The most generous artist in San Diego is dead—poet Steve Kowit. His poetry
was music, the deliberately discordant minor tones jarring with the full-bodied
brightness of the major keys: our own Thelonious Monk, by way of Brooklyn and all
the bumps between there and here. I loved his wit, his outlandish sense of humor,
his keen mind, those halting pauses when he read his poems, the way you could hear
the smile in his voice. So many of us loved him as friend, mentor, and teacher,
and it took him all but the last two years of his life to learn to say “no”
to requests. Still, I don’t think he ever let any of us down. He showed up,
always. He has long been an emblem of what the best of us looks like, and he will
remain that for me. We’ve lost a genuine treasure.
—Posted to Facebook on 2 April 2015; republished here by author’s
permission
William “Bill” Hardy Harding is an ex-Navy combat pilot, a novelist and
former book critic, and the publisher of the
San Diego Poetry Annual.
Garden Oak Press