Poetry. The movement of TAXIDANCING by Paul Pines from the jazz poems of his Tin Palace days in the first section "After Hours," to the ruminative "Bits and Pieces," is what Laurel Blossom has called " a taki ride from the madness of existential struggle to the 'darkness of a dream' in which 'each of us (is) a center.'"

Author Hometown: GLENS FALLS, NY USA



About the author: Paul Pines grew up in Brooklyn around the corner from Ebbet's Field and passed the early 60s on the Lower East Side of New York. He shipped out as a Merchant Seaman, spending 65-66 in Vietnam, after which he drove a taxi and tended bar until he opened his jazz club The Tin Palace in 1973, the setting for his novel The Tin Angel (Morrow, 1983). Redemption (Editions du Rocher, 1997), a second novel, is set against the genocide of Guatemalan Mayans. His memoir, My Brother's Madness, (Curbstone Press, 2007) explores the unfolding of intertwined lives and the nature of delusion. Pines has published eight books of poetry: Onion, Hotel Madden Poems, Pines Songs, ADRIFT ON BLINDING LIGHT, TAXIDANCING, LAST CALL AT THE TIN PALACE and REFLECTIONS IN A SMOKING MIRROR. Poems set to music by composer Daniel Asia appear on the Summit label. As a translator he has contributed to Small Hours of the Night: Selected Poems of Roque Dalton (Curbstone Books, 1996); Pyramids of Glass: Short Fiction from Modern Mexico (Corona Publishing, 1995) and Nicanor Parra's Antipoems: New and Selected (New Directions, 1986). He is the editor of Dark Times/Full of Light, the Juan Gelman tribute issue of The Café Review (Summer, 2009). Pines lives in Glens Falls, New York, where he practices as a psychotherapist and hosts the Lake George Jazz Weekend.