In memoriam. James Dickey

Abstract

In memoriam. James Dickey Steven Lebow (bio) for Laurence Lieberman He walked off into a swampy glade.Some say he died,the bed was unmade and the covers removed.An old guitar sat lonely on the floor,its music abandoned by the musician.Everyone who knew him quietly agreed,when he was drunk he could be a bore,but when he was sober he was full of poetry. On the day that he died,a president was sworn in. Poetry was read.The market hit an all-time high,scarcely noting Jim Dickey dead.The Ocoee and the Chattahoochee overflowed their banks,in the absence of a singer to give thanks. The day that Dickey died was overcast.The sky was mud and all the riversof north Georgia were frozen over."Nothing lasts," he might have mused.Leastways not the muse, or those who sing to her. Two wives, three children, and one hundred friendsescort him to an open mouth of earth.Measured against other men, he was a man.What else is there to say?Place into his funeral box one bow, one book,one blow gun, and six strings.Let the rivers call home their Fisher King. [End Page 14] When he was alive his poems fell though mid-air,like napalm in the afternoon,scorching Oriental hair.Now that he is in the country of the enemyhis songs float peacefully,leaving abstract professors to guesshow to tune in the celestial wireless. [End Page 15] Steven Lebow Rabbi steven lebow is the leading advocate for the exoneration of Leo Frank, an innocent man who was lynched in Georgia in 1915. His life and work in civil rights has been profiled in the New York Times and the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and the Atlanta Journal Constitution, CNN and NPR. Copyright © 2023 University of North Dakota