Description
New posthumous selection of revolutionary poems by Rosemary Manno's poetry with photos edited by Tate Swindell.
EL SOL is a posthumous collection of poetry by Rosemary Manno which includes photographs. Faced with a terminal diagnosis of brain cancer she crafted these poems knowing that the collection would not be published in her lifetime. She worked with editor Tate Swindell to compile poems for the collection. Upon her death, Swindell meticulously combed through the remaining abundance of poems to select the additions to complete the book. These poems reflect on the fragility of life with a brave endurance and unwavering eye, ear and heart.
Poetry.
“Reading EL SOL, I find myself looking right into Rosemary Manno's eyes. I actually hear Rosemary's voice in my mind as I read her lines. The crazy thing is, I think this will happen to anyone who reads EL SOL, even if they never met Manno in person. You are about to meet her, in the smoking laughing griping loving flesh, in this book. 'I know death is another lie,' she writes. This gifted poet gives us the courage to hold that truth in our hearts.”
—Julien Poirier, co-editor Frank Lima's Incidents of Travel in Poetry: New and Selected Poems (City Lights, 2015)
“The first poem in Rosemary Manno’s posthumous collection ends with the line, 'some miracles have no witness.' Witness is given to the miracle of Manno through the loving editorial work of her partner and closest friends. These poems speak of the vitality of the deathbed, of rioting from the grave in song, fountain pen full of wine, the page a hearth over which she smiled. Why not? After all, '…to die/ that was the idea in the beginning.'”
—Solomon Rino, poet-in-residence for the Church of Saint John Coltrane African Orthodox Church and Global Spiritual Community
Author Bio
The late poet Rosemary Manno moved to San Francisco in 1983. She grew up in Buffalo, New York and had lived in Paris whenever possible. Most winters she would travel to her beloved Mexico with artist-musician Roger Strobel. They shared a home life in North Beach for many years. She is a poet, artist, lover of foreign tongues, the natural world and revolutionary struggle. Her work has appeared in numerous chapbooks, magazines and anthologies. In her debut major collection Marseille which was published in 2019 by Barncott Press of London, the poems of Rosemary Manno offer disquieting and sometimes humorous images in the spectrum of existence great and small.
Author City: SAN FRANCISCO, CA USA
Archivist, poet, photographer and filmmaker, Tate Swindell is the founder of Unrequited Records, which specializes in poetry records released on the vinyl format. In addition to an album of rare Bob Kaufman recordings released in 2020, he co-edited the Collected Poems of Bob Kaufman for City Lights Books (2019). He also edited ON VALENCIA STREET: POEMS AND EPHEMERA by Jack Micheline, (Lithic Press, 2019). Tate, and his brother Todd, worked extensively on the Harold Norse archives, which were donated to the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. He is currently writing short stories about his experiences in the early days of the San Francisco medical cannabis movement. His previous collections of writings include Palpitations, The Creation of Deadlines and Fotopomes. His new books of poems and photos, GHOST ECLIPSE, will be published by Lithic Press in 2024.
Author City: SAN FRANCISCO, CA USA