Ed Foster, a personal obit

I met Ed Foster at the first of the Russian/American conferences in Hoboken in the 1990s. The conference was amazing, though the scheduling was not. There were two breakfasts in a row, as I recall, and then no time between panels/events. The "lounge" exploded with smoke from the Russians talking to the Americans in no particular language. At one point, Russians and Americans bonded over hearing the sound of gunfire at night in St. Petersburg and Detroit (say). One Russian poet tried to walk out of his own reading, but was heckled back on stage by Andrew Dragomoshenko. (Lyn Hejinian told me what they were arguing about, and I forgot.) I later saw him wrapped around a staircase railing. I believe he died by suicide some years later. Ed was quiet and kind throughout; there was no grand master of ceremonies shtick from him. 

 

At the last Maine conference, he spoke up from the back of a room to say that becoming an editor was "a disaster." "No one thinks of you as a poet ever again," he said, I attended one of his conferences in Amherst in 2019 (was it?), a lovely gathering of souls who read to each other (no one else seemed to come!) and ate Chinese food together. Ed's introductions to the readers, including me, were kind, thoughtful, incisive. It was a blessing to be so introduced.

 

Ed published two of my books and would have done a third if illness hadn't taken him away from us years ago. He sent me his last book of poems, which was stark. His childhood had been more than difficult and, combined with the New Englandly stoicism, made for a stern brew. 

 

In recent years, the conversations between some of us have centered around the question "how's Ed?" I corresponded occasionally with his friend of the many names, now deceased (like my memory), about his failing attempts to keep Talisman on track. Now I find the Talisman House website littered with hacked intrusions, and feel sadness. (Google his books and you find them--and a slew of books on being Wiccan.) And I feel awe at what Ed accomplished over his many years of service to our craft, his close care to others' work, his quiet kindness.

 

Remembering Ken Quilantang

Ken Quilantang must have taken a course from me; how else would I know him? What I do remember clearly is the course he did not take from me, a graduate course in Documentary Poetry. Ken was a fiction writer, a very good one, so I was game to have him in among the poets. Many students in that class wrote about their families in the context of Hawai`i's history. It was a wonderful group of students. A week or two into the class, Ken came to my office. He had wanted to write about his kid brother, Jonathan, who had died suddenly, and who loved cars. He'd suggested making a container for his poems that was a mock-up of a car. He was nearly in tears. He wanted this to be his project, but he couldn't do it, as he was still grieving intensely. Years later, I heard that he and his wife Gail had had a son; they named him Jonathan.

 

Today, I attended his funeral, a beautiful service offered by his friends, family, and colleagues from KCC and HCC. As I sat in the chapel, a memory came up for me. Every so often in my teaching career, but only rarely, I would look at a student and think that my father would have liked him. Ken was one of those students, kind, humble, responsible, hard-working, talented, full of heart. Rather like my dad. He died of cancer at 52. Two black kittens kept coming down the aisle before the service, were carried out, and returned over and again.

 

Obituaries, alas

 

 

2,

If moral indignation, beautifully rendered, could set a bookstore into orbit, The Red Wheelbarrow in Paris still circulates this earth over 20 years later, after a reading by Alice Notley, who set her (nearly literal, ballistic) sights on W. and the neocons. "Was it too intense?" asked a friend, when I described that evening. Well, I still sit there some evenings, and watch deep space outside the window. Thank you for your constellations, Alice.

 

 

 

1.

I was hoping to visit Ken Quilantang when I got home, but he died last night. I can't say enough good things about him, as person, as writer, as devoted family man. In the early 2010s, he was going to take my documentary poetry class, which had an emphasis on personal and public histories. He wanted to write about his baby brother, Jonathan, who had died not long before. I was happy to have him in the class, but understood when he told me he was going to drop, because his grief was too fresh. He leaves his wife, Gail, his son, Jonathan (yes), and so many former teachers and students. Ken, you were a good man, and that matters. So much.