Category — Frances Richey

Ben and Frances Richey

Awhile back, I attended a reading hosted by the Sidney Harman Writer-in-Residence program, featuring Frances Richey. She introduced herself as a yoga teacher and poet, a nice coupling of professions. When she revealed that she worked in the corporate world for two decades, I was taken back. When she revealed that she wrote a book of poems for her son on duty at Iraq, and after reading a selection, I almost doubled over – in front of me that night was a mother with a passionate heart, and a poet who definitely knew how to write. [Read more →]

Once we make a decision, it’s often too late to change. For Frances Richey, however, she was able to repair her relationship with her son, Ben. I chanced to meet her at the Macaulay Honors event, hosted on the Veterans Day. Though I did not know much about her background, prior to the event, her poems reflected her internal struggle with her son. In a divided family with separate views on politics, Richey struggled to compromise with Ben. After He was deployed to serve at Iraq, Richey began to realize how selfish she was. In her published book, The Warrior, Richey attempted to reconstruct her fractured relationship with her son. [Read more →]

Deep in the bowels of the Macaulay Honors College Building on November 11, 2008 we were privy to a small and intimate reading of Frances Richey poems by none other than Mrs. Richey herself.

She smiled somewhat nervously at the audience and adjusted her purple cardigan set. She beamed at them with her eyes smiling through her square lenses. There was not much to set her apart from an average benevolent looking middle age woman as I observed her from the second row. That was until she started to talk about her son directly and through her poems. [Read more →]

Frances Richey seemed more like a peer than a superior, stylishly wearing a vivid purple knit cardigan with a matching shirt and a belt around her waist.  Even her ornate earrings seemed unexpected to me to be worn by a middle-aged woman.  Regardless, I immediately knew that she had flair and I hoped her personality matched her creative style that initially drew me in.  She created a humble and compassionate atmosphere by greeting students arriving late with a “Thank you for coming, I’m glad you made it.” Instead of feeling irritated or set back, she happily volunteered to fill them in on the material they had missed. [Read more →]

Frances Richey with son, Ben

Frances Richey is an author who writes poetry.  Her first book of poems was published for her father. The second book she promised to write to and for her son, Ben, who is in the army and who served two tours of duty in Iraq. He is an army captain and a Green Beret. Richey worked in business for two decades, and raised a child by herself, as a single mother. She started writing when she volunteered with people who had less than six months to live. This inspired her to write because these people told her to do what she wants to do, and not waste time, because in a single moment everything could disappear as if it was never there. [Read more →]

            Before an intimate group at the Macaulay Honors College on the Upper West Side, Frances Richey read from The Warrior, her second poetry collection.

           Beginning with a career in the corporate world, Richey saw that she lacked fulfillment and satisfaction in her life. This led her to volunteer at a hospice, where her relationships with patients brought her closer to “the reality of her mortality.” Business writing is permeated with “proposals, reports…you’re always making a case and asking for something. However, with poetry, “I could do something I love.”

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Frances Richey seems like the typical mother. She is the mother of a Green Beret and feels like most mothers would feel – concerned and distressed because her son’s life constantly faces perilous situations, especially during war time. After her son, Ben, decided to be a soldier and serve in Iraq, she filled the void in her life by writing a collection of poems that portrayed her feelings to his being a soldier in an attempt to reestablish the mother-son relationship. [Read more →]

Source: www.francisrichey.com

Awkwardly seated on a chair perched atop a stage in a sloppily decorated room, Frances Richey reads from her critically acclaimed poetry collection, The Warrior.  Some attentively listen while others wonder as to why no refreshments were provided.  Yet as she sets down the book to address any questions, it becomes obvious that this poet is content with her work and her ultimate purpose in writing her works is far more personal than to just woo audiences. [Read more →]

A corporate business- woman turned poet, Frances Richey has recently published her second collection of poems titled The Warrior. As her first book, The Burning Point, it has already received wide critical acclaim. Fueled by strong feelings toward her beloved son who was deployed to fight in Iraq, she began to write an anthology of poems to express her emotions. Her poetry is moving and at times tear jerking, leading one to question how Richey could have become such a magnificent poet after working in an absolutely non-creative profession. Nonetheless, Frances Richey has become a prolific and successful artist in her field. [Read more →]

francesrichey.com

Intimate. It is the best word available in the English language to describe Frances Richey. It describes everything about her – from her demeanor to her stories, and especially to her presence in a room. Her intimacy was recently put on display at a recent reading at the Macaulay Honor College. She read several selections from her new collection of poems, entitled The Warrior. These poems chronicle the ever-changing emotions that she felt when her son, Ben, was deployed to fight in Iraq. [Read more →]