I’m Duke Beaufort, a passionate poet who finds inspiration in capturing the humor of life.
Duke Beaufort experienced an abusive childhood, but does not hold that against his parents, relatives, or neighbors. He loved natural science, taking things apart, and putting them back together. He notes that the unfortunate experiences in life generally foster empathy for the downtrodden. He graduated from Wesleyan University in 1974 and generally feels that schools have some organizational resemblance to prison.
As an information specialist in a manufacturing company and with the help of a talented team, he assembled all the components to allow the materials requirements planning module to modernize the operation. During that time, he also met the love of his life—a very kind and caring immigrant from Europe. They have two wonderful children together and are still much in love today after 46 years of marriage.
After a corporate takeover of the company, Mr. Beaufort obtained a master’s degree in elementary education from IONA college and taught for five years. He wanted to make education fun, and attempted to pair the two. During summers, he earned various pilot certificates and became a flight instructor—a position that naturally combines teaching and freedom. He became the director of a flight school at a major airport in the New York Metropolitan area and held that job for 10 years.
Mr. Beaufort joined the FAA in 2008 just before the real estate bubble collapse and the ensuing recession. He worked 15 years in several different federal positions and used his expertise to design a database publishing system, which the FAA used to produce several public-facing documents. It was simply a question of taking things apart and putting them back together.
Mr. Beaufort published a pamphlet of limericks in 2007 and published two paperback books—Left Wing Limericks in 2007 and Duke Beaufort’s Psycho Limerick Therapy Handbook in 2008. He continues to publish limericks on life and politics on the internet. Mr. Beaufort believes in communicating with directness, humor, and with short messages that people can read quickly. He likens these short poems to puzzles only that it’s words that get put together according to a set of rules and with some degree of humor.