My Books
The Grail in Usk, A Novel of Sir Perceval
The boy is spoiled, willful, and grotesquely selfish. He had
been isolated from the harsh and violent world by his mother
and raised in a forest. But he comes upon knights one day
and from then on will not rest until he too wears armor and rides
a magnificent war-horse. He leaves his mother and his boyhood life
behind to set out into the great world, where he will encounter deep
mystery, violence, love, sexuality, and—the Holy Grail.
Mything You: a Brew of Stories, Plays, and Poems About Myths, Fables and Fairy Tales
You would think
the god who drove the sun around the sky with horses
and gave us poetry and healing and cities
and stringed instruments,
who was famous for his pretty face and balls of brass
would know better than to diss
that dangerous baby, Cupid!
But no,
Apollo, Sun-driver, Killer of Serpents,
goes out of his way to mock the infant!
Of course he does, and “the infant” takes delicious revenge, and all hell breaks loose, because if anyone in the ancient pantheon of gods can cause trouble, it’s the god of love. But come to think of it, has that changed? In fact, do the old myths and fairly tales mean any less today than they did back when? Or are they still in the very marrow of our bones, albeit in somewhat different form? Through poetry, narrative, and drama, this book takes a stab at answering that question. Though it’s main purpose is and always was — to have fun!
Tristan, Isolt, and the Sea
Sir Tristan’s assignment was to convey the lovely young Isolt to her husband-to-be, the older King Mark of Cornwall. But a strange incident occurred on their voyage across the Irish Sea which transformed what might have been a quiet tale of marriage between royal houses into a complex and compelling love-story that has come down to us through the centuries in many versions. Here’s the most recent.
Also available at the following local bookstores:
Bird and Beckett 653 Chenery St. (Glen Park), San Francisco
Folio Books, 3957 24th St. (Noe Valley), San Francisco
Pegasus Books in Downtown Berkeley, 2349 Shattuck Ave.
Pegasus Books in North Berkeley, 1855 Solano Ave.
Pegasus Books in Oakland, 5560 College Ave.
African Yamassee: an American Story
Tsombay, the African forest hunter, transported to a South Carolina plantation in 1714, has never before seen pale people with blue eyes or copper-colored people with black eyes. Even the woods are alien, as if a twisted reflection of his own beloved forst back home though he will kill his slave-driver to escape into those forbidding trees to search for his wife and son, torn from him a year past by the slave trade.
Farming in San Francisco
Dan Richman celebrates San Francisco, its Bay Area architecture, its flora and fauna, its weather, its restaurants and food, plus something transcendent that can’t be defined but can be felt. It is an undeniably beautiful city, and yet the poet doesn’t hesitate to point out the threat and danger that sometimes underlies the beauty. The poems are lush with sensual experience: the sound of the waves, the tastes and smells, and of course the vistas.
Cunning Crow Books 