Beloved beat poetess Lenore Kandel

Beat poet and sweetheart Buddha Lenore Kandel

In loving memory of Lenore Kandel
Jan 14 1932 - Oct 18 2009

Today (Saturday, Jan 16 2010) I saw people overflowing with love who were greedy for any memento to receive it, a photograph, another song, a gesture, anything to bring Lenore back to them. Any flash of recognition would do. When she tried to put her glasses on for a reading and nearly poked her own eye out you could hear a slight ripple of appreciative laughter; when she finished a poem and looked at the camera and smiled all gentle and kind the way we all knew she did - even if we only met her once, even in the hospital, on her deathbed bloated and done for she gave us that smile and it stayed with us, we recognized it and waited for more and she never did let us down; we hung on every story told by people there and by those who were forced by old age or lack of money to send long, rambling stories of once upon a times and 'i just had to say this because some people might not know it' — everything she offered must be preserved, so sparing she was with her way-with-words and how precious they are. Nobody wanted to leave because the fact is we might keep her in our hearts but we are just as free to forget her, and most of us know we aren't as responsible as she'd want us to be.

I only knew Lenore for a few months. Working with North Atlantic Books, I was asked by the grace of publisher Richard Grossinger to serve as liaison between the house and the artist in an effort to put her voluminous collection of unpublished writings into print.

For those who don't know, Lenore gained widespread notoriety when her collection of four poems The Love Book was seized by the police in 1966 and deemed obscene and illegal. This resulted in the longest municipal court trial in the history of the state of California. The book was a total of 8 pages.

The trial became "a showcase for different visions of the City. The proceedings reflected the pre-eminent position of the Catholic Church as cultural authority within San Francisco" (1). The first time I met Lenore - at her long-time house on Folsom street - she told me she was issued a warning in court for laughing when the theologians and doctors began seriously discussing whether angels "phuck" or not and she couldn't help it: she started laughing at the absurdity, as any sane person would. "They were in coats, Evan. Gowns." In her old age - she was 77 both when I met her and when she passed - her eyes were able to smile a little more quickly than the rest of her, but as she looked at me she chuckled. "It was ridiculous. Angels! Priests!"

I didn't record that meeting out of courtesy. I wish I had. I didn't think our road together would be so short and precious. Although Richard set me up with Lenore and published one of her poems he had never actually met her and it was all very uncertain whether I'd be good for the task; Lenore was very particular about how and with whom she spent her time, and no one was certain what would happen. After weeks of talking to her on the phone - "Hi Lenore, it's Evan again" - she finally felt up to meeting, and I biked south to her apartment.

In 1970, Lenore was crippled in a motorcycle accident with Bill Fritsch, and spent the next two years in bed. She was grossly maltreated - no one diagnosed her with a broken back, although she spoke to me of vomiting from pain and blacking out for the duration of an entire year she could not even remember - and the rest of her life was marked by serious pain and disability. She could not get around much, and although her back did heal (she never had surgery), she was forced to hobble about and it was difficult for her to do much that wasn't necessary. She lived in this same old apartment from the time of her accident because she could not afford to move out, having no way of earning a living and unable to disregard rent control. Despite not publishing anything after the accident, she continued to write in that small place, which included a back porch overlooking a beautiful common garden, and it was my task to help her go through all of the notebooks, power bills, and anything else she might have scribbled poetry on.

Interest in her work was reviving. She was being filmed for a French documentary and sometimes when I called her she had just gotten off the phone with someone in Sweden who was trying to translate her poems. She was daunted by the task at hand, looking up at the cabinets and trying to explain how full they were. "It's your duty to the world, Lenore," I was bold enough to say. "The world wants and deserves what's in there." She shook her head yes and agreed. "It's starting to feel that way."

It was during Litquake, the first week I was covering literary culture and before I knew anyone who might read this, that I got an email from Richard: Lenore was in the hospital. It had been a couple of months since we first spent those 3 or 4 hours in her apartment, trading stories and watching the sun go down. I called her one or two times a week to see if she wanted me to come over - upon her request, I had picked up a bottle of Pinot Noir for her from my biking adventures in wine country - but she was always sick, although this time "like never before," she said. It was lung cancer, and the news was unexpected.

So in the middle of the madness of Litquake I walked into her hospital room and the first thing she did was smile and say "I told you I was sick." I had an ongoing joke with her that she was only making it up, that she didn't like me and didn't want to hang out. My god she was sweet, even while paralyzed with pain. As the weekly phone calls had led up to this moment they became lengthier and more personal. She wanted to talk about me. That day I couldn't stay but for 20 minutes because she had to undergo some testing. She asked me to bring her one of my short stories.

I returned two days later with a copy of The Light Inside. I don't know if she ever read it. A few days later her sister called me. She said she had my story. It took me a minute; a confused pause. That's how I found out. Lenore said we were meant to know each other and it truly felt that way, even if it felt like we only passed each other by and only got to share a single conversation.

I wanted to get up on stage today at the memorial service and just try to explain that in some ways I had no right to speak to the people who knew her-knew her. But Lenore would have been quick to correct me. She told me outright that it was like we were old souls together elsewhere, that we had known each other our whole lives. Really what I wanted to do was go onstage and just lose it, to pour forth like a geyser. I wanted to show everyone that I understand what the world has lost, or gained, depending on how you look at it. I was already crying. But I wanted to be a stranger bawling at the front of the room.

But i was afraid. I wouldn't be able to explain. And I couldn't speak.

I'm in a bar as I write this - Amnesia, waiting for the Bang Out reading series - and I'd order a beer with my last few bucks but I know I would just start crying for everything, for the sadness and complex nature of everything, how rich it is and empty. Lenore the Buddha, the smiling featureless flower  of wisdom, loved by all—even those who fear it, even by the cold hungry heart of America that tried to silence her. But like someone said today, "Lenore knew, and no one could get her to say that she didn't."

Beautiful poetess, half child and half lion, you fuzzy tornado (as she called herself that last time I saw her)—the world saw you dance as you sang, in your star tent, in your realdream. We saw you dance, and sense you whir.

Now at the 16th and Mission BART station, on my way back to Fruitvale to type this, post it and sleep, I think: maybe I'll turn all this sadness that grips me - it isn't sadness! It is complex emotion untangling in my tears - maybe I should turn this into hip something, into swagger and 'watch what I do,' confidence, groove. I should be fearless and full of it the way Lenore was because I know I've got it, I always have. I'm just learning to use it, and it still overwhelms me every time I think I know what i'm doing.

You don't have to be alone to be autonomous
You don't have to be afraid to be honest
You don't have to cry for your feelings
i gesture you
we parade together

I filmed as much as I could of the ceremonies. Old friends read poems and stories. There were even some of Lenore's unpublished poems read aloud. I won't comment on these; they speak for themselves. Lenore was truly a unique being, uncompromised in a way that is almost by rule reserved for fictional characters. Watch the slideshow of photos from the early years. See her naked display and her vision. Watch her read in the later years. See that she has only become more innocent and child-like, righteous, but not of self. She will remain, the wink of the stars.

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