History/Bio

Bio Revised 01/01/ 2012

Vincent Quatroche has been a member of the faculty in the Communication Department @ The State University College @ Fredonia State NY since the late 80s. He recently returned to the instructional staff at Jamestown Community College North County Campus in Dunkirk NY..Quatroche has served as adjunct faculty for the New York Empire College System @ the Fredonia NY Division . He holds a Bachelor of Arts in English and Master of Science in Education from SUNY @ Fredonia.  Quatroche is a permanently certified educator in New York. He is a published author of widely diverse creative projects, including numerous books audio recordings and mufti-media collaborations . His poetry has been disturbed widely throughout the United States and abroad. A profile of his work has been featured on PBS & NPR . Mr. Quatroche’s  professional credentials and accomplishments are recognized and included in the 25th edition of the International Biographic Center’s Dictionary of Who’s Who in the Field of Education, Cambridge CB2 #QP United Kingdom, England

Vincent Quatroche was born on the eastern tip of the North Fork of Long Island in 1955 in the balcony of the old Prudential Theater during a matinee of Mister Roberts” among Mr. Quatroche first memories are the smell of cigarette smoke, the coarseness of the lodge carpet on his bare ass, the yellow color of the popcorn, the taste of salt and an Usher who looked like Bobby Dar1n shinning a flash light in his eyes, telling him to “keep it down”.

His mother baptized him on the spot with her Coca-Cola.

His first attempted escape from Long Island occurred in 1973. Less than twenty four hours after graduating from high stool (sic) he found himself sitting alone on the steps of a “Savings and Loan” three thousand miles away in San Diego. Welcome to “The Road.” He immediately took off hitchhiking up the coast (like he had seen in the movies). Clueless and soon broke he returned home three weeks later to start squandering his youth in earnest.

This pattern would more or less persist for the next few years till finally he managed to go away one day somewhere and not return. An education of sorts both in the traditional and “school of hard knocks” was forged during Vince’s twenties. Between tragic love affairs and binge drinking, in his spare time he worked an unending series of manual labor jobs that offered little future and less pay.

Odds were fairly good among even his closet friends that old “Vince buddy” was going down. But hard. And would just disappear into the barroom floor one day to permanently wait for the iceman to “cometh”. But defying those “in the know” crawled up off the mat and finished a BA degree in English and a Masters of Education soon followed. The big right turn occurred around thirty with marriage and fatherhood. The teaching career began in earnest right around that time and new air of legitimacy seemed to swirl in the air.

And this where the story changes. Quatroche managed to latch on to a couple of adjunct teaching positions that amounted to a full timers course load at the local State and Community Colleges. Right about the same time his part time gig as an adult GED Instructor led to full time incarnation (excuse me, I mean employment) at the County Jail. So since the mid decade of the nineties there has been plenty of steady work. As for his teaching reputation, one can go right around the horn with the scouting reports or course evaluations. Some students swear by him, others at him, but usually nobody who finishes a semester or stretch in the Clink fails to come away with some benefit, grudge or definitive opinion (sic).

.

The years that have followed proved to be productive ones. In the past decade of the 2000s Quatroche has managed to produce four print collections of Po, Prose and Poetry. Four CDs of new sonic landscape driven Po and in addition some past tracks digitally re-mastered CD of previously released material complied from cassette series from the 80s and 90s has recently surfaced. He has received some sporadic exposure on public radio formats in the US and Canada. Quatroche has acquired a rather minor league regional reputation as a semi-interesting side show act when he participates in public readings. The proliferation of the internet and maintaining a web site helped bring his work out further into the public’s eye so that it could be ignored more widely. The last few years as seem him become an alarming frequent, disturbing presence in the poetry scene in the northeastern part of the United States.

A key decision regarding the publishing was to stop knocking on doors trying to get the work in print from others, but simply do it himself. See it exist in reality and be satisfied with at least that much for the time being. Of course the more critical appraisal wants to dismiss this entire process/effort, writing it off as simply another vanity press exercise in self-premonition rather than talent. Perhaps but as the alternative of having hundreds of little brown notebooks collecting mildew in a basement or some Prayer Tower somewhere was at least one fate escaped.

Any commercial success, wide spread exposure or serious attention to his work eludes him most of time despite being one persistent bastard who has insisted and endured at this just long enough that inevitably for somebody somewhere to comment if his name surfaces in conversation, O yeah that guy, whatzisname.think I hoid (sic) of him.Cryptic to a fault, fiercely independent and in general either bored or impatient with anybodies scene all he really has managed to do is either puzzle, piss off or in general leaving some heads in the audience being scratched or shook while growling, Who in hell does that fucking guy think he is ?

My name is Vincent Quatroche.

And I don’t give up, I keep up.

Take your best shot, pal.