I knew Minnesota poet Philip Dacey through my late wife, who was a writing student of his back in the 70s. I had the good fortune to hear him read his poetry several times, as he was an excellent performer of his work.

One indelible memory I have is Phil reading a poem in which Marlene Dietrich was mentioned, and rather imperceptibly he transformed into Marlene Dietrich, leaving the lectern and slowing reclining on a desk chair in the Blue Angel pose.

Sound hokey to you? Sound like some kind of Am-Dram over-reaching to make poetry more palatable? Nope. I was there, and it was riveting. Phil was so damn generous and genuine, and the actions so integrated into the open and honest poetry he wrote, that there was not a bit of disingenuousness about it. His being illuminated that poem.

Another Phil Dacey reading I’ll remember was a performance of several of his poems backed by a rock band his sons had formed. While that was not the origin of this Parlando project, it was one of the several threads that helped form this thing.

I was saddened to hear that Phil died last month. I suspect that Phil the performer of his poems now will only exist in our memories. Of course we can still read the poems ourselves, and we can be happy for that. Luckily for us, his poetry is full of his irreplaceable personality.

The story in this poem is more or less true. I was visiting his house with my wife, and he was talking with me as if I was some kind of peer as a writer, which was so welcome to me. I should have left the moment be, taken a good long pause to listen, or perhaps I should have just given him a big hug of thanks. Instead I just rattled on about things I sort of knew, an unfortunate personality trait I often inflict on others. Oh well.

You should see a player gadget below which will let you listen to my poem about that afternoon I talked over Phil and my current thoughts on trains.