Joseph Ceravolo was born April 22, 1934 in Astoria, Queens, New York
City, the first son of immigrant Italian parents from the town of tailors,
Soriano, in Calabria, Italia. His father, John, was a custom tailor for Saks
Fifth Avenue and his mother, Millie, was a factory seamstress. Millie
died of cancer in 1957 at the age of 51.

Joseph's only sibling was his younger by 2 years brother, John, Jr. or
"Mingo," who was an accomplished classical pianist and died in 1986 at
the age of 49. Their father died at the age of 93 on June 16, 1988.
Joseph died suddenly on September 4, 1988, three months after his aged
father, of an inoperable tumor on his bile duct, which had been undetected
until it was too late.

I am Rosemary, Joe's wife for 28 years and the mother of his three
children, two sons, Paul and James, and a daughter, Anita. I met Joe in
1959, when he had just graduated City College with a degree in Civil
Engineering and was taking a Poetry Workshop taught by Kenneth Koch at the
New School for Social Research in Manhattan. Joe began writing poetry in
1957, soon after his mother died, while stationed in Germany for the US
Army. He wrote his first poems when he was assigned to all-night Guard
Duty in a stockade tower somewhere in the German Alps.

Poetry was Joe's primary love. He lived and he died for poetry. Nothing
else mattered as much to his sensibilities as a human being on this
earth. Read him and weep. Read him and rejoice. He's here eternally.