APPLES AND POETRY!

While I was in San Francisco this Tuesday, I did something I’d been meaning to do for years: stop by the fabulous Green Apple Books. Since it’d been years since my last visit, I looked at every book in their Poetry Section.  And here’s what I ended up acquiring (they had many more gems but some I already possessed):

Later, while I was at the cash register purchasing the books, I realized I still had the copy of my own THE LIGHT SANG AS IT LEFT YOUR EYES which I had discussed the prior evening at SF State. So I raised it up and asked whether Green Apple would be interested in taking in the book for credit. (I didn’t say it was my book.) The guy at the cash register told me to bring it to another fellow who was a few feet away. I did. He looked at the book, the front and back covers, and started reading the back cover text.  I suddenly realized that the fellow was judging whether the book was worth stocking.  Unnerved, I backed away to let him have his privacy … all the while thinking, Geez: this is going to be absolutely humiliating if he rejects my book!!

Fortunately, after a few minutes, the JUDGE told the guy at the cash register that the bookstore would be interested in stocking the book. Casually, I asked them to please deduct the credit from my tab – even as, inside, I was melting in relief. I’d never been so relieved to receive $6 in my whole life! If I hadn’t been so fraught, I’d have thought to ask them whether they wanted me to sign the book!

So there you go, you can now buy a used copy—though I can personally attest it’s in great condition—of The Light Sang … at Green Apple Books! 

Here’s an update on moi Recently Bought Poetry List of books by poets or about poets/poetry since I last posted about my poetry book purchases (including the Green Apple purchases): 

THE CONVECTIONS by Robert Kelly

A LILY LILIES, poems by Josey Foo and Notes on Dance by Leah Stein

THEN GO ON by Mary Burger

ANGINA DAYS: SELECTED POEMS by Gunter Eich

ALGERIAN DIARY by Vittorio Sereni

WHEN YOU SAID NO, DID YOU MEAN NEVER? By Fani Papageorgiou

VIOLET ISLAND AND OTHER POEMS by Reina Maria Rodriguez

ILLOCALITY by Joseph Massey

25 LITTLE RED POEMS by Angela Veronica Wong

(AL)MOST DELICIOUS by Cati Porter

HOLLYWOOD STARLET by Ivy Alvarez

DIAGNOSIS by Alessandra Bava

A LOSS by Carolyn Guinzo

POEMS 1959-1975 by Yves Bonnefoy, Trans. by Richard Pevear

THE HISTORY OF MINING by Valerie Witte

“SOMETHING URGENT I HAVE TO SAY TO YOU”: THE LIFE AND WORKS OF WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS by Herbert Leibowitz

DINNERS AND NIGHTMARES by Diane di Prima

LATE RETURNS: A MEMOIR OF TED BERRIGAN by Tom Clark, with 11 LETTERS FROM BERRIGAN TO THE AUTHOR

PAIN, PARTIES, WORK: SYLVIA PLATH IN NEW YORK, SUMMER 1953 by Elizabeth Winder

OCCUPATIONAL TREATMENT by Taylor Brady

SCRATCHING THE BEAT SURFACE by Michael McClure

BREAKFAST LUNCH DINNER by Nellie Wong

TALKING BACK: VOICES OF COLOR, Edited by Nellie Wong