RIP Jack Collom

We were saddened to hear of the death of Jack Collom earlier this week at the age of 85. Collom was a beloved poet, teacher, prose writer, and a pioneer in the field of ecopoetry.  The Boulder News reports:

Jack Collom was known for pulling out pads of paper and pens whenever he got together with friends, trading lines to write spontaneous, collaborative poems.

"You couldn't sit and have breakfast with him at Dot's Diner without collaborating on a poem with him," said Anne Waldman, co-founder of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Boulder's Naropa University.

Collom, a prolific Boulder poet and a poetry teacher at both local K-12 schools and Naropa, died Sunday at his home in Boulder. He was 85.

"He was so beloved," Waldman said. "I can't tell you how many students over the years that he touched. What a great run of a life."

A memorial at Naropa, where he had taught as an adjunct professor since 1986, is being planned for later this summer.

Collom, who published 26 books of prose and poetry, was a pioneer in eco-poetry, teaching the first eco-poetics class in the country at Naropa.

Read on at the Boulder News.