Coming .

“Delicate Miracles,” my new book of selected poems, was released in December 31, 2009. It can be found through Amazon.com, Authorhouse.com, and it can be ordered through most bookstores. I will be giving readings where copies will be available.

 ”Delicate Miracles”   is a selection of collected  poems arranged in reverse chronology. Some readers began at the back and read forward, which is fine. There is a vague sort of narrative story, but my poems are always isolated glimpses into some special moment where I experienced an epiphany. There is no deep mystery, no supreme logic, just a moment of truth. Fifty years after they were written down, they still  take me right back to the same moment as if it were happening  today.

My poems are inspired by the oriental  method, quatrains and Haiku, and the ultimate—the one-liner, or the one-word, or the utterance, i.e. “OM”.

It is true, as at least one reader has found, that I was influenced by a group at the University of Iowa  in the 1970′s including Ted Berrigan, Anselm Hollo, Marvin Bell, and many others. I think of them as ‘The Fractalists,’  in that they sought to pin down one single moment and see through that moment a glimpse of  a greater  Reality.

They usually did not grind away at some political or economic agenda, nor did they use poetry to demonstrate their erudition. Not that these other things were wrong, but these Fractalists wanted to preserve the intensity of the moment and share it with The World. Often the image was raw. A ruinous heap of disgarded possessions fascinated these writers. For them, the moil of existance often marked the discovery of their true existance. They believed something like this:  I see beauty in life’s refuse, therefore I am. Here is an example in a poem by Anselm Hollo, “The Actualist Anthology,” (Iowa City, 1977)

Elegy

the laundry-basket is still there/though badly chewed up by the cat/but time has devoured the cat/entirely 

I call this Fractalism: a mundane subject, concisely described, with  a glimpse of  memorable importance, i.e., the death of a pet.  Taken with a mixture of humor and tragedy, this appeal  to  ordinary things defined their common ground. Through this  they protested against their unique sense of dehumanization. Of course the imagery in the longer poems often became elaborately intertwined to a point of  being unreadable. Also these diverse writers were not always grouped as one school.

     These poets expressed some of the deeper motives behind the Vietnam War protests, including the counter culture, the greening movement, and the anti-media protests of that time. Clearly, we see the same kind of activity going on today, except that the technique  has now been absorbed into the mainstream so much that overuse has dulled its sarcastic edge.

Over time I lost track of these writers but still continued to write after their manner. Over the years, I actually forgot what I wrote long ago. Then one day I decided to dig all this stuff up, link it together, and publish it. The book  is not for everybody. To me these moments  preserved reality far better than any photograph or  painting. These are fractals, little pieces of some bigger picture which never changes– wistful words clinging to an Illusive Divinity. Chants. Prayers.

At readings I like to improvise the poems to the accompaniment of guitar or bongo drum and draw out an audience response. I am, as many know, the last of the last Romantics.

window light by d. s.

still moon climbs sadly/she needs someone’s strong embrace  /search for  my hoodie

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