Poetry. In FROM THE MIDDLE WOODS, Neeli Cherkovski has done the nearly impossible: he has blended the sacred and the profane, as well as the essences of pristine nature and concrete commerce. Originally inspired by The Confucian Odes, the poems in this collection bring to mind the lovely acrobatics of Tu Fu and Marichiko in translations by Kenneth Rexroth. Cherkovski's "elemental" poems, sprung from personal experiences, bring to life such landscapes and sensations as the pungent odors of ocean and pine needles along the tree-studded coast of northern California. Here, East meets West and politics meets wilderness head on, yet gently, in Cherkovski's capable and caring sculptor's hands. This book is masterful proof that modern irony and self-absorbed narrative do not rule the American literary psyche, nor is true compassion dead in America's harbors and woods.

Author City: SAN FRANCISCO, CA USA

Neeli Cherkovski is a longtime contributor to the West Coast literary scene. Emerging from the Los Angeles underground of the Sixties, Cherkovski is an applauded poet, critic and literary biographer. He has written eleven books of poetry, including FROM THE MIDDLE WOODS, FROM THE CANYON OUTWARD, the award-winning LEANING AGAINST TIME, ELEGY FOR BOB KAUFMAN, and Animal; two acclaimed biographies, Bukowski: A Life and Ferlinghetti: A Biography; his book Whitman's Wild Children (a collection of critical memoirs) has become an underground classic. In the late 1960s Cherkovski co-edited the poetry anthology Laugh Literary and Man the Humping Guns with Charles Bukowski. Since 1975, Neeli has lived and worked in San Francisco. For ten years he was Writer-in-Residence at New College of California, where he taught literature and philosophy.

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