LEWIS MACADAMS R.I.P.

Lewis was a poet, and an activist in restoring the LA River, and a friend of mine. We first met in the 1960s when mutual friend and poet Ted Berrigan sent Lewis to my place to meet me because he thought our poetry had some things in common at the time. I agreed, Lewis didn't, but he introduced himself to me anyway.

Over the years I was often envious of him. Back then he was married to the poet Phoebe MacAdams who not only was rightfully known as the most beautiful woman in the poetry scene but became one of our greatest poets. I was also envious, as many of us were, that his first major collection was published by one of the big publishing houses of the time and seemed to get the kind of establishment attention most of us downtown poets pretended to scorn but secretly desired if only to reject.

And he seemed to know all the cool people and was cool himself (he wrote a book about the BIRTH OF THE COOL (highly recommended though I quibbled with him about some of his takes in it)). He moved to LA a year or so before I did in 1982, and we did a reading together when I arrived that he set up in a cool bookstore in West Hollywood, the coolest part of LA at the time.

We even collaborated, though without my knowledge initially. He wrote a long piece years later that included some of my writing and then asked afterwards if it was okay with me, and it was. And he invited me to join him in his activism to restore the mostly concrete paved LA river to a more natural state and so I took part in many of his unique performance events along its banks.

Lewis was a big part of my life, bigger than I realized when I last saw him before I moved back East at the turn of this century. Once our competitiveness mellowed some with our aging, I could simply admit that I dug the guy. He was my friend. I already miss him a lot.

[The LA Times has a good obituary if you can get it to open without having to subscribe.]