notanotherbookreview

The back cover of  The Beginning Comes After the End:  Notes on a world of change calls it   a sequel to  Hope In The Dark.  That book relates the historical moment in 1955, w hen Grace Lee Boggs ushered in the Montgomery Bus Boycott. That event, says Solnit, began the era of progressive social change. Now it may seem eclipsed in a distant past.. What we may not realize in our present world's incessant "newness" is the ageless persistence of social values--old ways and wisdoms. In our rising world view,  interconnection is a core value. Solnit shows how underlying transformations are often obscured by a longer arc of history. The scale of what's underlying is seldom recognized. Yet these currents shape destiny.  In Rebecca Solnit’s new book, The Beginning Comes After the End: Notes on a world of change, there is plenty of evidence for a long view of political change. Though in our current period of backlash, after decades of progressive change, ...

Bamboo Dart Press consistently delivers the unexpected and brilliant in form and content. Of these delectable slender volumes by Peter Wortsman, the editors explain, "The poems are condensed and diverse, reflecting the mind of a poet and collage artist. Paintings, also created by the author, are interspersed among the poems."  For the first time, these books are offered internationally. Sets of four or two are available."Bamboo Dart Press explains the latest book in the series.   What We Leave Behind , Peter Wortsman’s fourth book of cut-ups, he lets the words run wild, in some cases, as in French poet Guillaume Apollinaire’s  Calligrames  (1918), letting words break ranks and dance on the page; in other cases, coupling word and image; and finally, succumbing to the lure of the visual in collages in which words play a subordinate role or disappear altogether. If, as this book’s first poem maintains, “we know each other from what we leave behind,” Wortsman write...

“Censorship had raised gossip to the level of official communication.” 1933: The Year the Nazis Seized Power" by Philip Metcafe.0\--  The Gossip Columnist, Sunday, April 22 , 1945    It's been a strange experience, reading this book at this time in the United States. It's arrived as democracy is under daily assault in Congress and the streets of our cities. Processes similar to those used by the Nazis have been echoed in our news headlines, attacks on our institutions, including press repression. I asked Martyn Burke , author of the new novel, THE GOSSIP COLUMNIST (1/27/26 DarkSpur Press), the following question:          Q. What is there from your own experience that you brought into the story of The Gossip Columnist? A. "In totalitarian societies I’ve seen the terror and the crushing of moral guidelines, and always there is the question you ask yourself: “How did it get to this?” I spent a lot of time researching the step-by-step descent o...