Dinos Christianopoulos

 he died 2 weeks ago in the Thessaloniki he rarely left. he was 89.

we met at his gallery in 1987. somewhere I have notes of that. after we met he translated my poem "For Jim Provenzano's 19th Birthday" into Greek. it was publishd later that year.

just now I was going thru some files & found a journal I kept online when I got my first computer.  it commentd on a manuscript I was working on my with partner who was Greek  -- translations into English of Christianopoulos. I rememberd we'd translatd a very short poem of his on the plane to Greece & showd it to him. but I'd forgotten we workd on more after returning. I knew no Greek so I suspect it was the same as with the one Cavafy poem I did a version of. my partner did a literal translation which I then turnd into English a la Robert Lowell.

I don't have a copy of the translations & my partner kept no possessions on going to the next stage of his life. 

today

 is the anniversary of Woodstock. so it came as a surprise that I was going thru a file of forgotten writings & found this. have no idea of the date but it was scribbled on the back of a library card. & yes over the past century I have dabbled in fiction. this is the opening of a story that I never finishd.

____________________________

Rose Tarragon was embarrassed by the pictures of her romping nude at Woodstock. She was only 3 then but it embarrassed her now almost as much as her full name -- Rosemary Thyme Tarragon.

"Poetic License"

 a summer like no other. so much sorrow & death. so any personal disappointment seems trivial.

however one of the events I was most looking forward to was the art exhibition "Poetic License" at the Palm Desert campus of UC Riverside.  abt a year ago curator Terry Hastings askd me to write a suite of poems. then artists were given the poems for response. an opening was on schedule for june. I was to read my work with the art on the walls around me.  a poet's dream.

in an attempt to save the spirit of the event Terry put together an online exhibition/reading. I wrote 9 poems. the first 4 were coverd in a Zoom presentation which is now available on You Tube here.  then the final poems were on another episode here.

this was not what I expectd this summer. but no one expectd what we got. & if I didn't get a reading before faces beside actual art this will have to do. & it's still one of the lovely moments in a sad summer. I'm grateful to Terry & to all the artists who took my words & flew with them.