My meetings with and correspondence with John Ashbery was brief, so much briefer than I wished. But these small moments have been monumental to me. I’ve nothing to add to the Ashbery story that people don’t already say over and over.
This is a rather terrible picture and it means everything to me. I stood in line to get a book signed, full of panic, almost bailing out several times. But then there we were. Maybe he could tell how nervous I was, I don’t know. But when he saw my nametag, he said, “John Gallaher! I just read some of your poems in the Denver Quarterly. I liked them.” (Or something to that effect.) I felt for a second that making art was the greatest thing in the world. He was a saint for that, for his amazing memory and friendliness. He was also left handed. I’d not known that before meeting him, so in case you didn’t know that, now you know. It’s a gamble, meeting the person who has meant everything to you as a writer. He gave me the best gift a young writer could ever receive. So I cherish this rather terrible picture. A few years later we tried posing for one and it didn’t turn out all that much better, which seems fitting.
Joh Gallaher’s is the author of several poetry collections including Levis Poetry Prize–winner The Little Book of Guesses (2007), Map of the Folded World (2009), Your Father on the Train of Ghosts (2011, written in collaboration with G.C. Waldrep), and the book-length essay-poem In a Landscape (2014).