Poetry. The world is sensuously and immediately present in Gerald Fleming's SWIMMER CLIMBING ONTO SHORE. While these poems question the capacity of language to render the heart of human existence, the poet's words never fail to praise the transformative power of art in making sense of that existence. "Love is the catalyst, but so also is wit, unexpected and inexorably delivered," says Diana O Hehir of this collection. "In a voice of condensed, colloquial intimacy sobered by awareness of the world's menace and acknowledging the irrational in himself, [Fleming] reaches a high compassionate humor as he infuses his exploration with the surprising pleasure of sudden discovery"—Jack Marshall.

Author Hometown: LAGUNITAS, CA USA



About the author: Gerald Fleming's poetry and prose poems have appeared widely over the past thirty years. He has won numerous awards and fellowships, and between 1995 and 2000 he edited and published the literary magazine Barnabe Mountain Review, whose archives can be found at U.C. Berkeley's Bancroft Library. His most recent books of poetry are NIGHT OF PURE BREATHING from Hanging Loose Press in 2011, and SWIMMER CLIMBING ONTO SHORE from Sixteen Rivers Press in 2005. He has taught in the San Francisco public schools for thirty-seven years, and has published three books for teachers, the most recent of which is Rain, Steam, and Speed (Jossey-Bass/Wiley, 2004). He lives in Lagunitas, California.