ON THE BANKS OF MONKS POND ~

 

R E A D   M E

     Broadstone Books

     2004

MISSISSIPPI WITNESS ~

 

R E A D   M E

      University of Mississippi

      2019

ASSEMBLY ~ SNYDER, STANSBURY, CROWDER, NADER ~

 

    Timothy Snyder

    Melanie Stansbury

    Trae Crowder

     Ralph Nader

JOHN MONTAGUE ~

 

A Liberties Press Book

2007

PIERRE JORIS ~

 

P I E R R E   J O R I S

July 14, 1946, in Strasbourg, France ~

February 27, 2025, Brooklyn, NY

      photo: Nicole Peyraffite

ILAN PAPPE ~

R E A D   M E 

and new:

      Oneworld 2024

DROP ON DOWN IN FLORIDA ~

 

H E R E

      Dust-to-Digital

HAL HIRSHORN ~

 

H A L   H I R S H O R N

1965 ~ 2025

JESSE ED DAVIS ~

 

R E A D   M E

THOREAU'S GOD ~

 

R E A D   M E

       University of Chicago Press

       2024

OPAL ~

 

         Rough Trade Records

KEVIN KILLIAN'S SELECTED AMAZON REVIEWS ~

Here is a book that truly works like eating delectable chocolates right out of a splendid box.

The reviews and appreciations Rand-McNally-stretch from 'Gerber’s Tender Harvest Sweet Potato Baby Food' to the southwest poet Drummond Hadley in a book design from Semiotext(e) that quickly resembles one of the hefty tomes from The Library of America — complete with typeface skill, author's photograph and excellent paper stock choice.

Win-win. Don't hesitate.

[ BA ]

     Semiotext(e) 2024

Frankétienne ~

 

Frankétienne

Frankétienne was born Jean-Pierre Basilic Dantor Franck Étienne d’Argent on April 12, 1936, in Ravine-Sèche

d. 2025

GENE HACKMAN ~

 

T H E   O T H E R

G E N E   H A  C K M A N,

A C T O R

  1930 ~ 2025

LAURA ULEWICZ ~

 

California

Sun was an enemy in the last garden. 

It blotched the mountains yellow, scorched thru the Redwoods,

The Madrone. Mesquite grew stiff, shiny-leaved

Against it. Liveoak leaves went tough and black.

Everything foreign, being tender, died.

So irrigation plotted itself in my tendons. . .

Dogdays we'd slouch a mile through stickburrs and lizards

Down the 101; then sitting on gunnysacks

We'd scud across the hot knocking rock-slide

Into the creekbed. Wallowing along it, half

For the cool, half to avoid Poison Oak,

Rattlers. The mocha dog nudging and biting

The minnow-augured water. Brambles fruited

In the one place shaded all day by the cliff-hanging.

I thought with my spine, while up on our waists in water

We hunched there like brown bears to eat the berries . . .

Five years rose up and went down. More and more

I lived by silences, by hibernations.

I woke at dawn. At dawn with a shotgun I woke

To watch in morning fog from my porch a tawny

Mountain lion come down in morning fog

To kill my chickens. I chose against those chickens.

_____________

Laura Ulewicz

Why It Is I Chose To Be Alien

selected poems

Delete, 2022

DREAMING THE BEATLES ~

 

R E A D   M E

   If you have never heard of The Beatles

   this is the book to start with —

   from the heart of the screaming girls.

   If you're a cynic, this

    is the book to soften you.

Or, you can turn to Peter Doggett's

dark and getting darker:

"You Never Give Me Your Money"

(The Beatles After the Breakup)

NOW LET'S SEE IF THEY'LL LET US

PLAY THE BEATLES ~

SNOW ~

 

Snow

Walking through a field with my little brother Seth

I pointed to a place where kids had made angels in the snow.

For some reason, I told him that a troop of angels

had been shot and dissolved when they hit the ground.

He asked who had shot them and I said a farmer.

Then we were on the roof of the lake.

The ice looked like a photograph of water.

Why he asked. Why did he shoot them.

I didn't know where I was going with this.

