Lee Stockdale, Author
As the son of poet Alice Boyd Stockdale, Lee Stockdale grew up with poetry. “Writing poetry, it seemed, was something everyone did, so I did too,” he says. Tragically, his father’s death offered difficult subject matter. A close friend to John F. Kennedy, Grant Stockdale served for a time as ambassador to Ireland. “My father committed suicide 10 days after President Kennedy’s assassination,” Lee says. “Writing was my outlet for anger, confusion and grief, and still is, when I need it to express those emotions or feelings.”
Lee would receive his MFA from Queens University of Charlotte, but not before driving a cab in NYC, going back to college, enlisting in the Army and graduating from law school. After 30 years, he left the Army as a Judge Advocate Colonel.
“I am grateful now to receive people’s comments that my opening up through poetry has been healing for them,” he says. His poem Smell of New Lumber, Lee says, “taps into my anger and also admits the irrational guilt I harbored because Lee Harvey Oswald and I shared the same name. I was 11 and it seemed as if I was being told by the universe that I must have been in some way responsible for my father’s death.”
Gorilla, September, 2022, poetry, paperback, $14, by Lee Stockdale, and published by Main Street Rag Publishing Company, Charlotte, NC. On January 26, Tryon Fine Arts Center will host An Evening with Lee Stockdale and Gorilla. To learn more, visit LeeStockdale.com.
