Edward Lueders is Professor of English Emeritus at the University of Utah, where he served for periods as English Department Chairman, Director of Creative Writing, Editor of Western Humanities Review, and was named University Professor (1989-90). He previously was Instructor and Assistant Professor of English at the University of New Mexico (1948-57), Associate Professor of English at Long Beach State College (1957-61), and Professor of English and Chairman of the Department at Hanover College (1961-66). Since retiring from the University of Utah, he has taught on the writing faculty of the Bread Loaf Graduate School of English at Middlebury College in Vermont. For forty years, he consulted with secondary school students and teachers as Poet in the Schools throughout the U.S. and abroad in India and Japan. From 1982 to 2004, he served on the Board of Trustees of the Ucross Foundation Artist and Writers Colony at Ucross, Wyoming.
His writings as author, poet, essayist, critic and co-translator have appeared in a wide variety of national and international publications. From 1950 to 1957, he was book reviewer for The Louisville Courier-Journal. Among his thirteen books are a reference work for The National Council of Teachers of English, The College and Adult Reading List of Books in Literature and the Fine Arts (Editorial Chairman); two books of creative nonfiction, The Clam Lake Papers and The Salt Lake Papers; a novel of WWII, The Wake of the General Bliss; three collections of verse, most notably Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle (with Stephen Dunning and Hugh Smith); two critical biographies, Carl Van Vechten & the Twenties and Carl van Vechten; Writing Natural History: Dialogues with Authors; and translations (with Naoshi Koriyama), Like Underground Water: The Poetry of Mid-20th-Century Japan.
His honors include a Fellowship in Creative Writing from the National Endowment for the Arts, the 1992 Governor's Award in the Humanities from the Utah Humanities Council, and the 1998 Entrada Institute Award for Environmental Education.
Ed Lueders has played jazz piano professionally since his college days. More recently he played at Utah ski resorts and, for years, as house pianist at Alta's Rustler Lodge. He was also dinner pianist at the Capitol Reef Inn in Torrey, Utah, where he and his wife, Deborah Keniston, built their retirement home, and, as a volunteer, is currently lobby pianist for the University of Utah Hospital. He has recorded four CDs as solo pianist: Ed Lueders at Home, Love Songs for Deborah, Ed Lueders at 90, and Ed Lueders@93.
A veteran with three years’ service during World War II, Edward Lueders served as Special Service Sgt. in the Air Transport Command throughout the CBI Theater (China, Burma, India).
Works
Rodeo
RODEO
Leathery, wry, and rough,
Jaw full of chaw and slits
For eyes--this guy is tough.
He climbs the slatted fence,
Pulls himself atop and sits;
Tilts back his cowboy hat,
Stained with sweat below
The crown, and wipes a dirty
Sleeve across his brow;
Then pulls the hat down tight,
Caresses up its sides,
And spits into the dust
A benediction.
Gracelessly, his Brahma bull
Lunges into the chute
And swings a baleful
Eye around, irresolute.
Vision narrower still
The man regards the beast.
There's weight enough to kill;
Bone and muscle fit at least
To jar a man apart.
The cowboy sniffs and hitches at
His pants. Himself all heart
And gristle, he watches as
The hands outside the chute
Prepare the sacrificial act.
Standing now, and nerving up.
He takes his final measure
Of the creature's awful back.
Then he moves. Swerving up
And into place, he pricks
The Brahma's bullish pride
The gate swings free, and
Screams begin to sanctify
Their pitching, tortured ride.
Your Poem, Man
YOUR POEM, MAN...
Unless there's one thing seen
suddenly against another--a parsnip
sprouting for a President, or
hailstones melting in an ashtray—
nothing really happens. It takes
surprise and wild connections,
doesn't it? A walrus chewing
on a ballpoint pen. Two blue tail-
lights on Tyrannosaurus Rex. Green
cheese teeth. Maybe what we wanted
least. Or most. Some unexpected
pleats. Words that never knew
each other till right now. Plug us
into the wrong socket and see
what blows--or what lights up.
Try
untried
circuitry,
new
fuses.
Tell it like it never really was,
man,
and maybe we can see it
like it is.
Our Curving Wall
OUR CURVING WALL IN WAYNE COUNTY, UTAH
for Deborah Keniston. 1938-2013
The stuccoed wall
we built around
our mesa home
is curved.
Inside the wall
the structured house
keeps human lives
rectangular.
The house’s walls
make four-square corners.
The roof is nailed aslant.
The shingles overlap.
Outside the wall,
encircling the house,
the planet Earth
completes its rounds.
The wall is there
to help us see
the global curves
beyond our sight.
Between the house
and curving wall
the captured earth
collects our footprints.
Outside the stuccoed wall,
the seasons turn
and swirling winds
erase them.
Only the wooden gate,
opening out or shut
but always there between,
is straight.
Bibliography
FICTION
The Wake of the General Bliss, University of Utah Press (1989), paperback edition (2008).
CREATIVE NON-FICTION
The Salt Lake Papers, University of Utah Press (2018).
The Clam Lake Papers, Harper & Row (1977); Festival edition, Abingdon (paper) (1982); Wm Caxton Ltd. (reprint edition, Preface by the publisher) (1996).
Through Okinawan Eyes, edited with Jane Kluckhohn, University of New Mexico Press (1951).
POETRY
Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle, edited by Stephen Dunning, Edward Lueders, and Hugh Smith; Scott Foresman (1966), Scholastic Book Services, paperback (1996); 2nd edition, compiled by Stephen Dunning, Edward Lueders, Naomi Shihab Nye, Keith Gilyard, Demetrice A. Worley (1995).
Some Haystacks Don’t Even Have Any Needle, edited by Stephen Dunning, Edward Lueders, and Hugh Smith, Scott Foresman (1969).
Zero Makes Me Hungry, edited by Edward Lueders and Primus St. John, Scott Foresman (1976).
Images and Impressions: Poems by Clarice Short, Brewster Ghiselin, and Edward Lueders, University of Utah Printmaking Department (1969).
20 Poems by Edward G. Lueders, U.S. Information Service, Bombay/Calcutta, India (1971).
TRANSLATION
Like Underground Water, The poetry of Mid-20th Century Japan, translations by Naoshi Koriyama and Edward Lueders, Copper Canyon Press (1995).
REFERENCE
The College and Adult Reading List of Books in Literature and the Fine Arts, Edward Lueders, Editorial Chairman, NCTE / Washington Square Press (1962).
SYMPOSIUM
Writing Natural History: Dialogues with Authors, Edited by Edward Lueders, University of Utah Press (1989).
SOCIAL & LITERARY HISTORY
Carl Van Vechten & the Twenties, University of New Mexico Press (1955).
BIOGRAPHY / CRITICISM
Carl Van Vechten, Twayne U.S. Authors Series (1965).
SOLO PIANO RECORDINGS
Ed Lueders Plays Favorites, CD recorded on the Roland Digital in Torrey, Utah, July 7, 2004
Ed Lueders at Home, CD recorded on the Roland Digital in Torrey, Utah. August 12, 2007
Love Songs for Deborah, CD recorded on the Roland Digital in Torrey, Utah, January 20, 2010
Ed Lueders@90, CD recorded on the Steinway Concert Grand in the lobby of University of Utah Hospital, February 14, 2013
