You're getting near "Paradise" (GB's neighborhood in Newport). 

What George might have seen from Berkeley's Rock (Sachuest Point, Atlantic Ocean). 

"Berkeley's Rock", or "Berkeley's Seat". There's a sketch of him sitting in the cleft under the overhang there. 

George Berkeley's house in Newport (ca. 1740s). 

7. Rite of Spring 

6. Giants in the Earth 

5. Of W.B. 

4. Ghost Dance (caption under photo reads: "Henry Thunder Winnebago, recording songs in a grove")

3. Palm Sunday (collage by J. Lesselbaum)

2. Letters to Elena. (Top right: Petersburg poet Elena Shvarts. Lower right: yours truly, with polar bear. Left: London, Greek neighborhood. Orthodox church in background. Street sign reads: "St. Petersburgh Mews")

The first version of Grassblade Light was in the form of 7 chapbooks, one for each chapter. Here's the cover art. Chapt. 1. The Lost Notebooks (click the image to enlarge). (top right: William Blackstone. lower left, front cover: Blackstone astride his famous white bull, reading a book. caption under lower right image: "Old English rose such as Blackstone probably cultivated".)

These extremely rare and valuable texts are currently archived in the poetry libraries at Buffalo & Brown, and in the private collections of a very few fortunate individuals in remote corners of the universe.

today is Constitution Day. & sister Cara's birthday. that's her on the tricycle.

Here's the path I take to India Point, over the freeway bridge (cf. poems posted recently). From a photojournal produced by Donald Tetto.

Mississippi, below River Rd. (near border of St. Paul/Mpls.). Believe that is Berryman's fatal bridge.

Poet's mother (the painter/potter), inspecting old rose near River Rd.

My grandfather's tile, from Barnett & Record Co., which he put as stepping-stones in backyard (River Road) around 1927. Still there, I discovered last week. (Mentioned in "dream-vision" poem "Grain Elevator", here. )

Lake Vermilion, in the iron range, northwest of Duluth. 

I have to get Sarah at the train station in a few minutes, a bit rushed here. But feeling warm & happy about Cambridge reading yesterday, courtesy of the mysterious Jim Behrle. Happy to meet Allen Bramhall & Beth, and hear him read his [afraid to use conventional adjective] poetry, which I enjoyed a great deal.

A fine thing today to see Allen had been reading my poems in Stone (written 30 yrs ago) & liking something he read.

About the photo : it was taken on Houston St, in my high school friend Chris Kraemer's loft looking over at the World Trade Center, in 1975. Chris was a promising photographer in NY, who made a living as a builder (he is an archetypal Finn from MN, whose dad ran a hardware store there). He knew some bigshot artists at the time, Vito Acconci, Susan Acolella(? - don't know who I'm talking about). Also a whacky Russian sculptor named Ernst Niesvestny. When Stone was published, Chris arranged a little party at his studio someplace in Williamsburg. I remember sitting on a huge wooden crucifix sculpture he had laid out on the floor, being toasted with vodka. The title Stone, of course, was an imitation of Mandelstam's first book, Kamen ("Stone") - an acronym of akme ("acmeism"). So this party felt appropriate. Chris married a New Zealand clothing designer so she could get a green card, & they ended up staying together & having kids. He lives out in the Bay Area now. That's his typewriter & cot (I use a Sears Constellation myself). I was living with them for a few months in NY, helping Chris on interior painting jobs etc, before going over to London to try to take Mick Taylor's place in the Rolling Stones.


(p.s. Monday morning : through Denny Moers, a former student of Robert Creeley & studio assistant to Aaron Siskind, I was able to get an actual Siskind photo for the cover of Stone - some sections of Inca wall in Cuzco. The Inca/stone/Mandelstam/Vallejo configuration shows up 25 yrs later in the penultimate sections of Forth of July. Yesterday was the traditional anniversary, by the way, not only of the death of John the Baptist, but of the execution of Atahualpa, the last Inca ruler.)

Here's a lopside photo of the photo Allen wrote about. More later (wish I could figure out how to flip this).

Pine trees at Fisherville Refuge, Exeter, RI