Alice and I met at the U of Iowa in 1967, when she was 21 and me 25, not long out of four years in the military and married to Lee, and Alice would soon be with our mutual friend poet Ted Berrigan. We connected in a deep way and saw a lot of each other throughout the rest of the 1960s and '70s, up until I moved to LA from NYC in '82.
(I ended a poetry anthology I edited in the '70s, NONE OF THE ABOVE, with work by Alice, and opened it with quotes from poems by Lynne Dreyer, Bernadette Mayer, and this one form Alice: "I can't dissipate myself on little star points!" And I mention Alice a lot in the autobiography of my first thirty years, SAY IT AGAIN).
By 1982 Lee was in a coma that lasted six years before she passed, a few years after Ted did. Alice ended up living in Paris, so we rarely saw each other, but when we did I instantly felt that deeply rooted connection. I thought of her often (and kept up with her poetry and growing fame) as she recently wrote to me she thought of me too and kept up with my life through contacts with mutual friends, mostly poets (I had commented on a poem of hers posted by Terence Winch on The Best American Poetry Blog):
"This is Alice writing to thank you for your comment and to say Hello. I think about you and get news of how you are from people like Elinor Nauen and Johnny. It's a long time from Iowa City, where I first met you and Lee, and also Bob Grenier, and The Sullen Art and Ray DiPalma, and heard Bob Creeley read for the first time. And decided to be a poet instead of a prose writer."
Her passing has removed one of the few remaining links to the world we shared in the early years of our friendship. I feel that loss deeply. Condolences to her sons, Anselm and Edmond, and to all her family, friends, and fans. Rest In Poetry, Power, and Peace Alice.
