Sunday, January 29, 2006

I mentioned Helena Bennett among my roster of poets who died too young awhile back. Now Bill Luoma, her widower & a fine writer in his own right, has put Bennett’s one chapbook you don’t have to call me Merle Haggard, (anymore) up on the web. Bill also is making available a few copies of Enigma Variations, a book by Alex Smith – yet another poet who died early, not the hapless quarterback – that Helena published. Smith was part of that generation of poets from Yale that included Kit Robinson, Alan Bernheimer, Rodger Kamenetz & Steve Benson. Smith has been gone for nearly 20 years, Bennett for 15. I can hardly believe it.