RIP Akilah Oliver

[gwynnega]

Poet Akilah Oliver has died. I knew her slightly when she lived in Los Angeles, but my strongest memory of her is from when we both attended a summer session at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa Institute (Boulder) in 1991. (She would later teach there, but I'm pretty sure this was her first visit, as it was mine.) She said to me very happily: "Allen Ginsberg just ripped my poem apart, and it was GREAT!"

More links on Akilah Oliver can be found here.

ETA: Also, audio of her reading from her work appears on the PennSound website.

Comments

[usedtobeljs]

[hugs and sympathies]

[gwynnega]

She was way too young.

::hugs::