I hitchhiked from Seattle to Boulder in 1995 because I wanted to attend Naropa University, but I was literally penniless and homeless, so I spent the next 9 months playing guitar on the street and improvising narrative poems in the ancient epic oral tradition. I also spent lots of time at the Allen Ginsberg Library reading poetry and writing poems.

I met him on campus one day that summer and he wrote a short poem in my poetry notebook.

That experience was very helpful when I wrote my epic poem of philosophers in the 2010s. I did not attend Naropa directly, but I spent my time there in town practicing poetry.