The Last Time I Saw You now available for pre-publication order!

My latest chapbook, The Last Time I Saw You, is now available for pre-publication order from Finishing Line Press. This collection of poems is both a memoir of and a tribute to noted New Orleans photographer and art critic D. Eric Bookhardt, who died in November of 2019.

D. Eric Bookhardt was a New Orleans renaissance man. A noted photographer and art critic, he was also an author, editor and museum curator. Bookhardt, a standard-bearer of the contemporary art scene, was also the ultimate New Orleanian. In The Last Time I Saw You, Diane Elayne Dees pays tribute to Bookhardt’s arts career, but also to his Big Easy lifestyle. On a more personal level, the author recalls her decades-long friendship with Bookhardt, his dedication to Buddhism, his love of New Orleans, and her grief surrounding his death. Bookhardt is the subject of The Last Time I Saw You, but the city of New Orleans is a main character.

Read what poets are saying about The Last Time I Saw You:

"Legacy is always a heavy weight to bear. A person’s life offers so many gifts, so much insight and influence, that the debt is difficult to repay. Diane Elayne Dees more than carries that load in her new collection, The Last Time I Saw You, which memorializes the life and impact of New Orleans photographer and art critic Eric Bookhardt. Intimate and earnest, these poems find the best ways to honor the memories and life of a loved one."
          —Jack B. Bedell, author of Color All Maps New, Poet Laureate, State of Louisiana, 2017-2019


"What’s really difficult to take is the realization that the last time you saw an old friend whom you haven’t hung with in a while—how quickly and finally that person passes from your life, with no repeat performance, no write-up, no review. Diane Elayne Dees owns that feeling in The Last Time I Saw You. Her poems are a long letter to her late friend, art critic Eric Bookhardt, floating her grief through balmy sea to sky."
          —Dennis Formento, poet, editor of Mesechabe: The Journal of Surregionalism


"Great poetry can be both intensely intimate and extensively relevant to a wider audience. Such is the case with The Last Time I saw You, a collection of 31 poems by poet Diane Elayne Dees, which passionately explores the universal human emotions surrounding lifelong friendship and the inevitable loss which ultimately must be endured.

"In Dees’s collection, the deceased friend is a stranger to the reader, yet she invites you in to grieve and reflect alongside her. The reader will quickly progress from politely attentive to thoroughly invested, as the poet’s skillful exploration of grief and recollection will give readers an unapologetically authentic and often relatable experience. I empathized with the speaker at every page turn and expect other readers will do the same. I wholeheartedly recommend this collection."
          —Randal A. Burd, Jr., author of Memoirs of a Witness Tree

A note about the cover: The cover art and design for The Last Time I Saw You are the creations of the talented Diana Souza.

You can order The Last Time I Saw You here, and pre-publication orders are very much appreciated.