The Brooklyn Rail

There is nothing that can really prepare you for being in conversation with someone dear to tell them that someone most dear to you both has left us. For better or worse, I was one of the people that was in the place to instigate such conversations with our shared community that has spanned the course of our adult lives. It requires an intimacy unlike what one can imagine until you find yourself in its depths, more jagged and tender than you think you can bear until you come out the other side and realize you can and you will again. These conversations and the memories of relation with Cole that have been discussed have illuminated me to one thought that her own interest in these theories of “poetry as co-existence” bears some parallel to the theorist Lauren Berlant’s interest in repurposing intimacy as an immediate necessity to existence for all and not just some. 

One memory I have of Cole is a conversation we had about the energetic exchange of having someone in your home. There was some connection to the Judaic tradition of Hachnasat Orchim, the ritual of welcoming guests, in her mind and she felt committed to exploring that more deeply. We agreed to make it a priority in our lives in that moment. In the past few months, she came over to my apartment often to visit as a break from her busy life with teaching, creating, and curating. The re-organization of my home to make it more amenable to dinner parties was a consistent theme in our discussions. The sad irony that when I got news of her death I was in the midst of finally orchestrating a re-design of my closet to be more experiential as per her suggestion was not lost on me, as I was so excited to show her I finally followed through. 

She was also interested in the various communities I find myself swimming in, as I live in the midst of an active rural city while she lived more removed in the woods of upstate. She was emphatic that there was some kind of poetics to this degree of relating. This is how I enter an understanding of her thought around “poetry as co-existence” and maybe also her spiritual concern in the depths of what one imagines as the “Romantic.” She seemed to align with Berlant’s thought that “people desire to throw themselves at someone so they can start a plot named life.” And Cole threw herself at everything (plants, animals, love, music, food) to explore the ecstatic possibility of feeling alive. But she also taught me a great deal about bearing with the ruptures of varying inconvenience entailed in that willingness to throw oneself towards. This is not an easy path but she showed me that this didn’t mean it wasn’t worth doing. In fact, it was quite the opposite and I promise her that I will never forget that again.