Carmel poet Ric Masten dies

Ric Masten was a singer-songwriter, a painter, an actor, a quick-draw artist with a pistol, a carpenter and a high school runner.

[Linda Missouri]

Thanks to Dennis Taylor of the Herald for giving us this article on Ric Masten. Ric influenced my life when he gave troubadour concerts in the schools where I taught. Also,the Orange County Jung Club invited Ric and Billie Barbara to give poetry readings and Janet from Arizona and I drove to Big Sur for a weekend of creativity with the Mastens. Nancie Brown who was a childhood neighbor of Ric's phoned me of his death. Lynn and Lydia Davis sent me the link to this article in the Herald. I'm happy Ric has so many lives he's touched including mine.

[Jan Shriner]

I cherish my memories of Ric Masten in a ceremony he married two good friends and in his performance at the last First Night in Monterey. I loved him for his interactive reading of his poetry that First Night evening and the sharing of his personal experience of life and out living for both times that I did get to see him. Thank you for this report of his passing to the other side.

[Don Eddy]

I first met Ric at the Arthur Miller Memorial Library in Big Sur where festivities for a weekend were happening. He sang his song "Let it be dance" and many of us read poems. Later, at the first First Night in Monterey in Morgan's coffee house where he read more poems and, again, sang his song with the packed house singing along with him. I lived on a moored sailboat in the harbor at the time and knew well the feelings of being a free spirit. I drove up Colorado Canyon to visit Ric once, but he wasn't home. A beautiful place to be.

I left Monterey in 1998 and again in 2003 when I moved to Houston for financial reasons.

While singing one Sunday morning at the Emerson UU Church here in Houston, "his song" was sung and I was astonished, never expecting to hear it again, outside of the Monterey area.

Ric was one of a kind and his works enriched my life.

[Bruce White]

Ellen, my heart goes out to you.

[welvin Stroud]

Enjoyed Ric Masten the one time I had a chance to hear him in Carmel. He was/is a legend. I am glad I had a chance to see and hear him.

[Donna Kanabay Harvey]

My father "met" Ric on a prostate cancer web site during his own battle with prostate cancer. After my dad's death, I was going through his e-mails and was struck by the first e-mails exchanged between them and e-mailed Ric to let him know that dad had passed. That was in January of 2003. I would not have survived the first year after my dad's death without Ric's friendship,love, and wise counsel. One of my sisters was even able to meet him and Billie Barbara at their wonderful home when she was out there the following year for a convention. Shortly before Ric "went offline" forever, he granted us the incredible privilege of using his Don Quixote/Windmill OneLiner in the company logo of our family business, completing yet another full circle. I not only would not have survived, intact, the first and really the second years of dad's death, but my life would be very different today, over five years later, without Ric. I had promised him that I would Dance when not only he leaves us, but when others leave, including my mother, who died just a few days before Ric did. Even in his own ending days, he made it a point to pass a message back to me about mom, through his daughter Jerri. I will treasure that special gift for the rest of my life, as I will treasure Ric, and try feebly to live by the stunning example he has shown us all. To the entire Masten family: Thank you for sharing your lives, and your dad, with all of us strangers. I know it must be overwhelming to receive intimate messages from people you've never heard of, and I'm sure I'm only one of hundreds. Please know that if you ever need anything, anything at all, you have lifelong friends in the Kanabay family in Florida. You will always be in my prayers. To my precious friend Ric, I hope dad, now with mom at his side (in her wedding dress) was there to meet you at the gate and shepherd you around. You two TRY to stay out of trouble out here!:)

[Anita Augesen]

I first met Ric when he was touring the US back in the 1970's and visiting colleges and UU Churches. Duirng that time he and Billie Barbara stayed at my house.
Many years later I became more serious about my personal desire to write and reconnected with Ric through his personal weekly posting. He was kind enough to respond with encouraging words several times. It is only now that I recognize how much his poetry has influenced my own writing style.
Recently I wrote this for him.
Old Word Whittlers
Old poets whittle away on words
until sentences are smooth, lean,
crafted to perfection. They live
to write, and in their poems
will continue to live.
For Ric Masten
I can see him dancing now across the heavens.

[jill seman]

welvin Stroud wrote:

Enjoyed Ric Masten the one time I had a chance to hear him in Carmel. He was/is a legend. I am glad I had a chance to see and hear him.

Are you the Welvin Stroud who wrote "Poems to Dust"? Do you remember a white family who lived in Palo Alto - Sylvia and Tim Seman? If you are who I hope you are, please e-mail me back. I've been looking for you for years. I'm the daughter of Sylvia and Tim, and I always remember you used to come over and throw me up in the air and twirl me around, and I loved you so much!(I must have been around 3 - 5 years old.

My e-mail is [e-mail]