Last Sunday on the cover of the A&E section, UMSL professor Howard Schwartz wrote about poet Donald Finkel.

Howard had studied poetry for several semesters with Finkel,  who taught at Washington University for some 30 years and says he was a great inspiration. (Howard himself has gone on to publish more than 30 books.) 

 Anyway, Howard says the tribute to Don Finkel at Duffs restaurant Monday was great and had a tremendous response.

Here’s some of his report: “The place was packed. It went from 8 to 11:30, and the poems kept sounding great. Don was an amazing poet. Everyone felt really good that we did it. There was a lot of desire to express our feelings for Don, which are quite strong.

“I think that at the peak point there were about 200 people there. There were no chairs left. A lot of people were standing. By 10 or so, enough people had left so that there were enough chairs. It was the most crowded I’ve ever seen Duffs.”

See Howard’s original story under our Entertainment listings.