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A CARTLOAD OF SCROLLS: 100 Poems in the Manner of the T'ang Dynasty Hermit Poet Han-Shan

Holy Cow! Press, Duluth, MN © 2007 

In 1974, author James P. Lenfestey came upon the book, Cold Mountain: 100 Poems of the T'ang Dynasty Poet Han-Shan, translated by Burton Watson, and it cured his warts. It also turned out to be the voice he had “missed” all his life. For the first and only time in his writing life, he began to “write back” to another author. The result thirty-three years later is this collection of one hundred poems, inspired by the form and sensibility of that 1200-year-old Chinese hermit, yet brimming with Lenfestey's own humor, wisdom, insight and delight in language. Titles such as “Han-Shan is the Cure for Warts,” “Thinking of Sex Like the Chinese,” and “Oracle Bones” provides a glimpse into Lenfestey's poetic landscape. This book is dedicated to poetic translator Burton Watson, 81, whom Lenfestey visited in Tokyo on a pilgrimage to China to pay homage to Han-Shan at his hermit cave.

INTO THE GOODHUE COUNTY JAIL: POEMS TO FREE PRISONERS.

Red Dragonfly Press, Red Wing, MN © 2007

In the fall of 2005, I participated in a one month residency at The Anderson Center for Interdisciplinary Arts in Red Wing, Minnesota.  While there I planned to develop a manuscript of Chinese style poems modeled after the work of a poet I have long admired, Han-shan, a hermit who lived out the end his life in a cave on Cold Mountain in China about 1200 years ago.  The residency in our quiet, single rooms required that we perform community service in Goodhue County where the Anderson Center is located.  A card on the desk in my monkish cell indicated that my service destination was another set of monkish cells, the Goodhue County Jail.

I visited the jail for two sessions to teach poetry and writing as a practice toward self-understanding.  The poems included here, with one or two exceptions, were written that October -- in anticipation of, during, and after those encounters.  This collection of poems is a way to visit any prison, its walls within or without.
sample poems
Publication date; fall, 2007

THE URBAN COYOTE: HOWLINGS ON FAMILY, COMMUNITY AND THE SEARCH FOR PEACE AND QUIET.

Nonan Press, Minneapolis, MN © 2000 

Selections from 15 years of columns for the Hill and Lake Press, many of which won Community and Neighborhood Press Awards.  Ranging from the hilarious to the heartbreaking, as the author copes with children, neighbors human and other, and the urge for peace and quiet.
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HAN-SHAN IS THE CURE FOR WARTS

Red Dragonfly Press, limited letterpress edition,
$90 for special lettered edition of 27 copies on kittikata paper bound in traditional-Japanese style with wrap-around case, and 200 copies on Mohawk papers with Khadi handmade wraps, all with a wood-engraving of Han-shan by Colorado artist Daniel Garner. 
$30 order form

A suite of 21 handset poems in the manner of the author's literary mentor, the T'ang Dynasty Zen poet Han-shan, who reputedly inscribed his poets on rocks and trees and the walls of the nearby temple, where he sometimes worked as what Sam Hamill calls a "kitchen helper."  Several of these poems were previously published in URTHONA, a magazine of Buddhism and Literature in the UK.  LIMITED EDITION.

THE TOOTHED AND CLEVER WORLD

TreeHouse Press, Ojai, CA, © 2006
paper wrapers, 67 pages, book design by Tree Bernstein
Cover photograph by Hope Frazier
ISBN 0-9651878-3-7  
$12.95 order form

A collection of poems in four sections: "Your Tree, Your Bird;" "Ojai Longing," "Coyote Chorus," and "Rain."  Poet Suzanne Lummis, founder of the LA Poetry Festival, called this book "love poems to the natural world."  Poet Thomas R. Smith says, "This is a book with fur, claws, teeth, tail and paws.   More importantly, it’s a book large with appetite for life and the heart to live it fully."  Poet and translator Robert Hedin calls it "an absolute joy."
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AFFECTION FOR SPIDERS

Red Dragonfly Press, Red Wing, MN
Fine press edition limited to 225 copies,
with wood engraving by Daniel Garner. 

A limited edition chapbook on Fox River vellum with wood engraving of a jumping spider by Colorado Artist Daniel Garner-8 poems about this unusual, but sensible, affection as Lenfestey learns useful lessons from the spider world.  LIMITED EDITION. SOLD OUT.
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SAYING GRACE

Marsh River Editions, © 2004
cover color "pleine aire" pastel by Perry Ingli
$12.00 order form

Popular collection of poems about death and resurrection -- of parents, art, marriage, the body, the land.  Third printing.  Cover art by pleine-aire pastelist Perry Ingli.
Third Printing
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ODALISQUE

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