New York Diary

Like a prose version of a chatty Frank O'Hara poem, Tim Dlugos' is dense with the goings-on of a crush of proper names we normally might not care much about. Yet-again like O'Hara-Tim, in his accurately super-speedy rendering of the summer and fall of the now-historical year of 1976, makes them and theirs magical, intimate, and fully alive. Tim Dlugos was one of the smartest, wittiest, most socially dynamic presences on the New York poetry scene of the 1970s and beyond. And these diary entries capture his voice at its most intimate and perceptive. As well as displaying the deep delight he took in being a gay man and an out poet at a time and in a place where that was finally seen not as transgressive but as celebratory. Well, a little of both. As with New York poet and predecessor Frank O'Hara, many of Tim's friends thought they were his best friend, I certainly did. He had the ability to make you confess things to him and look for his approval. Which usually meant his matching your confession with his own. Everyone I know who knew him loved him, and many of us adored him. These glimpses into his life and mind show why.