Lately reading manuscripts from 2 friends from the Art Institute of Chicago. "General Skies" by Beth Snyder and "corpus twenty seven" by folade mondisa speaks-love. Both manuscripts are absolutely brilliant and someone should publish these poets, like tomorrow, as they would greatly enhance the list of any press. folade's book explores the work of Jean Michel Basquiat and her ancestral, cultural and creative lineage as an African-American woman. The work blurs the boundaries between visual and textual.

Just received in the mail from La Alameda Press Michael Rothenberg's new book "Unhurried Vision", a beautifully designed book bearing the image of a Diebenkorn painting on the cover. The book documents a year in the life of Rothenberg, 1999, the year when Philip Whalen, poet and former Abbot of the SF Zen Center, became terminally ill and Rothenberg began taking care of him.