The Brooklyn Rail

1999 was my first visit to San Francisco, to New College of California where I met Neeli Cherkovski, who then became my teacher in the Writing and Consciousness Program, and later became my friend through poetry. Because of his publications on writers he was in charge of the nonfiction division of the program. But he was a poet first. Me too. My first assignment with him was a travel piece. I wrote out the broken wonders of this city that was so new to me. He remembered. All these twenty some-odd years later he could quote things from my essays and I wondered, “How do you remember that, I hardly do.” Neeli was passionate to say the least. Passionate, capital P for sure. Maybe even all caps. And he was tender. He read deeply and thoroughly, peeling layers of each word choice. And he connected in the same way. As if you were a study. He learned about my parents through my tales and always inquired. He bought my husband and I a very SF wedding present. He beamed at the birth of my daughter and always, always checked in on her, painting her one of his bird paintings, sending her birthday presents, writing her poems. He became like an eccentric great uncle to her. And we all loved it because Neeli was so loveable. He emanated love in every fiber of his being. His take on the weather, children, dogs, war—no matter what you were discussing there was always a childlike glimmer in his eyes, a light of love the entire writing community will feel the loss of.