Skip to main content

John Kliphan Has Died


Sad news.  John Kliphan, the poet who founded the longest-running anglo-Parisian poetry series, Live Poets (now Poets Live) died Thursday, January 26, 2012. At 2:15 p.m. his heart slowed and came to a stop in the presence of close friends.

OPEN INVITATION

When: Thursday, February 2, 2012 at 10:30 a.m.
Where: Salle Coupole, Crematorium, Père Lachaise Cemetery (map attached)

Enter the cemetery from Avenue du Père Lachaise near GAMBETTA Metro Station (lines 3 and 3bis). Please allow ample time to walk in from the street.

A CELEBRATORY POETRY READING IN HONOR OF JOHN'S LIVING MEMORY IS BEING
PLANNED FOR LATE FEBRUARY. Tentative date: Sunday, February 26, 2012. Please mark your calendars.

Plan d’accès :
Le Crématorium se trouve dans l’enceinte du cimetière du Père
Lachaise.
L’entrée du Crématorium se fait par l’avenue du Père Lachaise,
accessible par la place Gambetta. Métro : Gambetta (lignes 3 et 3bis)
Bus : Gambetta (n°102 et 69) ou Ramus (n°26)
Toutes les salles du crématorium sont accessibles aux personnes à
mobilité réduite. Merci de vous signaler à votre maître de cérémonie,
avant le temps d'hommage.
Le jour des obsèques, les véhicules des proches peuvent être autorisés
à pénétrer dans le cimetière pour se garer sur le parvis du
Crématorium.

Please feel free to forward this message.

Comments

Poetry Pleases! said…
Dear Todd

If we were in Paris, we would probabaly be among the visitors.

Best wishes from Simon & Rusty
Anonymous said…
I first met John in '92 when I tended bar at Finnegan's Wake in the 5th. Our love of F1 and bad puns, lubricated by a mutual love of beer, made for instant friendship. I last met him in '03 where we resumed the laughter as if it never stopped. Despite being 40 years my senior John Kliphan was the best friend I ever had. Another pint of Golden Kenia, John? - Neil Walls
Unknown said…
Todd, where in Pere Lachaise is John interred? - Neil Walls

Popular posts from this blog

CLIVE WILMER'S THOM GUNN SELECTED POEMS IS A MUST-READ

THAT HANDSOME MAN  A PERSONAL BRIEF REVIEW BY TODD SWIFT I could lie and claim Larkin, Yeats , or Dylan Thomas most excited me as a young poet, or even Pound or FT Prince - but the truth be told, it was Thom Gunn I first and most loved when I was young. Precisely, I fell in love with his first two collections, written under a formalist, Elizabethan ( Fulke Greville mainly), Yvor Winters triad of influences - uniquely fused with an interest in homerotica, pop culture ( Brando, Elvis , motorcycles). His best poem 'On The Move' is oddly presented here without the quote that began it usually - Man, you gotta go - which I loved. Gunn was - and remains - so thrilling, to me at least, because so odd. His elegance, poise, and intelligence is all about display, about surface - but the surface of a panther, who ripples with strength beneath the skin. With Gunn, you dressed to have sex. Or so I thought.  Because I was queer (I maintain the right to lay claim to that

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart?  A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional.  Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were.  For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ?  Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets.  But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ?  How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular.  John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se.  What do I mean by smart?

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and  Silence of the Lambs .  I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".