Charles Muñoz is an American poet, novelist and publisher.

After serving as a WWII

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 navy aerial gunner

Air gunner

An air gunner a.k.a. aerial gunner is a member of an air force aircrew who operates flexible-mount or turret-mounted machine guns or autocannons in an aircraft...

 in torpedo bomber

Torpedo bomber

A torpedo bomber is a bomber aircraft designed primarily to attack ships with aerial torpedoes which could also carry out conventional bombings. Torpedo bombers existed almost exclusively prior to and during World War II when they were an important element in many famous battles, notably the...

s, Muñoz next worked as a United States Merchant Marine

United States Merchant Marine

The United States Merchant Marine refers to the fleet of U.S. civilian-owned merchant vessels, operated by either the government or the private sector, that engage in commerce or transportation of goods and services in and out of the navigable waters of the United States. The Merchant Marine is...

 radio

Radio

Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...

 officer, contentedly sailing on freighters

Cargo ship

A cargo ship or freighter is any sort of ship or vessel that carries cargo, goods, and materials from one port to another. Thousands of cargo carriers ply the world's seas and oceans each year; they handle the bulk of international trade...

, tankers

Tanker (ship)

A tanker is a ship designed to transport liquids in bulk. Major types of tankship include the oil tanker, the chemical tanker, and the liquefied natural gas carrier.-Background:...

, and passenger ship

Passenger ship

A passenger ship is a ship whose primary function is to carry passengers. The category does not include cargo vessels which have accommodations for limited numbers of passengers, such as the ubiquitous twelve-passenger freighters once common on the seas in which the transport of passengers is...

s until, the world being what it was, he sailed for several years on munitions ships bound for duty in the wars in Korea

Korea

Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...

 and Vietnam

Vietnam

Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...

. He came ashore for good and married the former Bernardine Martin. He is a specialist in eighteenth-century literature, a member of the Gunroom

Gunroom

A gunroom is the junior officers' mess on a naval vessel. It was occupied by the officers below the rank of lieutenant, but who are not warrant officers of the class of the boatswain, gunner or carpenter. In the wooden sailing ships it was on the lower deck, and was originally the quarters of the...

, a novelist (his book Stowaway was published by Random House

Random House

Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...

), and a poet. For a while, he entertained himself as an explorer of caves, a walker in the desert, and a writer on arctic

Arctic

The Arctic is a region located at the northern-most part of the Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Russia, Greenland, the United States, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. The Arctic region consists of a vast, ice-covered ocean, surrounded by treeless permafrost...

 survival for the Air Force. He then chose a more formal profession, becoming vice president of Springhouse Corporation, a publisher of books and magazines.

This is the background that enriches his poems, which are often conventionally suburban in their location (he was poet laureate of Bucks County) but wildly mythic in their subtext. He was, for five years, poetry editor of Jewish Spectator magazine. His poems have earned four nominations for the Pushcart Prize

Pushcart Prize

The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize by Pushcart Press that honors the best "poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot" published in the small presses over the previous year. Magazine and small book press editors are invited to nominate up to 6 works they have featured....

. Charles is now the official, and highly valued, list bard to the Gunroom of hmssurprise.org.

Books by this author

• Stowaway
• Fragments of a Myth - Modern Poems on Ancient Themes (Time Being Books, 2001)

External links

• Publisher's site with one of Muñoz's poems