The Brooklyn Rail

Neeli was exciting to be with, always generative, always made stuff happen. He was always encouraging. He introduced us to so many people and drew many into the Lithic fold. He always invited me to travel (I took a trip to Neeli, Italy was in the background). To be in his midst was to be drawn into a hurricane of activity and into his poem. Neeli considered himself a world poet. He bled for the downtrodden, for those caught in repressive societies—and he responded to their plight through poetry.

He inserted himself into the lives of most everyone he encountered and imagined how things could be: he wanted to be Roshi, he wanted to be a stockbroker, he wanted to be a country gentleman counting the size of his Merino herd, he wanted to be a mountain man … He wanted to be not only a dead poet but a great dead poet. He channeled the work and the persona of his poetic heroes. When Neeli recited Pound I felt the presence of Pound. In the streets with him, I walked with Whitman. In the old country we accompanied Dante. 

Many of his poems are mini-epics that navigate the poet’s reality, from the inside out, as in, “Queer Careers” (Animal, Pantograph Press, 1996). Typical of many of his poems, there’s a readable trajectory that propels cascading thoughts and feelings, with occasional images that hearken to ancient or mythological worlds (bison in dark corridors, a bear in the head). Though proceeding from the perceptions of a gay man trying to make his way in the world in the time of AIDS, the poem transcends any particular time or sexual identification and gets to the heart of human longing, insecurity, fear, and speaks to the mania that love can cause. The poem itself is a triumph, simply through its tenacious presence. It resembles and absolves the poet who suffers and rejoices the rapid-fire revelations of an overactive brain living an over-examined life, and finding solace in the making of one more poem.