BOOK LIST
[updated 05.12.23]
The books are listed latest to oldest. A few titles are now available for purchase at The Book Patch Bookstore, and a link is provided. All other queries should be sent to:
HOMAGE TO ALOYSIUS BERTRAND includes a biography of Aloysius Bertrand, several short essays defining prosepoems and related subjects, and the collected prosepoems of gv simoni. The French writer Aloysius Bertrand established the prosepoem as a minor genre in Gaspard de la Nuit (1842), a book that influenced Baudelaire’s Petits poèmes en prose (1869), and was the forerunner of the French Symbolist movement. Poetic prose as a general term is used to describe work that is written in paragraphs like prose; but that relys stylistically on the devices of poetry. The focus of a prosepoem is on sensory imagary that captures feeling and thought rather than on a narrative built on plot and character development. The style is good deal more impressionistic than objective.
Which of us, in his ambitious moments, has not dreamed of the miracle of a poetic prose, musical, without rhythm and without rhyme, supple enough and rugged enough to adapt itself to the lyrical impulses of the soul, the undulations of reverie, the jibes of consciousness.
Baudelaire (1821 - 1867), Paris Spleen, ix
THE RUCKUS OF BIRDS takes place in but a moment of time. Six minutes, to be precise; but whether minutes or hours or days or years, time is not relevant. The place as well is vague. The main character remains nameless. 'He' stands under an eave of his house watching rain fall. He watches the rain and the birds as they flitter and feed. His thoughts, like the birds, come and go, one feeding on another, going and coming. He is a science teacher at a rural university. It is spring break, the middle of the term. Birds are his specialty and his delight.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER follows Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery down the Columbia River from Wallula Gap to the mouth at Astoria. That this work is brief rests on two factors: The first is that it is obviously short. This is not the definitive history of the river. The second point is that not all of the river is described. Lewis and Clark joined the Columbia at its confluence with the Snake at Walla Walla; and this account follows their journey from Sacagawea Point to its contentious meeting with the Pacific Ocean. The intention is to compare and contrast the Columbia of Lewis and Clark with the river as it is now. The journals of the two leaders are quoted in each chapter to give a glimpse of what they saw and thought. Old black and white photographs taken before the dams add some visual reference.
HIDDEN BEHIND THE LEAVES is a long narrative prosepoem which follows the peregrinations of one Master Ko. Master Ko may be a Zen priest or simply a Daoist; or, more likely, neither of the two but one possessing the philosophical underpinnings of both. The format of the narrative has nested within it an anecdotal reference to the Tao Te Ching.Thus it is 81 stanzas (or chapters or verses, call them what you will) long; and each stanza has a distinctive structure. The notes at the end of the book define the more abstruse vocabulary as well as providing a brief quote from several of the various translations of the Tao Te Ching.
LOOSE FISH Trouble in River City. Cold cases and corruption, mayhem and metaphysics, this DoubleNickel Detective story serves up the usual mix of characters, clues and conundrums. Called 'DoubleNickel' as a boy for his thick glasses, 'Nick' as a college man, he otherwise remains without a name. This nondescript fellow is, in appearance, a brown paper sack, a mutt of mixed ancestry. His father was Japanese. His mother was Irish. He is sardonic. He drinks. He is not your gentleman sleuth. He is a private eye who lines up with the hard boiled boys. An Afterward provides both an explication of the format as well as a comment on detective stories generally. Might be more here than meets the eye.
SALTARELLO The book is a compilation of the eclectic short stories of gv simoni. The title is a name of a lively dance form in which hops and jumps are featured. The word 'satire' derives from the same Latin root. The stories, like the dance, do not lack for liveliness; and humor, exaggeration, and irony will be found throughout.
THE BLIND GEISHA tells the story of Elizabeth, her childhood friend Micki, and a blind geisha from the 15th century. In literature, or other arts, synchronicity is defined as a representation in the same frame of two or more events which occurred at different times. Such are the lives of the three women in The Blind Geisha.
WITHERED GRASS is a translation of selected prose excerpts ad various poems written by the 17th century Japanese wordsmith Bashō. Two versions of Japanese, character and romanization, and an English translation are presented. The ideograms or characters of Japanese (like their Chinese counterparts) are representational. Our alphabet is symbolic. Including both versions of the poem provides some depth of understanding.
CONSULTING HUANG PO is a long narrative combining poetry with prose. Central to the story are the poems of 17th century Japanese wordsmith Bashō. Protagonist James Lee Cunningham teaches a course on the poet's Narrow Road To The Deep North. His university students, his friends, and his wife Mia Sakai interact to weave their own way along the cobbled paths and muddy tracks from the Sea of Japan to Corvallis, Oregon.
EXCERPT available at KBWExcerpts / Essays.
CONVERSATIONS WITH A HYPOXIC DOG is a collection of essays, stories and poems from gv simoni's later work. The book explores the nuances of both the physical and the metaphysical aspects of one's existence. Prose, poetry and prose poems offer up insight into life's little indigestions.
THE ILLUSION OF PLURALS The cluster of buildings that was MacKensie sat in its cleared patch of forest in its valley all hemmed about by ridges, the sky immense overhead, the stars galling with their glow and twinkle. The new highway had gone north through Santiam Pass, the old highway became, then, simply Main Street, the town truncated, kept small by circumstance, cut off within its loops of river and ridge. With the welcome cold settling down from the ridges, displacing the hot day, with fog rising from the pond, with the midnight darkness complete save for a small pool of light shining through the shaded windows of the Crosscut Cafe and from the bare bulb above the post office door, MacKensie slumbered. Across the street from the cafe, flickering loops of red neon proclaimed Bights Saloon; and just below that, a yellowed white sign that read LOSED. West down Main Street, three ravens strutted toward the old W.P.A. Bridge. Trash from an overturned barrel decorated a small park. Tattered flagging hung limp from the eaves of Wagnall's service station. The 4th of July loomed. And so did the outcome of a bet between two of MacKensie's rather iconoclastic citizens. Joe Murchison and Willard Crenshaw had been feuding for weeks. Now Murchison has to climb Grants Mountain by the 4th or leave town. If the mountain is climbed, Crenshaw is out lock, stock, and barrel. The outcome turns on a surprising change in the weather and an equally surprising change of heart.
AMIGOS is a bawdy, farcical, often satirical, novel that pokes and pulls at American culture in particular and world culture in general. Both detective story and saga, sometimes slapstick then again droll, the tale acknowledges the persistence of the conquistadores and inquisitors of the planet. If the meek are to inherit the earth, they'd best get a move on.
EXCERPT available at KBWExcerpts / Stories
FOUR A Japanese Tetralogy
will be posted soon
