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)