Only Emotion Endures

This collection of poems, my third after Corm (Berkeley: Oyez, 1974) and Mediterranean Sonnets (Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 1988), was written largely during the period in my life when I was a graduate student in English and American literature at the University of California, Berkeley, and then later Fulbright Lecturer to France at the University of Metz, where I taught British and American literature and poetry, and American culture, to upper division students preparing to become teachers of English in France and elsewhere. These poems therefore span a period of over twenty years, from the mid-1960s through the 1980s. I completed Mediterranean Sonnets in a flurry of intense writing in 1978 before I left for France, as I wanted this book finished and ready for publication before I set off on my year's adventure in France as Fulbright Lecturer. As can be seen by the date of its publication, it was ten years before this book of poems was published, recommended by Robert Duncan to Richard Grossinger, owner and publisher of North Atlantic Books. For this and other kindnesses, I have dedicated this book to Robert. He was a good friend and companion during this period of my life, and we spent memorable, thought-filled days together talking about poetry, about San Francisco and California as a literary region, and about the many poets and writers he knew personally, including Ezra Pound, Louis Zukofsky, Charles Olson, Jack Spicer, Kenneth Rexroth, Yvor Winters, William Carlos Williams, Robert Creeley, William Everson, Allen Ginsberg, Philip Whalen, Philip Lamantia, Michael McClure, Pauline Kael, Anais Nin, and Denise Levertov, just to name a top few. Robert's volubility, incredible intellect, and generosity were a rich and wonderful gift for me at this time. You can imagine how stimulating and rewarding our conversations were. He unstintingly supported my poetry.