I MET MERILENE MURPHY back in the early 1990’s before I sold out to “cor-pirate amerikkka” and moved farther away from the nightly poetry reading scene on the streets of Los Angeles. Back then, in various spaces, she was busy pioneering “Telepoetics,” a form of live poetry reading across International datelines that predates the World Wide Web that you, the stock market and I know so well.

I managed to negotiate one poem out of her, “these hands.” I first published it back in the days when desktop publishing was king—in my first (paper) issue of the kinte space (c. 1993). She was the first poet to show serious interest in my particular style of publishing. She was also the first poet to show me that high technology and spiritual words should not be far apart and the media should not own the media.

Merilene is all over the wired world in person and in spirit. I can’t keep up with her… But some of the latest things and thangs she was doing was reading poetry at the Allen Ginsberg Memorial. For more information on Merilene Murphy in general please click here.