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.