new year 11/1/26

 HAPPY BELATED (NOVEMBER 1) CELTIC NEW YEAR!! (and happy 'tis)

GRATITUDE

 

This one turned twenty-nine yesterday. A miracle. 

9/11 REDUX

 Berry Berenson was a friend to me in my early years in Hollywood. She was married to the movie star Tony Perkins at the time and until his death in 1992. They seemed really loving to each other and I admired their relationship. And I admired her.

Though she was often noted more as Perkin's wife or as model/actress Marisa Berenson's sister, Berry was a wonderful actor in her own right (see REMEMBER MY NAME). But despite her fame-for-whatever-reason, at least around me she was always the least pretentious or self-centered person I ever met anywhere.

She came to a play I was in early on in L.A, Landford Wilson's BALM IN GILEAD, and after the performance stuck around to talk to me. One of the things she said to me that night was that she had only seen one other person in her life who had the kind of glow, I think that was the word she used, that I had, and that was Marilyn Monroe!

She was wonderful on screen and off, either in front of the camera or behind it (she was a great photographer), and I only wish, as I too often do with many friends, that I had made more of an effort to see her more often. Especially after I heard the news that she had been on one of the two planes that crashed into The World Trade Center towers on 9/11.

I knew some others who went down with the towers on that tragic day, like Father Mike Judge, but Berry is the one I think of most often. As I later wrote in a poem ("March 18, 2003"), she was:

"a woman who was kind to me when
she didn't need to be[...]
How many people have died
before you got the chance to tell them what you meant to?"

R.I.P. to all those we lost on that horrific day (and those we continue to lose).

GRATEFUL

Recent instagram post from longtime friend Alec Baldwin on my poetry collection Another Way To Play. If  you read his comment, it's a poem in itself, an ode to poetry, in this case mine, for which I am humbly grateful.

DAVE MORICE R.I.P.

 

Poet and wordplay genius Dave Morice was a one of a kind, and one kind, person. He arrived in Iowa City (where he became an iconic presence) in 1969, as I was leaving, so except for a few visits over the years, we mostly knew each other through correspondence and poetry.

 Look him  up to see how unique he and his work were, which I am grateful to have been a small part of (e.g. his poetry comics, where he illustrated lines of classic and contemporary poetry).

I just want to say as a person who always thought I was the smartest in whatever room I was in when I was younger (from childhood to my fifties!) and sought out people who thought they were, I could be challenging, but I never felt judged or unappreciated by him. I suspect everyone who knew him would say the same.

Rest In Poetry, Dave.

GOOD POINT

 

HARRY E. NORTHUP'S TO ASK FOR LOVE

When I finished reading poet/actor/friend Harry Northup's latest collection of poetry, To Ask For Love, I thought this is the greatest book of love poems ever written (including my own Just Let Me Do It).

What I meant was that To Ask For Love moved me more than any book of love poems I've ever read.