James and I met at Harvard in a poetry seminar in 2008. He had this cool maroon leather jacket and his hair was long and wild. He was scarce and audacious: he rarely showed up for class— “has anyone seen James in the last month?” the professor once asked—and when he did show up, he would regale us all with his curmudgeonly, sharp analysis of a Bishop poem or zero in on Lowell’s romantic history. He was clearly whip-smart; a magnetic, compassionate, grumbling old soul.
I adored him immediately, and took it upon myself to locate and befriend this brilliant, brooding character. It was successful: by summer we were an inseparable, unlikely pair. I was an athlete; he was a chain-smoker who lived in his head. And yet, we found rich common ground: together we discovered new poets, sang Tom Russell ballads about buffalo and Indians and death on the frontier (James was endearingly tone deaf, which never stopped him), drank whiskey at Daedalus and ate nachos wherever they were served. Whenever he dropped a cigarette butt, I would jump as high as I could into the air and stomp it out, sticking the landing like a competitive gymnast. He would buckle over with laughter, then light another.
James called me “Turbo.” I called him “Munro” (his middle name) but also “Jemz,” as if I were a middle school French teacher, or a SPAM author writing from a fake African consulate, asking for a wire transfer of 100,000 USD. (We both saw the poetry in spam emails, and would frequently forward them on to each other, with comments like “truly worth your time.”)
I worried about his health and would nag him about it. “We know I am not healthy!” he would exclaim, as if health were something fixed, like the color of your eyes. Then he would make up excuses, casting us as a foil, saying things like: “You are a loaf of whole grain bread—whereas I am more cheap mescal.”
That summer, most memorably, we walked around sweaty Cambridge listening to the same song on repeat—each of us with an earbud, attached to each other via my iPod like a wishbone. Our song was, and will always be, Mark Knopfler’s “Done With Bonaparte,” the live version with Emmy Lou Harris.
“Save my soul from evil, Lord,” rings the chorus, “And heal this soldier's heart / I'll trust in thee to keep me, Lord / I'm done with Bonaparte...”
We lived that song, casting ourselves at the front lines of the action—weary soldiers in Napoleon’s army, “torn piece by piece” by Cossacks, “a frozen starving beggar band,” stealing each other’s scraps “like rats.” He was into a girl of French origin at the time, so we imagined she was the “flower of the Aquitaine” referenced in the song—his “one true love” that awaited him back in “belle France.”
That summer, “the world was ours,” as the song goes.
***
I can’t speak fully about my friendship with James without mentioning his darker side: his relentless Shakespearean, existentialist core; the singular pain he suffered.
“This is how we live our lives isn’t it?” he wrote during another difficult winter. “Just our little scene. Oblivion on either end.”
Most often, James would use the chorus of our Bonaparte ballad as shorthand to communicate the level of his spirits.
“But am I really done with Bonaparte?” he would sometimes ask with optimism, before signing his emails with the singular “J,” mimicking Napoleon’s signature “N” signoff.
“I couldn’t be more done,” he wrote me a few years ago. “Winter has been bleak, cold and melancholic. I feel lost in a blizzard on the Niemen, devoid of much purpose.”
“I am not done with Bonaparte! I am not sick of being a man!” he once wrote me in a happy rebound, “I am still ripe for the plunder brothers! I have a few more war woops left.”
Pondering the twists and turns of civilization with a joyful hope, he wrote on another occasion: “I have been trying to discover why the wars of the early 19th century have dug their claws so deeply into our (yours and mine) collective imagination. I don't think it's just the uniforms— maybe it's that there are still great and glorious causes to believe in that are fresh.”
James always seemed torn between two poles: as seduced as he was by a dramatic “throwing in of the towel,” a dark urge that always lived deep inside him, he seemed equally animated by man’s undying potential for change, his revolutionary spirit. Years ago, he introduced me to the poem “The Quitter” by Robert Service. He adored the last line especially: “Just have one more try — it’s dead easy to die, It’s the keeping-on-living that’s hard.”
My correspondence with James—the highs and the lows—has been one of the greatest joys of my life.
***
While there was a seemingly unstoppable current of histrionic fury that ran through him, James could also be the kindest, gentlest soul. This duality was so special. To his friends especially, he was supportive and generous, an unrelenting alley—wise beyond his years, always willing to lend an ear or solid advice. James could also be deeply affectionate. He put all those he loved on a pedestal. He saw the best in you, and made sure you knew it. With James, I felt “seen.”
Our friendship in particular was characterized by a grandiose, fierce loyalty that sometimes took on a funny, nepotistic flair. Senior spring, James cast me in a minor role in Lysistrata, without an audition despite my lack of experience and visible anxiety on the stage. That play, and many others, demonstrated to me what a committed and talented dramatist he was. I’m so grateful he allowed me to be a part of it.
***
James could be deeply humorous. He knew how to suck the marrow out of life. When we got together over the years after college, we would break out in giggles like a pair of mischievous kindergarteners.
My fondest, most recent memory of being with James is from April 2016. We sat outside in West Village and ate delicious BLTs; he drank green tea and I had beer until the sun set. It was warm and windy. We laughed about how on earth he would pull off a musical he was hired to write and direct that would celebrate the history of Buffalo, specifically Buffalonians. He talked with great animation about the role of the canals in early industrial America. He was sober and strong—cheery even. He had a twinkle in his eye, and I remember noticing his pretty dark eyelashes. We discussed his show “Cockpit” and his romantic life. We spoke openly, riding high from the giddy taste of familiar friendship.
The next day, James wrote me a stunning email about Oscar Wilde and the value of friendship, expressing gratitude for ours. It is one of the most moving letters about friendship I have ever received—and I have savored it countless times since.
Looking back on it now, it reads like a goodbye. But then again, in a moment like this, so can all of it.
***
So James, you’ve carried out your final act. You’ve thrown in the towel.
You’re finally, finally done with Bonaparte.
Here is what I would say to you: I am not done—at least not yet. I’ll think of you whenever anyone flicks a cigarette to the pavement; when the spring sun sets a Sherbet orange over the Hudson; when I hear the melody of the frontier, of adventure, of revolution; the song of fierce resignation or quieter defeat. But most of all, I will think of you—sweet Jemz, raging Munro— when I hear the song of enduring friendship. I’m still out here, “keeping up the good fight” as you would often say—both earbuds in, missing you.
***
Almost a decade ago, in poetry seminar, James and I discovered the poem, “As I Step Over A Puddle At The End Of Winter, I Think Of An Ancient Chinese Governor” by James Wright. Today, in closing, I want to share it with you in his honor:
And how can I, born in evil days
And fresh from failure, ask a kindness of Fate?
-- Written A.D. 819
Po Chu-i, balding old politician,
What's the use?
I think of you,
Uneasily entering the gorges of the Yang-Tze,
When you were being towed up the rapids
Toward some political job or other
In the city of Chungshou.
You made it, I guess,
By dark.
But it is 1960, it is almost spring again,
And the tall rocks of Minneapolis
Build me my own black twilight
Of bamboo ropes and waters.
Where is Yuan Chen, the friend you loved?
Where is the sea, that once solved the whole loneliness
Of the Midwest? Where is Minneapolis? I can see nothing
But the great terrible oak tree darkening with winter.
Did you find the city of isolated men beyond mountains?
Or have you been holding the end of a frayed rope
For a thousand years?