Clark Coolidge
Clark Coolidge: originally from Providence, Rhode Island, he now lives in Petaluma, California. He is the author of more than fifty books of poetry, including Space, Solution Passage, The Crystal Text, At Egypt, Now It’s Jazz: Writings on Kerouac & The Sounds, The Act of Providence, 88 Sonnets, A Book Beginning What And Ending Away, Selected Poems, 1962 –1985, Life Forms Here and POET. His newest publications include The Land Of All Time and To The Cold Heart.
Andrei Codrescu
Andrei Codrescu: his new poetry book is Too Late for Nightmares (Black Widow Press), Fall 2022, and Meat from the Goldrush, a novel (Antibookclub, 2022). Born in Sibiu, Romania, he now lives in Brooklyn and would love to kill Putin.
Michael Brownstein
Michael Brownstein: poet, novelist, shamanic practitioner, and Buddhist, he is the author of three novels: Country Cousins, Self–Reliance, and The Touch, as well as eleven poetry titles including, World on Fire and Let’s Burn the Flags of All Nations. He moved to NYC in 1965 and took part in the life-changing events of May ’68 in Paris. He taught at Naropa Institute during its formative years and now lives in the Catskill mountains.
My Fingerprints Left on a Book
by Sotère Torregian
My Fingerprints Left on a Book
Quel signe retrouver ?
— L.S. Senghor, Chants d ‘ombre
My fingerprints left on the cover of a book
Testifying as neither Black nor White
shall trouble no one at night but intone instead
as the harbingers of dreams
in an unsuspecting girl’s imagining
as she grasps the tome
reminder
of an author’s pride or ambition in
their imprimatur
And eventually be erased by a free-and-easy shelver’s
usage in time
No interest for the forensics
of a Scotland Yard here as one might gaze
upon a wanted-poster in
a post-office
But their innocuous presence
retrove if you will the
origins of a poem
their pilgrim’s path across
A young woman’s cheek now only in memory
Or dabbling in an insouciant idling
the hours in frustrated reworkings
of the day inextricably record
That in the service of life and love
an upstart vagrant poet once lived
and dwelt herein
Sotère Torregian
Janvier, 2022