I first heard about the Pacific Garbage Patch on NPR about a year ago. I was outraged, disgusted. But what to do about garbage swirling in the ocean that was twice the size of Texas? Shortly after NPR broke the story, there was an intriguing article about David DeRothschild and his visit to the Patch [...]
Listening to the draft of our CD w/Marty Castleberg today in the courtyard outside BlueBottle Coffee Co. came the realization that non-linear poems do much better with music. The long, narrative poems feel too literal for Marty’s beautiful accompaniments. And, after two months of working on this project, I’ve learned about modulation. I can finally [...]
Music by Marty Castleberg
Your Tongue Is A Tool
Your tongue is a tool
Watch it, scythelike,
Slice that bastard to shreds
Watch it! Before it lops
Off his head!
Your tongue is a tool
Of which wagging was not
God’s intention – that was dog’s tail.
So much confusion.
They say her face
Launched a thousand ships
But loose lips sunk
Many more
Who never made it to shore
Or [...]
“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