What inspired you to write “For John at St. Vincent’s,” “Adonis” and “Final Visit”?

“For John at St. Vincent’s” and “Adonis” are two poems that have origins in the previous century, in the late ‘90s when I had recently moved to California after a long decade in New York City watching so many beautiful, talented people I love get very sick and die. I’d written endless iterations of these poems (and ones perhaps like them) – poems of grief and loss; poems of memory; AIDS elegies – but they always felt impossible to finish. So, they sat untouched or briefly tinkered with for 20 years – until I was lucky to receive a fellowship to the Salty Quill Writers Retreat for Women in the fall of 2023. Given a week to write and commune with other women writers in one of the most spectacular and serene places I’ve ever seen, I finally had the time and psychic space for some contemplation. And completion. Through these poems, I am deeply grateful to be able to somehow honor two particular, inimitable, and very special men who informed and inspired my young life in ways too numerous, hilarious, and heartbreaking to fully communicate in this or any other form.