American poet John Ashbery at his reading in Iowa City, by Dmitry Kuzmin (CC BY-SA 2.0)
I learned that the last of my mentors (Menke Katz, Larry Levis and now John Ashbery) died the other day. Thank you, John, for your humility and your kindness, and for your belief in my early work. I learned a lot from you about poetry and teaching (respecting every student) and how to comport oneself calmly through the word mines of life.