( in endearing memory of frank kelso wolfe: the man behind love & bagels )

by jennifer hetrick (jrh)

the first tuesday in october of 2014 became a morning which would later keep many hearts anchored far below the surfaces most of us can see and feel and know. this is when artist, poet, and comedian frank kelso wolfe left the physical realm of how we're all so used to these human bodies of ours. i have told myself many times since then that he did what he needed to do, and in a sense, it’s as simple as that, as much as it hurts that he is not tossing around jokes near us anymore.

( frank performing at steel city coffeehouse in phoenixville in 2012. ) 

and to call him just an artist, poet, and comedian is only doing maybe one-third of the work in describing how vast his talents on this earth were. but part of the problem is that words, even for those who work with them in a hugging-sense, are not always the only way in which the deepest of our feelings can be fed into the world. frank reached so many of us at the soul-level in our friendships with him, both when he was here, and i'm sure many of us can say, that reaching is still happening well beyond when we lost him. 

( this is one of frank kelso wolfe’s paintings, an interpretation of the poem “casabianca” 

(about a burning ship) by elizabeth bishop, in the home office of jrh. )

for those who didn't know frank, you were missing out more than your heart could ever fully let you know. he came into this world in 1969 and grew up in an old farmhouse on the property of the graterford prison near skippack in montgomery county. his father served as the assistant administrator there. eventually, he, his mom, his dad, and his sister nettie moved to what he often described (accurately) as the widest road in royersford, church street. 

i can't remember how many times he told me he was voted shyest guy in high school, but i know i heard it on at least a few occasions. that's a word that gets labeled onto those who are more sensitive at existing, which is many of us who are still more connected to the deeply human and socially imperfect parts of ourselves.

( this miniature painting is on a tiny easel and is part-comedy, just like frank. )

i met frank through someone telling me i needed to interview him when i was doing a 15-week series on artists for the limerick-royersford-spring city patch website. i sat at his kitchen table and asked him about his art and all he loved in life so thoroughly. we soon became good friends, and he later asked me to write an article on him with may as mental health awareness month. i did. when i could handle being social for longer (i'm surprised at how many people can handle it for any stretch of time), we met at his house and did poetry workshops together, and we'd each offer two ideas for poem assignments, so we'd have a total of four across each of us. one of my topics i suggested in the past was watching rain fall at night. he liked the idea so well that he sketched it, using a street light to help show the rain's patterns leading toward the pavement. 

and sometimes we'd go to otherwise poetry in collegeville on the third saturday night of each month, hosted by the mad poets.

( frank reading at otherwise poetry in collegeville in 2013. )

the last time i saw frank was at that poetry reading in collegeville. we hopped (or i did, anyway, but i got him to do a little bumping around as i did lunges and posed like the bending tree next to his car, and he photographed me mimicking the tree, next to its trunk) around the sidewalk by his car for two hours after the reading. we talked about life, about so many things. he played his new favorite song for me, which he'd been telling me i needed to hear, "talking backwards" by real estate, a band from new jersey. i think he probably heard them on wxpn 88.5 fm. i'm listening to it again now as i write this. 

look up “frank wolfe love and bagels” on youtube, by the way. love and bagels is the name of one of his books of poetry and also an onstage act everyone adores upon hearing.

i have been telling richard liston (a great friend who frank introduced me to) and others for the past few months what richard and i have been telling each other since we had to say goodbye to frank—we are going to keep learning from frank. he's still teaching us. we're going to keep learning from him for the rest of our lives.

( these are two copies of a sketch frank did of my lily-lady nieces jumping this past summer; 

he planned to do surprise paintings of them for my siblings – jrh. ) 

we wonder how conscious frank was of how there were so many little lessons in his art, in things he said, in what he wrote. part of me is sure he knew at least at some level. frank knew much more than he said. and he was always stirring conversations of contemplating true details of living—and really living. it's hard to explain, as the lyrics of "talking backwards" are really enveloping me right now, persuading the air just right. but to those of you who knew frank, you know about the conversations we had with him which were such epitomes of really thinking far into things in life, wondering about the authenticity of it all and if we were good people in all of these seconds, wondering if we will ever do enough for our loved ones who have done so much for us, even though they don't ask us for more, but we know they deserve so much more.

