When I was in high school, I had a job that made a lot of my friends jealous, working as a bookseller at Cyrano's (which was, at the time, still a bookstore that also happened to have a cafe and, later, a live theater). Back then, everybody interesting bought their books at Cyrano's because there was no Barnes & Noble (which is the same reason independent bookstores like Cyrano's were able to stay in business), and Jerry and Sandy Harper were always putting aside books they knew certain regulars would like, and doing all the things that make independent bookstores wonderful. 

One Saturday when I was working behind the counter, Sandy came in with a sort of grumpy-looking old man and said, "Maia, I have someone I know you'll want to meet. This is John Haines, and he was Alaska's poet laureate."

Sandy was right -- this was someone I wanted to meet. I was 17 and reading a lot of Maya Angelou and Rita Dove and writing a lot of poetry (poetry that, in retrospect, wasn't as bad as it could have been), and besides working in a bookstore, being poet laureate was probably the most awesome job I thought anyone could have, ever. 

"I want your job," I told him.

He looked me up and down.

"I'll trade you," he said. 

I pointed out that I made almost no money. That's OK, he said. That's how much poets make anyway.

That was the only time I met Haines, but when I heard this morning that he'd passed away, I felt a little bit like I'd lost a friend. He probably didn't remember that brief exchange with a teenage girl in a downtown Anchorage bookstore 15 years ago, but I'll never forget it. When he left the store that day, I remember thinking: If I'm going to be a poet, I kind of want to be like that guy.

Contact Maia Nolan at maia(at)alaskadispatch.com.