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 make you reflect on the positive things you are doing for the world.
The June issue of Estuary News, organ of the San Francisco Estuary Project, surveys the results of this “Resilient by Design” competition. I contribute an 
overview piece, “Reflecting on the Rush to Resilience,” as well as an appreciation of the late Carl Morrison, a key player in the related field of flood control. On the local scale as well as the planetary scale, it’s the question of the hour: can we organize fast enough to slow the course and manage the consequences of climate change? Photo by SPUR.
My poetry re
ading 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 and questions. People who may regard themselves as beginners are as welcome as the widely read. I provide texts in advance on all evenings but the first.
John Benton Hart
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 evaluate.” In August I traveled to Wyoming and Montana to tie up research loose ends and take part in the 150th anniversary observance of events on the Bozeman Trail, scene of many of Johnny’s adventures.
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 verse when these tools were out of fashion. Since Ruth’s death in August, BU continues under my editorship.
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 of the place they administer, flying the flag “One Tam.” I contributed the opening piece, Meet the Mountain, and a profile of pioneering botanist and tireless Tam hiker Alice Eastwood.
Caricature by Geoff Bernstein
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 me the somewhat-puzzling-to-me reputation as a religious poet. For friends who stopped by at Berkeley Ironworks the other week for books and beer, but no reading, this could be the other half of the program. Next up will be an appearance on June 7 with three other Sugartown Publishing authors at The Octopus Literary Salon, 2101 Webster, Oakland.
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 at 7:30 I’ll be signing (though not reading) at Ironworks, the Berkeley climbing gym.
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 demand and deserve discriminating readers,” adding: “Religious poetry of the first intensity can still be written: Allen Tate, Geoffrey Hill, and now John Hart have done it.” Readings so far scheduled: January 23 at Book Passage, Corte Madera, California, 7 PM; March 11 at the Frank Bette Center in Alameda; March 15 at Berkeley Ironworks; more to come. (Photo: Ed Webster; Design, Margaret Copeland/Terragrafix.)
John Benton Hart
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 challenging received knowledge. (Who carried the mail between embattled Forts C. F. Smith and Phil Kearny? Who really killed High-Backed Wolf?) Also striking are his pages on the life of the Crow Indians, allied with the government in the bitter Bozeman conflict. I’m deep into editing the memoir; University of Oklahoma Press will publish.
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 National Seashore (as in my recent An Island in Time) is another. Moderator Greg Dalton and a lively audience kept us on our toes. And here’s the whole thing.
