Poetry. Illustrated by Norma Cole. "ROME, A MOBILE HOME makes good on its wonderful title: a pleasure and a warning. The sun never sets on the Empire's trailer/theme park. Estrin takes aim at our culture's tendency to reductive appropriation with laconic, fearsome wit. The famous (the known) are equivalent: Ceasar and Roger Maris. 'I will now be visible forever.' We are all implicated. This is where we live"--Rae Armantrout. "Jerry Estrin has devoted his work to a profound ethical debate with what we call history, consisting of those public places (and their times) in which a private person, wandering, most knows his or her presence--and absence. In the various and fascinating works collected here, intellectual motion is itself a position--or, one might say, a moral emotion. The result is a beautiful book--and one whose importance absolutely must not be ignored"--Lyn Hejinian. This book was originally published through the collaborative efforts of The Figures, O Books, Potes & Poets, and Roof Books.

Born in Los Angeles in 1947, Jerry Estrin grew up playing in the back lots of movie studios. He received a B.A. in Russian History and Sociology from UCLA in the sixties, an M.A. in English from San Francisco State University in the seventies and an M.A. in Literacy Education from UC Berkeley in 1992. As founder and editor of the magazines "Vanishing Cab" and "Art and Con," Estrin was one of the west coast's most influential editors until his death in 1993. Jerry Estrin's books include A Book of Gestures (Somber Reptiles, 1980), In Motion Speaking (Chance Additions, 1986), COLD HEAVEN (Zasterle Press, 1990), and ROME, A MOBILE HOME (Roof Books, 1993).

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