not a bad insight to stumble across. I want to own the pain, the
misery, the suffering, and the travail of which they are signs in my neighbor and me. I want to
know deep down that we are all in this together, or we are not in it at all, condemned to separation
and isolation.