Poetry. "In an age of information's uprooting of everything, John Curl's SCORCHED BIRTH creates, through a fusion of data and metaphor, a magical poetry that resonates with classical American (Mayan) simultaneity. This is a book of wonders"-Jack Hirschman. "The tensile lines of these poems are a strong loom holding the strength of an interwoven theme of Social Justice making deliberate design through the poet's understanding of actions and attitudes. John Curl show us the undersides of clouds and cultures but also shows immutable order in chaos. He can, in a single poem, give at least 15 ways of changing personal, social, political darkness, including purification by fire. Though some are seemingly surreal, strange and new, your intellect tells you each line is someone's reality at the core"-Mary Rudge, author of Water Planet, from the Foreword.

Author City: BERKELEY, CA USA

John Curl has been a member of Heartwood Cooperative Woodshop in Berkeley for over thirty years, and has belonged to numerous other cooperatives and collectives. His historical writings include the History of Work Cooperation in America (1980) and Memories of Drop City (2007), his memoir of the 1960s commune movement. He is a translator and biographer of Inca, Maya and Aztec poets in ANCIENT AMERICAN POETS (2006). His seven books of poetry include SCORCHED BIRTH, Columbus in the Bay of Pigs, and Decade: the 1990s. He is a longtime board member of PEN, chair of West Berkeley Artisans and Industrial Companies, a social activist, and has served as a city planning commissioner.