Dorothea Lasky, Sarah Ruhl, More Remember Max Ritvo

At Berfrois, several writers, poets, friends, and family remember Max Ritvo (1990-2016), including Dorothea Lasky, Sarah Ruhl, Kaveh Akbar, and Kathleen Ossip. "Part of me finds this very hard to write because I feel Max hasn’t left this world yet," writes Lasky. More:

...He’s still here floating above us (not very far away) making sure his family and friends are safe and okay. That’s the kind of friend he was, the kind of human he was. I know, he would tell us now, don’t cry, it’s going to be really really good, just wait.

I have so many memories of Max in my head since his passing. Some are sad and most are examples of his divine generosity. I’m laughing in most of them. But the one I will hold as a static important memory of him happened maybe three years ago now, during the fall he was my student in a poetry workshop. We met before we went to Lucie Brock-Broido’s book party for her new book, Stay, Illusion, to go over some of his poems for my class, and I was dressed in a catsuit for the party, complete with a tail and headpiece and maybe a leopard print bowtie. As soon as we greeted each other, he asked to wear my cat ears. To which of course I quickly obliged. We had met at Think Coffee a couple of doors down from the Bowery Poetry Club where the party was about to commence, and we shared one of their amazing grilled cheese sandwiches and went over a ten-part poem line by line for a little while. Every time I gave a suggestion, Max would ask me a question, as if he were compelled to roll over all of the possibilities of the poem into the infinite spectrum. In that moment, we were two rabbis bent over the book in the light of the cold-dark early winter evening. Friends, and utterly soulmates, splitting a sandwich and a cat suit. That’s how I want to remember him.

Max was a serious serious poet during his life and the poems that he’s left us are going to echo through the ages. I will miss you forever, my friend.

Read it all (all includes poems as well) at Berfrois.