Sunday, April 3, 2011

LEE LALLY

There's a post by Terence Winch today on THE BEST AMERICAN POETRY BLOG about my first wife and the mother of my two oldest children, Lee Lally, a poet, artist, musician and political activist who passed around this time of year twenty-five years ago, after being in a coma for six years.

There are photos of Lee on the post, but I thought I'd add three of my favorites of her that I think capture what I loved about her:

Me & Lee in our apartment in Iowa City in the Winter of 1967-'68 not long before our daughter Caitlin was born
[PS: If you blow up the photo and the little photo on the window sill you can just make out that it's John Coltrane.]
Lee holding our son Miles and me our daughter Caitlin outside our apartment in Hyattsville, Maryland in 1970
Lee reading the catalog for a show of poet Jim Haining's "envelope art" (every copy of his magazine SALT LICK had individual artwork in them, and each envelope he sent them out in also had more unique artwork on them, so before sending out the magazine once, he had a show of the envelopes! c. 1972 in Baltimore, Maryland—for more about this period and Jim's wonderful poetry and observations find a copy of his out-of-print A QUINCY HISTORY)


10 comments:

Jamie Rose said...

Lovely post Lals. Thank you.

Jamie

Robert Z. said...

Wow, a part of your story and life I didn't know about before Michael. Much respect.

rz

Anonymous said...

What lovely, poignant photos...by the way, is that the apt I took over from you and Lee....oddly enough I was just remembering that apt earlier this morning....

suzanne

Lally said...

Suzanne, that sure is. To the right of where we were sitting was that great view of the rooftops of "downtown" Iowa City!

Anonymous said...

oh wow....I loved that apt. I remember someone on the first floor was having a party and that's where I met Jane Delynn

Lally said...

Yeah, and when we first moved in that's where we met Ray DiPalma, and a whole lot of others folks. It was called "cockroach arms" though the official name was Moffet's if I remember correctly.

Anonymous said...

Yes, Moffet's. Yes, cockroaches.

But it was just 2 or 3 blocks from campus, which was a godsend during winter snowstorms.

Suzanne

Robert Berner said...

"Cockroach Arms" was a sort of generic name given to a couple of apartment buildings, also referred to as Cockroach Arms No.1 or Cockroach Arms No.2, both of them on the west side of South Clinton St. between Washington St. and College St. Moffet Apartments was one of them, but I can't remember whether it was No. 1 or No. 2. These buildings were only about a half a block from the south end of Shaeffer Hall, not 2 or 3 blocks from the campus.
Bob B.

Anonymous said...

Even better.
Thanks Bob, for the correction.

suzanne

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