Spent the last few days in a cabin in a redwood grove off line and off the grid. A lovely treat. Quiet. Stars. And that intoxicating air – a mixture of pine and ocean; seaweed and bay laurel or some such magical potion. After all that great March rain, the spring wildflowers are just coming [...]
It’s no secret that poets are branching out. There’s a poetry group of over 5,000 on Facebook. There are hundreds of on-line journals that publish poetry, and websites that allow you read and review a poet’s work at a glance. All good. Still, it was lovely to hear the excellent poet Laverne Firth speak at [...]
If you have the 3/16 issue of the New Yorker handy, I recommend Judith Thurman’s piece on Yasmina Reza. Judith is a friend and truly amazing writer who has written an important and extended piece on an intriguing contemporary writer. Here’s one of my favorite quotes from Reza’s novel, “Desolation:“ “Perlman unleashes a diatribe about [...]
“A Dreamer’s Guide to Cities” San Francisco Bay Press, Virginia/San Francisco: 2009
In her second full-length poetry collection, Joan Gelfand explores the poignancy of living in a world that is war-torn and environmentally damaged. With a nod to the humorous paradox of modern life, Gelfand writes from the vantage point of a mother, an artist, and a Zen meditator. “A Dreamer’s Guide…” looks beyond the surface of our lives at the connections that make live worth living, and the sensual details that color it. Read More
Seeking Center: A Collection of Poems by Joan Gelfand, Two Bridges Press, Richmond CA: 2006
In Seeking Center, Joan Gelfand joins the reader in a free-wheeling discussion, beyond the poems themselves, regarding what is poetry today, here at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Read More