friends

[note #34]

This is my friend Marie Howe, standing before a projection of a photograph that she used for the cover of her book Magdalene. We were at Kaatsbaan, a dance / performance space in Tivoli, NY., about to speak about literary kinship, to kick off a weekend of literary events hosted by A Public Space. The photograph was taken a few years ago at New Year’s Eve bonfire—her daughter Grace gets the credit for taking the photo; I get the credit for setting the bonfire.

Marie and I spoke about how we met, how our lives have intertwined over the course of these many years, how our friendship has fed our poetry. I cannot remember everything we said, but I remember talking about how she’d asked if I could help her order the poems in Magdalene, how we spent a couple hours working on a version of order, how we left to get something to eat, and when we came back the wind had scattered all we’d done across the floor.

The order had become a collaboration between us and the wind.

It's a strange format, to talk to a friend in front of an audience about your lives. To tell stories as if we didn’t already know the stories. And the thing was, we didn’t—we can’t—know everything. At the end, the last thing I said (or at least the last thing I remember saying) was this: Without our friendship I wouldn’t be a poet.

UPCOMING WORKSHOP

5-10 oct / Omega Institute / Rhinebeck NY