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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us May 31, 2005 Poems live on after death of Ashland’s Steve Mason By Rukmini Callimachi The Associated Press Steve Mason, a soldier and poet who became the unofficial bard of the Vietnam War, has died. He was 65. Mason died Wednesday of lung cancer at his home in Ashland, his family said. Considered the poet laureate of Vietnam veterans, Mason’s blank verse gave voice to a generation’s wounds. His poem “The Wall Within” was read at the 1984 dedication of the Vietnam Wall in Washington. Mason began to write poetry as a way to make sense of the war and connect with others who had the same experience, said former wife Diane Weirch. “It was a long time before the vet centers opened and before Vietnam vets stopped suffering alone,” she said. He began by writing love poems in the 1970s, co-writing “Moths and Violets” with a friend. Eventually, he began opening up the wounds of war in blank verse, publishing the trilogy he is best known for — “Johnny’s Song: Poetry of a Vietnam Veteran” in 1986, “Warrior for Peace” in 1988 and “The Human Being — A Warrior’s Journey Toward Peace and Mutual Healing” in 1990. “His poetry, though you could tell he was no dummy, was all emotion — and that’s a language that reaches everyone,” Weirch said. His family said veterans who had never met Mason thanked him, saying he had given them a voice. Some used Mason’s verse to explain to wives and children how they felt about the war they could not speak about. Going through his possessions, his family discovered “legal pad after legal pad after legal pad” brimming with poems, Weirch said. The family hopes someday to bring the collection together in a posthumous volume. Though a longtime proponent of Oregon’s assisted suicide law, Mason did not use the lethal dose of pills that had been granted to him, his family said. “It gave him great comfort to know he had that option, but I think in the end he didn’t need it,” daughter Jessica Mason said by telephone from Ashland. He is survived by three daughters and one son. DailyTidings.com Home Page Archives | Revels | Classifieds | Real Estate Guide | Weather | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2005 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Deep Muscle Stimulator Ceramic Piggy Banks FREE Entertainment Guide Women's & Men's Slippers Accelerate Weightloss Products Backpacks Online Pharmacy Vegas Travel Guide Search Engine Optimization Student Loans Hotel & Airline Reservations Hammocks Water Filter Helzberg Diamonds Online Casinos Community Bonus Casino Mortgage Calculator Security Systems Mailing Lists Click Here Advertisement .:Advertisements:. Site Search: RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams