Monday, May 21, 2012

AS IF IT FELL FROM THE SUN, new Etherdome anthology



Publishers, poets, and editors Colleen Lookingbill and Elizabeth Robinson have culled ten years of work from their Etherdome Chapbook series and have issued a beautiful new anthology, AS IF IT FELL FROM THE SUN. 

Poems from my chapbook HESITATION KIT are included in this anthology, along with some of my newer work. Brilliant book designer HR Hegnauer adapted one of my collages for the cover.



AS IF IT FELL FROM THE SUN is available from Small Press Distribution.


Friday, May 18, 2012

Bookstore as Pawn Shop



From Robert Lowell's "91 Revere Street"


I mentioned Robert Lowell in the Kenyon Review interview, then went looking for the book on my shelf and couldn't find it. Perhaps I'd sold it? I've sold thousands of books over the years. We had a tiny apartment, we needed money . . .

I went into Moe's to get a few things last week. Found Lowell's LIFE STUDIES/FOR THE UNION DEAD in the "used poetry" section. It was my own copy! I'd bought it in Brooklyn in 1990 and sold it to Moe's in December of 2010, before moving to this new apartment in Oakland. They sold it back to me for $2.50 (half-price). Bookstore as pawn shop!








Massachusetts 54th
Robert Gould Shaw Memorial on the Boston Common





Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Kenyon Review interview with Andrew King

My Singing Teachers; and John Brown's Body


Susan Hiller's "Monument" (1980-81) *

Very interesting to talk with Andrew King at Kenyon Review about THE PUBLIC GARDENS, poetry, history, time, suffering, Robert Moses, pillars of roses, Robert Lowell, John Brown's body, the Old Testament, my grandmothers, my daughter, and the best thing Mark Twain never said.




Gertrude Jekyll's gardens

"Years ago I read about a pillar of roses in an English garden, 
and so I own it, I have the deed by heart."

* The plaques in Susan Hiller piece, "Monument," are copies of originals in the 
a modest and moving tribute in a public garden in London. 
Please go to the link to read more about these individuals 
"who might otherwise be forgotten," but who continue to live "in representation."



Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Sweet! (East Bay Express review)

Alison Peters reviews The Public Gardens for the East Bay Express     


Click HERE for the review.

"Dickinson's privacy, Whitman's barbaric yawp, Thoreau's hermitage, Emerson's and Olmsted's public spheres, and the beauty and mess of the commons, including cemeteries that become gardens, playgrounds, places for kissing — these things nourish me," said Norton. "I hope my book is like a public garden, a place where everyone belongs, in any season, alone and with others."

READ LOCAL






Monday, May 7, 2012

The Poetry Foundation has posted two poems from 
THE PUBLIC GARDENS: POEMS AND HISTORY. 

Click on the titles to go to the poems:


and