Michael Rothenberg, Editor

Michael Rothenberg
Photo by Terri Carrion


The Collected Poems of Philip Whalen

 

My Youth as a Train by Michael Rothenberg



UNHURRIED VISION, a year in the life of Michael, is really a deeply loving celebration & farewell to mentor Philip Whalen, poet, roshi, & all around confounder of boundaries. A day-book; a non-epic odyssey through routes & roots of living & dying; a gastronome's pleasure dome, but above all a deeply stirred & stirring affirmation of poetry's centrality in realizing mundane & profound instances in the everyday extraordinary. Rothenberg's raw footage is disarming; sly, self-effacing, proclaiming, doubting, affirming. You can read it in one sitting, say blurboligists, but it takes at least a lifetime. & then what?

— David Meltzer



 

Born in Miami Beach, Florida in 1951, Michael Rothenberg has been living in the San Francisco Bay Area for the past 30 years. He is co-founder of Shelldance Orchid Gardens in Pacifica which is dedicated to the cultivation of orchids and bromeliads. He is a poet, painter, songwriter, and editor of Big Bridge Press and Big Bridge, a webzine of poetry and everything else. He is also co-editor and co-founder of JACK Magazine, a literary publication that relates to, but expands beyond, the beat generation.

His most recent collection of poems is My Youth As A Train published by Foothills Publishing in September 2010.

Earlier collections of his poetry include:

CHOOSE
Big Bridge Press, 2009

Unhurried Vision
La Alameda/University of New Mexico Press, 2003

Grown Up Cuba
IL Bagatto Press, Amsterdam 2003

Monk Daddy
Blue Press, 2003

The Paris Journals
Fish Drum, Inc, 2000

Favorite Songs
Big Bridge Press, CA, 1990

Man/Woman, a collaboration with Joanne Kyger
Big Bridge Press, CA, 1988

Nightmare Of The Violins
Twowindows Press, CA, 1986

What The Fish Saw
Twowindows Press, CA, 1984

He is also the author of the novel Punk Rockwell (Tropical Press, 2000).

Editorial projects include:

The Collected Poems of Philip Whalen
Wesleyan University Press, 2007

Way More West, Selected Poems of Edward Dorn
Penguin Books, 2007

David's Copy, Selected Poems by David Meltzer
Penguin Books. 2005

As Ever, Selected Poems by Joanne Kyger
Penguin Books. 2002

Overtime, Selected Poems by Philip Whalen
Penguin Books 1999


His songs have appeared in Hollywood Pictures' Shadowhunter and Black Day, Blue Night, and most recently, TriStar Pictures' Outside Ozona. Other songs have been recorded on CDs including: The Darkest Part of The Night by Bob Malone, Difficult Woman by Renee Geyer, Global Blues Deficit by Cody Palance, The Woodys by The Woodys, and Schell Game by Johnny Lee Schell.

His poetry books and broadsides are archived at the University of Francisco, and are held in the Special Collection libraries of Brown University, Claremont Colleges, University of Kansas, the New York Public Library, UC-Berkeley, UC-Davis, and UC-Santa Cruz.

He is currently living in the redwoods.

 

 

(Click cover image to order The Paris Journals.)

 

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For correspondence contact:
walterblue AT bigbridge DOT org