Subject: An editor from the Xpress publication would like to interview you for an obit on Stacy Doris
Date: February 6, 2012 2:47:03 PM PST
From: Juan De Anda
To: Norma Cole

Dear Juan De Anda,

Thank you for writing to me with your condolences, and asking for my thoughts and memories of Stacy Doris.

This is the beginning. She is not gone yet.

She was an extraordinary friend, generous, honorable, discerning, thoughtful, vivacious—a forever friend. We met over 20 years ago in France where we were part of a gathering of poets and translators at Royaumont, an old Cistercian abbey near Paris. Being friends with Stacy meant for many of us engaging on a project. For instance over a period of several years, we worked together as the editors of an issue of a journal, Raddle Moon, in which we matched contemporary French poets with contemporary American poets. The American poets translated some of the work of the French poets. The issue appeared in 1997 as Raddle Moon 16: 22 New (to North America) French Writers.

Poetry and the world of imagination meant everything, were everything for Stacy. I say it as though it's in the past, because she is no longer in the world, but those of us who are her friends, and there are very many, are still speaking with her. We are used to seeing, speaking, emailing, texting, interacting all the time. She had a lot of time for people—friends, students, former students, people yet to become friends. We talked about everything: poetry & poets, voyages we had taken or would or wanted to take, our families, clothes….

Her scintillating intelligence was at work every moment. Her innovative writing was different from anyone else's, and different from herself. In other words, every one of her books was a different experiment in poetry. And yet these experiments are all chapters from the book of Stacy Doris.

The last time we saw each other was last Thursday at noon. She, her husband Chet and I had lunch, sort of a picnic lunch in her bedroom. I brought sandwiches, Chet made his fabulous coffee. Stacy, always fiercely present, wanted to know what I would be teaching next week.

This is what I can say right now.

Yours,
Norma