News

Rising waters

The oceans are rising, and so is San Francisco Bay. Planners and architects from around the world recently converged on the region to offer solutions for nine swathes of shoreline threatened with inundation. The world is going through many important environmental, economical and political changes. Check out some more breathtaking images of the world that will [...]

My poetry reading and discussion group, Reading the Poets, starts up again at Book Passage in Corte Madera on March 5, 2018, seven till nine, running for eight Monday evenings thereafter. We wander through the world of English-language poetry, with some translations, never taking the same route twice. Participants help to set the course with their suggestions [...]

The wagon wheels are turning: University of Oklahoma Press is mid-stream in publishing Bluecoat and Pioneer: The Recollections of John Benton Hart, 1864-1868.   “I have refereed quite a few manuscripts submitted for possible publication,” wrote noted historian John Monnett, “but I have just finished reading the best one it has ever been my privilege to [...]

The October issue of Blue Unicorn, the all-poetry triquarterly, honors the late Ruth G. Iodice, who launched the journal with two co-editors in 1977.  With subscribers in half the states and several foreign countries,  BU has proved a hardy perennial. It has printed well-known poets and first-timers writing in a mix of styles, notably welcoming rhymed and metered [...]

Mount Tamalpais

In June, 2017, Bay Nature magazine devoted a special section to the beloved peak just north of the Golden Gate, its history, its creatures, and its problems, from trail maintenance to global warming.  What’s new is the way that the local landlords–three park agencies and a water district–have learned to pull together for the good [...]

My first solo East Bay reading for Storm Camp is coming up Thursday, May 18, 5:30 to 7:00, at University Press Books, the great little store at 2430 Bancroft, opposite Zellerbach Hall. Note the early time. I’ll read some climbing poems, of course; some environmental poems; and a couple of the ones that have earned [...]

I’m introducing my new poetry collection, Storm Camp, at Book Passage in Corte Madera, January 23, 7:00 PM. It’s at 51 Tamal Vista Boulevard next to the DMV. Next up is a March 11 appearance at the Frank Bette Center for the Arts in Alameda  with fellow Sugartown poet Dale Jensen. And on March 15 [...]

My second poetry volume, Storm Camp, is on its way from Sugartown Publishing. Like its predecessor, The Climbers (Pitt Poetry Series, 1978), this collection draws a lot on my experiences as a rock climber and mountaineer–a scenery in which some readers find religious overtones. Library Journal said back then: “The tough-mindedness and technical excellence of these poems [...]

After 150 years, a new witness to some celebrated Civil War and frontier events steps forward. In the 1920s, my great-grandfather John Benton Hart dictated memories of fighting Confederates in Missouri in 1864 and Indians in Wyoming in 1865, followed by adventures along the ill-starred Bozeman Trail to Montana. “Johnny’s” lively accounts amplify a sparse record, sometimes [...]

Commonwealth Club podcast

Here’s a clip from my July 19 appearance with Jordan Fisher-Smith at the Commonwealth Club of California. As part of the Club’s ClimateOne series,  we kicked around what it can mean to “preserve nature” in our warming, human-dominated world. Yellowstone National Park  (see Jordan’s new book Engineering Eden) is a case in point; Point Reyes [...]