Poetry. Brilliant. "Writing About Writing." And death. And existence. The mystery of self and others, the connections between us. "life this hot painted wandering burning to burn / the book of itself." Exquisite comedy and play of language. Richard Silberg is the rare philosopher linguist poet with humor and great heart. "how it sucks our souls out between / our teeth to write it to you / dear reader these words." Yes, and "what joy!" You will finish this book, dear reader, "feeling unreasonably happy." All are wonderful but there are some truly astounding poems here. --Sharon Doubiago

Richard Silberg was born in New York City in 1942. He received his B.A. from Harvard in 1963 and his M.A. in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University in 1973. He is Associate Editor of Poetry Flash, host of the recently relocated Poetry Flash at Cody's reading series in Berkeley, and teaches "Writing and Appreciating Contemporary Poetry" and poetry workshops at UC Berkeley Extension. His poetry has appeared in The American Poetry Review, Denver Quarterly, VOLT, New American Writing, North Coast Review, City Lights Review, Parthenon West Review, The Addison Street Anthology: Berkeley's Poetry Walk, edited by Robert Hass and Jessica Fisher, and other publications. His poem "The Audience" is featured in the Berkeley Arts Commission's Poetry Sidewalk. His books include a study of speculative social philosophy, The Devolution of the People, (Harcourt, Brace and World) and two books of poetry from the Korean, which he translated with Claire You:The Three-Way Tavern by Ko Un (University of California Press) and Flowers Long for Stars by Oh Sae-Young. His essays from Poetry Flash were published as Reading the Sphere: Essays on Contemporary Poetry (Berkeley Hills Press, 2002). His poetry collections include Doubleness (Heyday Books), Totem Pole (3300 Review Press), Translucent Gears (North Atlantic Books) and The Fields (Pennywhistle).