( a self-portrait of frank. ) 

sometimes we grew frustrated with him. we were too human, too american. it's a fault of all of ours and something we could barely have done anything about even if we wanted to. he knew. he understood. he was always forgiving us, even wordlessly. we would see it in his next smile in our direction. when i tell people about frank, those who didn't know him, i explain that he had a complex pain which doctors barely understood. i know i told him before that i realized feeling understood and relating with others is one of the most important things in the world, for people. i know he agreed, even if i don't remember our conversations about it. i can picture him nodding. and us losing him was the surest expression of him knowing it was all too much for him. he taught us how bad it could be for him, as much as he could throw smiles and jokes our way sometimes. for the moments when we were less understanding, it all compensated once we lost him, and we knew what he had to teach us. and we have so much to learn.

frank was a gift. it felt like a bad dream to lose him. it didn't make sense. so much talent fitting into one body almost seems unreal. so it's no wonder that he could only contain so much. sometimes when i think about the hardest details of my life, i know he is one of the few who would truly understand. even if he didn't go through the same exact experiences as me, we often had similar end results in our feelings and situations. and i realize how fortunate we all were for the understanding and parallel sense of feeling he offered to us in our hardest moments.

he studied art at kutztown university and had been a founding member of the writer's club at the main campus of montgomery county community college in blue bell. he published more poetry books than i have even seen, in total. and so many of us of his friends and family have his paintings, clay, and angel-peace cards in our homes. i will eventually be organizing exhibits of his work where i'll invite you to bring his art he gave you, and we'll vary it per show, per venue, maybe once or twice a year so that the communities in our area can keep learning from him. as i said, he has so much to teach us, even to those who didn't know him, which is why i am writing this. his spirit deserves to stay at the surface of our living and to keep making differences in the lives of people in southeastern pennsylvania and beyond. and i've never organized an art exhibit before. so please, welcome on your volunteering as well, because we'll need all the help we can get. and frank deserves it.

never has a man loved family and friends more. frank constantly talked about how fortunate he felt to have so many good people in his life who cared about him and saw value in his paintings and poems and who offered laughs back well across the stage when comedy spilled from his lips.

i noticed that after he died, i felt myself gravitating so happily and readily to interviewing artists again, which i didn't even realize i had not done in a long time. i interviewed one after another and felt so grateful for what i was learning about their perspectives. and one night, as i was driving to an art show i was invited to in pottstown, i burst with knowing, on route 100, in my car, in suddenly understanding that every time i moved closer to loving art and what artists had to say about it—it was all frank rising up in me (this is a concept i borrowed with great love from listening to a book on CD, sweetwater creek by anne rivers siddons last month). and i cried in gratitude to finally grasp this. i began to sense him more often and understood why i could not get him off of my mind for three full months since losing him. i had originally begged my mom, who i lost when i was 20, to take care of him and make sure frank was okay and that he felt loved and safe. my mom had that caring, far-reaching kind of energy in how she wanted everyone to feel good, loved, and comforted. so i cried at realizing the two of them were now mingling as subatomic particles of great, vast love for those they left behind. i tell frank now that he is in art—that he is in everything. my mom is nodding easily as all of those particles. she knows it, too. 

right now, frank is teaching me how important it is to explore what our souls are. that is one of many huge things i’m learning from frank’s lessons. he deserves more pats on the back than the world can handle for how much he taught us and will continue to teach us. and a lot of it has to do with a form of honesty that never gets voiced, the more difficult parts of what it is to be a person, a human, a creature in a body with a consciousness deeply involved beyond our understanding. there are so many things we don’t talk about in life, the most raw and factual parts of ourselves. i hope that we can all begin to talk openly and truly communicate far into the language of our hearts and souls and bones because the world needs it more than anyone ever expresses, and frank knew this, too. we can’t afford to keep honesty out of our conversations anymore. frank taught us that. he is one of the greatest, most beautiful teachers we will ever have.

we have so much more to learn than we can grasp in a few human seconds. sometimes a choice is merely a matter of leaving behind pain instead for peace. today, i wrote a letter to my mom and told her how broken i feel. i've written frank three letters since he died. i'm not one to stop writing letters. frank once told me that he was certain i single-handedly keep the u.s. postal system afloat. some letters i keep to myself now. some i bury in the ground. some never quite get to the page and instead stay as whispers around my heart. but my gratitude for frank kelso wolfe, as i'll probably write in more and more letters as the years move onward, this fictional math we've created to gain some consistency between sunlight and moon hours, it just keeps growing.

to see frank's artwork, visit www.frankkelsowolfe.com. and here is a compiled video tribute to frank.