San Diego Writers, Ink Regrets to Announce the Passing of Steve Kowit, a Beloved Poet and Instructor

April 6, 2015 - PRLog -- As was posted on the San Diego Writers, Ink’s (SDWI) Facebook page on April 2, “It is with a heavy heart that we announce that Steve Kowit, beloved poet and instructor, passed away this morning. His wife, Mary, has asked us to spread the word to our community. Kristen Fogle, SDWI's Executive Director, will be contacting his poetry groups this weekend, and once plans for a memorial are decided, we will announce that as well. We feel so blessed to have had the opportunity to know this absolutely wonderful, talented poet and friend.”
   April is National Poetry month, and SDWI was getting ready to have Kowit be a part of the happenings surrounding the event.

According to his website, Steve Kowit was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He had lived on the West Coast for the past 27 years and came of age during the Lower East Side coffee-house poetry-reading scene of the early 1960s. Later, he moved to Haight-Ashbury and lived there until the Vietnam War heated up, then fled with his wife to Mexico. He wrote and edited many publications including The Maverick Poets, In The Palm of Your Hand: The Poet’s Portable Workshop and The Dumbbell Nebula. He was recipient of many awards.

Described as a political activist, he founded the first animal rights organization in San Diego in the 1980s, and wrote the introduction for We The Creatures, an anthology of contemporary animal-rights poetry.

He taught on the West Coast for the past two decades and lived with his beloved wife, Mary, and several dogs and cats, in the backcountry hills of San Diego County near the Mexican border.

His San Diego Writers, Ink classes and read and critique groups were generally filled, with many students remaining on waitlists. Many budding poets sat under his guidance. The San Diego literary community will miss him deeply.

San Diego Writers, Ink encourages all who remember him or were touched by his life to post on the group’s Facebook page. SDWI will be holding a poetry reading in his honor at Liberty Station on Sunday, April 26 at 4 p.m. More details to follow in our weekly eblast and on our website.

For more information about San Diego Writers, Ink please go to: www.sandiegowriters.org