The Brooklyn Rail

Neeli was my teacher in graduate school at New College of California and we became close friends. He was a mentor who encouraged and applauded countless young poets. Neeli was a writing machine. No one wrote more than Neeli. Poetry literally oozed from his manic pores. He loved Bob Dylan, and traveling with his partner Jesse. He collected and painted elephants, and sometimes made food with weird combinations of ingredients like couscous with shrimp, Brussels sprouts, raisins, and peanuts. 

I will miss his daily calls when he talked endlessly about how he wanted to be a household name, the Poet Laureate of San Francisco, receive all the poetry awards and distinctions. Once I said to him, “Even if you won The Nobel Prize in poetry you still wouldn’t be satisfied.” He answered “No, no I wouldn’t.” He was an unstoppable force who always wanted to read “just two more,” two more poems.