Lewis MacAdams read his poetry at Rich West's Battery Books in Pasadena on July 20, 2017. Partially paralyzed after a stroke and suffering from Parkinson's, he sat in a wheelchair.
Speech came slowly. Lewis would read a few lines, then stop and read them again. Had he lost his place? Maybe, but the repetitions were different, with similar words replacing one or two he had read the first time. After a while, we realized that Lewis was finding new meanings in old verses. Not exactly because he wanted to, but because that was what happened, and he kind of liked it. The process was reminiscent of what Thelonious Monk often did with a familiar piece such as "'Round Midnight," approaching it with fresh rhythms, spaces, harmonies.
Water featured prominently in the poems that night, as it always did with a man best known for revitalizing the Los Angeles River. "Water into water," he read again and again.
In 2018, a lovely public space was renamed Lewis MacAdams Riverfront Park. There you can see, carved into a stela, Lewis' face squinting into the future.
PHOTO OF LEWIS AT THE OPENING OF HIS PARK BY DEBI DOORZ.