Albert Huffstickler Memorial Park

The Mayor and City Council of Austin, Texas, will be meeting to consider the naming of a city park after the late, great poet and native son, Albert Huffstickler. Here is the notice I received from Elzy Cogswell of the Austin Poetry Society:

Our proposal to name the small park at South First
and Cesar Chavez for the late and much-loved Austin
poet, Albert Huffstickler, will be considered by the
City Council in its meeting on Thursday, April 22nd.
We proposed the name, Albert Huffstickler Poetree
Grove, but less poetry-oriented names have also
been proposed, so we don't have a lock on this
decision. The choice rests largely on how much the
City Council hears from you. You can e-mail the
Mayor and City Council about it through this
website:

http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/council/groupemail.htm.

If you have ever been touched by a poem of Albert Huffstickler's, I would urge you to send a brief note to the City Council and Mayor letting them know how important that connection is, how rare a gift, indeed, it is for a complete stranger to touch the heart of someone s/he has never met. Honoring Huff in this manner, who championed so many of the downtrodden and disaffected folks of our world who find a moments of peace and solace in the bits of nature we preserve in our urban landscapes, would an honor appropriate to his commitment.

Over the years, I published a handful of broadsides and scores of Huff's work in Lilliput. I've had the pleasure of sharing many of those poems on Issa's Untidy Hut. Here's a link to those poems for those who'd like to take a leisurely stroll with Huff while thinking about life and life only, as another poet put it.

And you too shall
pass, the autumn
tells me, shaking
its leaves
in my face.

Albert Huffstickler

have you come
to save us haiku poets?
red dragonfly

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don