Worcester poet Richard Fox dies after battle with cancer, a topic he addressed with words

WORCESTER  — Six years ago, Richard H. Fox described his poetry for The Worcester Telegram & Gazette: “Youthful-misadventure mortality, rock ‘n’ roll chemo, spin-the-bokeh radiation, walk-to-coffee surgery, death-is-the-ultimate-deadline cancer.”

Well, no one will ever accuse Fox of not being an original.

In the same year, Fox, 64 at the time, won the Worcester County Poetry Association’s Frank O’Hara Prize for his poem “Skating on the Edge of Flesh.”

With the reoccurring themes of rock ‘n’ roll, family and cancer, Fox — who fought oral cancer in 2010, and was fighting his second bout of cancer in both the lungs and the brain at the time of winning the coveted poetry prize — said he had been writing poetry for as long as he can remember.

“I think poets are really compelled to write,” Fox said at the awards ceremony in May 2017. “It’s not like I want to write; it’s like you need to write. To be away from it is to be away from something very essential to one’s core.”

Fox died Monday morning.

His sister, Renee Fox Gould, broke the news that her “courageous, beautiful and amazing brother Richard” had passed away after a long struggle with cancer.

More: Poet Richard Fox wrote of life even as death approached

Richard Fox was a born-and-bred Worcester original. He was also a kindred spirit and kind soul to his fellow and would-be poets. He graduated from Worcester Academy.

While cancer might have finally done in Fox at the end, he got the best of the “Big C” with his smart, funny words that were more harsh and humorous than cancer could ever be on its worst day.

In his 2017 book “You’re My Favorite Horse,” Fox didn’t mince words about his deteriorating medical condition and his biting sense of humor in a poem called “CANCER SUCKS!”

“To you,” he wrote, addressing his disease, “miracle debunks statistical improbability ... You kill me, you kill you./Dude, are you suicidal?/A microcellular terrorist?”

More: Celebrating life: Poet Richard Fox faces cancer, hospice care with humor, poetry

While entering hospice care on March 21, Fox continued to put words on paper, documenting the darkly comic moments that take place toward the end of the road.

“Poetry heals. It can heal the reader, especially a cancer patient, but it heals the writer,” Fox was quoted in the June 7 edition of Worcester Magazine. “Taking your fear and putting the words on paper weakens the fear, but shouting it from stage really crushes it.”

Celebrated Worcester poet Joe Fusco Jr. said he bonded with Fox over humor.

"Richard could take something like he was going through, like his cancer, and find moment that we could laugh about,” Fusco said in an interview Monday. “Laughter is still the best medicine, I think, in Richard’s mind. … That was the way he battled the disease and took the forefront on it was he made it funny at times. You read some of his poems about the different things he had to do, in regard to his treatment and he always brought the bright side out of it."

In addition to being an "amazing storyteller,” Fusco said Fox was a “wonderful person.”

“Richard was very supportive of all the other writers that he ever came in contact with,” Fusco said. “He would buy your book. He would talk to you about things. … He was just a good guy, more than anything else.”

Fusco, who is the vice president of the Worcester County Poetry Association and one of 15 poets who paid tribute to Fox on June 13 on Zoom, said Fox gave a very generous donation to the poetry association before his death.

“Richard didn’t want it publicized. He didn’t specify how he wanted us to use the money. He just said let it go to advance poetry in Worcester,” Fusco said. “He wanted it under the radar, which is how he was. He didn’t like to take credit for stuff, although he had a lot of things he could take credit for.”

A fixture of the Worcester poetry scene for 25 years, Fox is the author of seven poetry collections, including “TIME BOMB” (2013), “wandering in puzzle boxes” (2015), “You’re my favorite horse” (2017), “embracing the burlesque of collateral damage” (2020), “Let sleep bless our arrival” (2022), “Once I was born to live” (2022),” “DOUBLE CHAI: Poems for My Zady & Miscellany” (2023), plus the chapbook “The Complete Uncle Louie Poems” (2017). His poems have appeared in numerous journals.

In the late 1990s, Fox had a Tuesday morning drive time radio show called “CrossTracks” on WCUW 91.3 FM. The format was an eclectic mix of music followed by a guest songwriter or poet who performed in studio and spun their favorite recordings.

In the early 2000s, Fox was president of the nonprofit Poetry Oasis Inc., which ran a weekly venue with an open mike, followed by a feature.

Poet Robert Eugene Perry said he met Fox when he was the featured poet at the Poetorium in Southbridge.

“I was the ‘Dead Poet’ reader and had done two long poems by T.S. Eliot. When I came down from the podium, he motioned me over and said, ‘Great job. Those were two very difficult poems.’ Thus began a wonderful friendship and mutual encouragement.”

Hearing the news of Fox’s passing, Perry reflected on Fox’s kindness and loving spirit.

“Richard was truly one of a kind,” Perry said. “His impact on the poetry community cannot be overstated. He is, hands down, my favorite narrative poet. His compassion, generosity, kindness and humor were evident to all who knew him.”

Fox was also very proud of his Jewish heritage and was able to relate the experience of growing up Jewish with a warmth, humor and easily relatable grace.

Perry said he plans to dedicate a poem to Fox in his next book.

“I was trying to write a poem about Tikkun Olam, the Jewish concept of repairing the world,” Perry said. “I asked Richard for some insight, and he sent me three pages of notes. I spent a year trying to boil it down to its essence. In the end, it was Fox approved.”

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Worcester poet Richard Fox dies after battle with cancer