Raymond Foye Remembers Eric Walker (1964-1994)

On his blog, Raymond Foye recalls the poet Eric Walker, who became enmeshed with San Francisco's literary scene in the 1980s before his suicide at the age of 29. "It began as a kind of fairytale life in poetry: the young man from the provinces arrives in San Francisco to meet his mentors, the Beat poets of San Francisco and Berkeley," Foye writes. From there: 

It was 1981, he was seventeen, he slept on floors, begged food, bummed cigarettes, and in the morning left behind scribbled poems that delighted and amazed his hosts. These early years were filled with promise, joy, and exuberance, but there followed in his twenties a chaotic descent into mental illness. The poetry and madness, in classic fashion, often went hand in hand. A dozen years and five hundred poems later, he was found hanging in a prison cell, aged 29. (1)

I knew Eric mainly by reputation, having moved away from San Francisco by the time he arrived. Stories about him were swapped around by other poets from the very moment he appeared. I came to know his work from the five marvelous chapbooks published in his lifetime by Tisa Walden’s Deep Forest press. (2) I met him on occasional visits, and like most I was struck by his ethereal beauty, physical frailty, emotional intensity, and of course the poems that flowed from him so naturally, sometimes two or three a day. At any given moment he would retreat to a corner of the room where he would gather the ideas and images swirling around his head, and he would commit poem to paper in about the same amount of time it takes us to read them. Each poem is a kind of emission, an unbroken flow from start to finish.

Read on here. Foye's most recent publishing endeavor will be releasing Walker's Selected Poems next month. Find out more here.