BOOMER BEATNIK LOSES ANOTHER FRIEND AND WRITER: PHYLLIS JANOWITZ

"Friends and colleagues of Phyllis Janowitz plan to remember her life with a gathering Friday, April 17 at 11:30 a.m. in the English Department Lounge. Janowitz, poet and professor emerita, died Aug. 17, 2015 at Seneca View Skilled Nursing Facility in Montour Falls, New York. She was 84. Janowitz taught creative writing and poetry at Cornell for nearly 30 years and served as director of the Creative Writing Program in the Department of English twice, from 1980-83 and 1986-91. She retired as a full professor in 2009."

Currently, as I've mentioned before, I'm putting together a list of writers Mertie and I published in our tiny microzine, George & Mertie's Place, from 1995 thru 2000. I look some of them up to see how they're doing. Recently, you'll recall, I was surprised to see that Madeline DeFrees died in November of this year. Tonight, I came across the obituary of Phyllis Janowitz. In 1975, she was a visiting poet at the first two week poetry workshop I ever attended a few weeks after I arrived in Cheney, Washington to commence graduate work in Creative Writing. Smart, clever and eccentric, I loved her poetry. She was a joy. We danced one night at a local tavern, a country western bar. Those days I dressed in steel toed boots, Levis and dungaree shirts. She told me, laughing, that I was the first man who ever sang in her ear while she danced with him. I told her she was the first dancing partner into whose ear I ever sang as we danced. We talked of meeting someday in Biloxi, Miss and writing together down there. I was in love with her the whole two weeks, then she returned to NYC and my fickle heart went elsewhere. Very saddened to read of her death. The poem of hers we published follows:

Losing
   1
Little
but it has a
sharp tongue which wounds. Even
so, anything it cuts ends up
lighter. 
   2
In the
error of an
asphyxiation, she
sees a bit late that air's weight may be
required.
   3
Wanting
and waxing are
two exercises she
is good at. And right now waning's
waxing.
   4
He tells 
her she's obese.
She says all she needs to
lose is whatever she most needs
to love.