"People never seem to change at all–only their
children do. Last time I was in Buffalo there was
Sabina & there was this baby, & now Sabina's grown
so tall, & Alice is Sabina."

                                       Tom Raworth

*

"You had fun with your friend, Dick."
"I still haven't figured out if he's queer yet. He's
the most ordinary person I've ever met."
"What about me?"
"Don't flatter yourself."

                                       Alice Notely
                                       Ted Berrigan
                                       Doug Oliver

*

"Joanne . . . How was she? I only spent time with her
once; she & I & Anselm went walking on the
beach at 4 o'clock in the morning."

                                       Tom Raworth

*

"When I with him I feel like I'm with this complete
social outcast. He says all he does is have fights
at home & go out & get drunk."

                                       Eileen Myles

*

"I had this dream . . . I guess. Well it must've been you
& then your sister came in . . . interesting positions . . .
then it turned into this Maurice Girodias book . . . & I
could see the page numbers & everything–so I decided
it must be time to wake up."

                                       Ted Berrigan

*

"Don't ever leave here, Alice, unless there's a really
good reason."

                                       Tom Raworth

*

"Does she want her envelope stuffed or creased?"

                                       Alice Notley

*

"You're so beautiful, that I'm saying goodbye."

                                       John Daley

*

"You married a guy because he was alive."

                                       Ted Berrigan

*

"She . . . gets paler . . . in the evening."

                                       Doug Oliver's Scottish aunt, Mamie

*

" . . . I guess I don't know what I'm asking, exactly . . .
maybe I'm just projecting."
"In that case, yes."

                                       Bob Rosenthal
                                       Doug Oliver

*

"She's walking off into the mist."
"She's got a great walk when she's walking off into the mist."

                                       Bob Rosenthal
                                       Doug Oliver

*

"I'd like to write these poems in which I say right out,
‘I'm really very naive.'"

                                       Doug Oliver

*

"Are you saying you've outgrown Dylan Thomas?"
"No. I'm not saying I've outgrown Dylan Thomas. I'm
saying I read him a lot when I was sixteen or seventeen
years old."
"It would be terrible if people outgrew a great poet like
Dylan Thomas."
"Yes, it would be."
"People don't outgrow great poets . . . people don't outgrow
Yeats."
"You don't outgrow your life."

                                       Doug Oliver
                                       Woman at poetry reading

*

"I heard you were humiliated because you thought Mercedes
McCambridge was a man & found out she wasn't."
"Well, yes, frankly I was."

                                       Alice Notley
                                       Doug Oliver

*

"You have the wrong thing in your hand."

                                       Alice Notley

*

"I had a long talk with Bob about your finances."

                                       Doug Oliver

*

"Do you ever think about technique?"

                                       Doug Oliver

*

"I brought you some flowers."
"I need some."

                                       Wendy Mulford
                                       Alice Notley

*

"You gave him a very sweet look when you kissed him
goodbye last night."

                                       Ted Berrigan

*

"My angel Doug has gone away; my sweetheart Tom
Pickard; & my new girlfriends, Denise & Wendy."

                                       Ted Berrigan

*

"Does Marion still have that willowy figure?"

                                       Doug Oliver

*

"I remember this time at Gordon's, when Jan was across
the room, & she was plotzed but she gave me this pur-
poseful look, & walked across the room, but she was
plotzed, but she decided to walk as if purposefully gliding . . .
And then she came & sat down beside me. And then she kissed
me on the cheek. Just as if she were Joanne & I was
Ebbe & had just said something dumb . . . as if she were saying Oh Ted."

                                       Ted Berrigan

May 2001