They were on his property, I said.

When it's snowing, the outdoors seem like a room.

Today I traded hellos with my neighbor.

Our voices hung close in the new acoustics.

A room with the walls blasted to shreds and falling.

We returned to our shoveling, working side by side in silence.

But why were they on his property, he asked.

_________________

David Berman

Actual Air

Grove Press /

Open City Books

1999

RULES OF WOLFE ~

R E A D   M E

    The Mysterious Press

     2013

DEREK JARMAN'S COTTAGE ~

 

R E A D   &   L O O K

    Thames & Hudson, 2024

ROBERT DESNOS FINDS. . . ~

 

A Brief History of Mirrors

Now we come to the age of sparrows in the throat.

When I was a child I spoke rain slantwise into this tree and 

    that.

There was a Japanese bowl from the Kamakura period.

Even then, it held the roundness of now.

Count with me here the number of owl feathers fastened to 

    the moon.

Ask your own mouth to consider the quiet movements of a

    river refusing monotony.

At times we appear released, as if breaking with a great force.

We shyly and reflect upon and — of course — away.

There was a mirror incident in Borneo that did and did not

    involve me.

So it is with the water buffalo that brought parasites from the

    watering hole into my lover's arms, and brought her — after

    many years — back into mine.

______________________________

George Kalamaras

Robert Desnos Finds His Sleep Medicines

Beneath Bachelard's Floorboards

MadHat Press, 2024

STRANGER THAN FICTION ~

 

R E A D   M E

HUMBERTO AK'ABAL ~

 

If Today Were Tomorrow

THE RIVER

Kneeling

on a yagual,

bent over a stone,

my mother washes

and washes

and washes.

My little sister

sleeps in a basket

covered in willow leaves.

Me? I am sitting

on piled straw,

watching how the water leaves

and how the river stays.

ON THE FLOOR

The moon

finds holes

in abode houses

then slips in

to sit on the floor.

AT THE SPRING

In still water,

a rose-winged dragonfly

sailing on a dry leaf.

A PLANK

I wish I were

simple as a tree.

Or even better,

a plank.

WHAT IS, IS

Let's cut the bullshit:

Ghosts?

They exist!

A town without ghosts

is not a real town.

But

the ghosts

have got to be real.

NIGHT

Dark night

darker than dark

and smelling of rain.

On nights like this

no one knows

where earth ends

and the sky begins.

TIRED

With the full weight

of a chopped-up tree,

the load of firewood

drips sap

down my back.

My head strap turns to fire.

I stop for a bit

and my shadow stretches out long

to lie on the ground,

maybe more tired than I am.

PRAYER

In church

the only prayer you hear

comes from the trees

they turned into pews.

STONES

It's not that stones are mute:

they just keep quiet.

THE MOON ON THE WATER

She wasn't beautiful

but she hit me

like the moon on the water.

FLIGHT

I am a bird:

flight lives

inside me.

BIRTH

Poets are born old:

as the years pass

we make ourselves into children.

WALKING BACKWARDS

Every now and then,

I turn and start walking backwards:

it's my way of remembering.

If I only ever walked forward,

then I could tell you

what forgetting is.

IN THE DARK

I learned to sing through pain

like a bird in the dark.

_______________________

Humberto Ak'abal

If Today Were Tomorrow

Milkweed, 2024

BERNIE TELLS IT ~

 

     February19, 2025

GERD STERN ~

 

G E R D   S T E R N

Gerd Stern, Beat Era Poet and Multimedia Artist, Dies at 96

POKEY LAFARGE ~

 

   New West

   2024

HOLLYWOOD'S EVE (BABITZ) ~

 

R E A D   M E

Scribner 2019

THE LAST MONKEY~

 

Once there was a goat

in my mother's village

that would dance while

the old knew to ignore

the affairs of the world

____________

Ronald Baatz

The Last Monkey

Black Fig Press

2024

ANNA & ELIZABETH ~

 

         Smithsonian Folkways, 2018

VILLAGE VOICES (PARIS) ~

 

R E A D   M E

     Seven Stories Press

      2024