Afternotes from Contributors to "We Will Not Forget":

Stanza 1: "Len once told me his favorite of the books he had published was Sweet Ones in which the poem 'Son' appears. I opened this tribute with an adaptation of the last two lines of Part 1 of that poem to make it about Len." -- Andrena Zawinski

Stanza 2: "Works off 'glitterings.'" -- Helen Ruggieri

Stanza 3: "Len used the image of black wings about his father's death in Black Wings and Counting the Black Angels. The last sentence references one of my favorite poems of his, 'At the Train Tracks,' from Sweet Ones." -- Barbara Crooker

Stanza 4: Ann E. Michael (Special thanks from AZ is noted here to Ann whose information and guidance was invaluable in this project.)

Stanza 5: "Len and I often traded bird poems. When I gave him a goldfinch chime for his birthday, he wrote over twenty poems triggered by this finch, poems essentially about his father. One of my favorites, 'For Me,' appeared in Prairie Schooner." -- Gail Ghai

Stanza 6: Mary Barnet

Stanza 7: "At a Young Writers Workshop of third graders, one of them called Len a gray dandelion. Len didn't like the name very much, but I thought it captured his natural optimism tempered by shadows from his early years. The third grader was trying, I think successfully, to use Len's lessons on imagery." -- Anita Byerly

Stanza 8: "I worked off yellow images in Stanza 7 and Len's second to the last line in 'The Troublemaking Finch': '...his brief yellow streaks.'" -- Joanne Samraney

Stanza 9: "In the overwhelming magnitude of thought and recollection, the lyrical power of poetry is what raises it above the clay. At least that's what I thought I learned from Len." -- Frank Correnti

Stanza 10: "This seeks to draw upon the mystery of 'Easter Egg Hunt' while intimating the futility and failure of loss." -- Frank Correnti

Stanza 11: Grace Cavalieri

Stanza 12: Rina Ferrarelli

Stanza 13: Mary Barnet

Stanza 14: "I first met Len when we served together on the literature panel of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts." -- Michael Wurster

Stanza 15: "This references poems from The Silent Singer." -- Barbara Crooker

Stanza 16: "I worked off of the bloom and turned to the night blooming cereus which blooms for one night and dies when the sun returns. I feel as if Len died too soon, and the sun returned to claim him." -- Shirley Stevens

Stanza 17: "The cereus is a cactus. This cactus is painful to the touch but has a lovely aroma." -- Grace Cavalieri

Stanza 18: "Playing off the cactus of memories, I used chicory, which is bitter, as memories can be. In his poem, 'Talking with God,' Len mentions gathering these flowers (chicory and daisies) for the cracked blue vase which is also mentioned in other poems. In many of his poems, Len seems to have an ongoing argument with God." -- Anita Byerly

Stanza 19: "I was playing around with the protection of the seven terrible angels and the life/death images." -- Joanne Samraney

Stanza 20: "I began the poem with a stanza writing off the beginning of one of Len's poems; this final stanza is a reworking of the last part of one of my own poems, 'Revering a Hawk from a Mountaintop,' that I wrote in the Poconos early on when I knew Len." -- Andrena Zawinski

Photography Credits:

hermeti (cover photo) resides in London in the United Kingdom. His caption for this photo says, "Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure." Visit hermeti at www.flickr.com/photos/hermeti for more information and great photos.

Mary Frances Errigo (Goldfinch) lives in New England where she feeds her passion for nature and bird photography. All of her shots are local, and most are taken on her small horse farm. Visit her and her work at www.flickr.com/photos/36641044@N00.

Kimberly Hosey (Dandelion) is a freelance writer and photographer in Mesa, Arizona. Spend some time browsing her photos at www.flickr.com/photos/khosey1 or find more information at www.kimhosey.com and/or www.myspace.com/azwriter.

orvalrochefort (Light in the Forest) aka Alain Lacroix lives and works in Leuven, Belgium. His professional alter-ego comes from the names of two fine Belgian Trappist ales. For more samples of his work, please visit www.flickr.com/photos/73606414@N00.