LAURA BOSS R.I.P.

 

Laura Boss was one of the first poets I reconnected with when I moved back to Jersey 22 years ago. She was a small press/little magazine poet, like me, and we'd known of each other for many years. Back in the day she was at times known for being the partner and muse of poets Michel Benedikt and Gregory Corso (no secret, she wrote poems detailing these connections) in the overtly sexist way those things were viewed back in the 20th Century.

But many of us knew her as a poet and editor and lovely human being. I saw her often as she and poet Maria Mazziotti Gillian ran a monthly reading series at the Montclair NJ library that I was delighted to attend and sometimes take part in. She also was the founder and editor of the poetry magazine LIPS and a champion of poets known and unknown.

May she Rest In Poetry.

[Here's a poem of hers that seems fitting:]

WHERE I GO FROM HERE

Where I go from here
      is not going to be too far
      since I just celebrated  a 
      birthday whose number says almost over

Where I go from here is maybe backward
      trying to find old friends who have disappeared,
      old third cousins, old classmates
      who on my forward moving years 
      years ago( and probably theirs too) lost touch
I wonder if they’re ok, if they’re still alive

It’s odd this having fewer years ahead
       where once the future spread 
       out like a long glowing road with 
       no near end—
Where once there were so many divergent paths
         with no near end—

 Where once there were so many divergent paths 

             I could have taken and sometimes did

Where once I stopped for years

             and focused on my kids— their future lives

             where they were going

I guess I’ll just try to call some old friends— 

             but with cell phones, no directory listings for

             them anymore—

 

I’ll hope their minds are still alert—

             that they have avoided the Alzheimer’s epidemic

             in our age group—

That they might say— I was thinking about you too

 

And maybe sooner  not later , I’ll pack up my journals

               so my grown kids and grandchildren so busy

               (and I’m glad they are )with their own lives

               might one day after I’m gone 

               pick up one of these journals 

               and discover who their mother and grandmother really was