John Hart, caricature by Geoff Bernstein So many people write poetry: How many read it with open yet discriminating minds? This discussion course at Book Passage, Corte Madera, is a place to get down to earth with poems: what we like and what maybe we don’t; what has a stirring effect and what, in another [...]
Poetry
My poem “Sirens” is one of two texts chosen to be drawn in calligraphy for display among paintings and sculptures in the exhibit “Earth Air Water Fire: Balancing on the Edge.” The show hangs through May in the Tides Converge Gallery at the former Letterman Hospital site, 1012 Torney, San Francisco (open weekdays, 8:30 to [...]
With the October 2019 issue–now dubbed Fall–the all-poetry journal Blue Unicorn changes format and schedule. Instead of three forty-page issues a year, we will publish two, Fall and Spring, each containing sixty or more pages of content and having a flat-spined, “perfect” binding. Editorial policy has also shifted. To make life a little easier for [...]
My poetry reading and discussion group, Reading the Poets, convenes again at Book Passage in Corte Madera on October 1, 2018, seven till nine, running for eight Monday evenings thereafter. This fall we’ll focus more on recent poetry, including for instance an evening on Louise Glück and one on Seamus Heaney. Participants help to set the [...]
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 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 [...]
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 [...]
My poetry discussion group at Book Passage in Corte Madera starts up again February 24, 2016 and runs for eight sessions.. We’ll kick around poems and poets from Shakespeare to last week, touching on many “classics” and also some lesser known names. The people who sign up help set our route through the world of [...]