Poetic Obituaries: Distance requires formality, but I cannot

be distant writing about Lizzie Hardwick since everything has come alarmingly closer--the curls, the infectious chuckles, the drawl like poured-out honey, the privilege of sharing her astute delight, and the benign devastations of her wit. Because she hated pomposity she was more fun than any American writer I have known.

from The New York Review of Books: Elizabeth Hardwick (1916–2007)

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