This issue is dedicated to David Bromige, 1933-2009

Michael Rothenberg, Editor


Photo by Terri Carrion


 

Michael Rothenberg's CHOOSE (Big Bridge Press, 2009) is a compact and hence literally intense book for the open road and those who travel it. Poems to contemplate while strolling and poems that become miniature parties, this selection reflects the diversity and richness of Big Bridge Magazine. Perhaps it foreshadows some of the openness of poetry coming on the information highway. Including the esential foundations of poetry of the last 60 years, the book will be available at the traveling ROCKPILE celebrations of poetry readings and music or by ordering it from Big Bridge Press, Box 870, Guerneville, CA 95446. Checks payable to Big Bridge Press. $15.00 includes postage for shipping. ISBN: 978-1-878471-08-6; 84 pp: wide format for easy reading and lack of compromise on length of line dance and breath.



UNHURRIED VISION, a year in the life of Michael, is really a deeply loving celebration & farewell to mentor Philip Whalen, poet, roshi, & all around confounder of boundaries. A day-book; a non-epic odyssey through routes & roots of living & dying; a gastronome's pleasure dome, but above all a deeply stirred & stirring affirmation of poetry's centrality in realizing mundane & profound instances in the everyday extraordinary. Rothenberg's raw footage is disarming; sly, self-effacing, proclaiming, doubting, affirming. You can read it in one sitting, say blurboligists, but it takes at least a lifetime. & then what?

—David Meltzer



"Rothenberg's PUNK ROCKWELL follows and breaks all the rules of fiction simultaneously. A slow-motion, spiraling bullet aimed right between the eyes...original with a capital O."

-Michael Largo, author Southern Comfort

 

"Michael Rothenberg has one of those genius takes on language. . .
wit and wordlove, enough to move mountains, chip by chip."

-Jack Collom, author 8-Ball


"Michael Rothenberg amazes me with his industry, talent, energy, focus, curiosity. "

-David Meltzer author The Agency Trilogy


"It is a fantastic book. I really enjoyed it. It made me laugh and shudder. Just what a good raunchy book is supposed to do."

-Lyn Hejinian, Author

Born in Miami Beach, Florida in 1951, Michael Rothenberg has been living in the San Francisco Bay Area for the past 30 years. He is co-founder of Shelldance Orchid Gardens in Pacifica which is dedicated to the cultivation of orchids and bromeliads. He is a poet, painter, songwriter, and editor of Big Bridge Press and Big Bridge, a webzine of poetry and everything else. He is also co-editor and co-founder of JACK Magazine, a literary publication that relates to, but expands beyond, the beat generation.

He has published several poetry books: What The Fish Saw (Twowindows Press, CA, 1984), Nightmare Of The Violins (Twowindows Press, CA, 1986), Man/Woman, a collaboration with Joanne Kyger (Big Bridge Press, CA, 1988), Favorite Songs (Big Bridge Press, CA, 1990), The Paris Journals (Fish Drum, Inc, 2000), Monk Daddy (Blue Press, 2003), Grown Up Cuba (IL Bagatto Press, Amsterdam 2003) and Unhurried Vision (La Alameda/University of New Mexico Press, 2003). He is also the author of the novel Punk Rockwell (Tropical Press, 2000).

Editorial projects include Overtime, Selected Poems by Philip Whalen (Penguin Books), As Ever, Selected Poems by Joanne Kyger (Penguin Books), David's Copy, Selected Poems by David Meltzer (Penguin Books), Way More West, Selected Poems of Edward Dorn (Penguin Books, 2007) and The Collected Poems of Philip Whalen published by Wesleyan University Press, 2007.

His songs have appeared in Hollywood Pictures' Shadowhunter and Black Day, Blue Night, and most recently, TriStar Pictures' Outside Ozona. Other songs have been recorded on CDs including: The Darkest Part of The Night by Bob Malone, Difficult Woman by Renee Geyer, Global Blues Deficit by Cody Palance, The Woodys by The Woodys, and Schell Game by Johnny Lee Schell.

His poetry books and broadsides are archived at the University of Francisco, and are held in the Special Collection libraries of Brown University, Claremont Colleges, University of Kansas, the New York Public Library, UC-Berkeley, UC-Davis, and UC-Santa Cruz.

His most recent collection of poems is CHOOSE, Selected Poems published by Big Bridge Press, 2009. My Youth As A Train will be available from Foothills Publishing in September 2010.

He is presently living in the redwoods.

 

 

(Click cover image to order The Paris Journals.)

 

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For correspondence contact:
walterblue AT bigbridge DOT org