just learned that the The Poetry Society of America will be giving George Stanley this year's Shelley Memorial Award. I can't imagine a more deserving poet, just as there is no living practioner whose work I revere more highly. One of the reasons I publish with New Star is the honor of associating with his publisher (since "You" in 1974!), and my readings with him in NYC and DC in the fall of 2003 are amongst the highlights of my professional life. I remember George telling me a long time ago that when he met Czeslaw Milosz he was careful to compliment him as a great poet of Berkeley, so while this prize is ostensibly given to an American poet, I salute him here as one Canadian to another.

from "Paradise Shelter"

Whatever this place is
that we will not admit
to each other we have discovered
is all there is.

Each unapproachable and fiery self
physically and symbolicallyinvolutional.
Hiya Buddy
sighted across blocks,
universes passed us
like streetcars.
We clamber

on the
outside--parasites
we can't make contact
through our life-support systems.

A birthday candle,
a light, a shadow
or something you saw
in the air around you

a being seeing back.

Wordless acquaintance
in search of procedure
each act of
paradise shelter.






my short review of A Tall, Serious Girl: Selected Poems 1957-2000