During the summer of 2021 when the pandemic still had its grip on NYC some of us were finding relief from our overheated apartments by meeting up with friends in parks. On one particular day in July, I found myself sitting on a bench with a friend of mine at Steward Park on the LES. We were talking about poetry and he said to me, “I’m meeting Tony Towle for dinner tonight.” My first response was, I thought he was dead. As a bookseller, who sold many of his books over the years, when people spoke of him, it felt like they were always telling me stories about him that existed in the past, not in the present. It’s a funny thing to have someone you admire their writing to literally come alive in your mind. I immediately went home to reread his poetry. This time it was different. This time Tony Towle, who was a part of The New York School of Poets, was alive! (And as of writing this he still is!) A piece of a poem by him called Today really resonated with me on many levels that day….
Today the phantoms pass through rock. / The phantoms move higher in the rock, the smoke, / the fumes, and the powdered ash. / Instinctively I scale a tree, I vanish. / The clouds are torn apart to show the moon; / he drops to a bench; the telephone rings, / a hypnotic background for the words.
And alive and well Tony is in this world, as well as in his poetry!
-Jen Fisher