REST IN VERSE: Dorothea Grossman

In the old days,

I spread fires and floods and pestilence

on my toast.

Nowadays, I’m more selective,

I only read my horoscope

by the quiet glow of the marmalade.
Dorothea Grossman, "I Allow Myself"

Dottie Grossman (1937-2012)

(Mark Weber, Jazz For Mostly, 5/07/2012)

In It For The Kicks: An Interview with Dorothea Grossman

(Travis Nichols, Poetry Foundation, March 2010)

Grossman parked herself in her wheelchair up front to do her call-and-response thing: She would knock out a few lines of her poetry, and the musicians would reflect the blooming flowers, the fading helicopters, the Henny Youngman apotheoses, whatever. These made for some of the evening's best moments -- because the format provided an instant group focus; because if one minute didn't congeal, another inspiration was coming right up; because of the musicians' longtime love for Grossman, an ever-present avant attendee for decades; and because, as she noted, a lot of these people wouldn't know free improv from free lunch if not for her late husband, pianist Richard Grossman.
Greg Burk (3/07/2012)

[Read Mr. Burk's eulogy for Dottie here.]

The flinty lady with frequent collaborator

Michael-Pierre Vlatkovich

Salmon-colored stripes

crossing four shades of blue.

Anybody who tries to

write about this

is barking up the wrong tree.

"Sunset Attempt,"

Dottie Grossman's last sent poem

for musician Bonnie Barnett's birthday