Another Fairy Tale/My Confession/Silence

(P1) Poetical


(by Eddie C.)












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(P2) Political

Proud To Be Working Class & My Confession

I have a little confession to make. Coming from a working class background (my father was a New York City fireman and my mother an elementary school teacher) I, for quite awhile, attempted to put that all behind me. You see, my parents, stretching their budget considerably, sacrificed and sent me to Georgetown University.

I arrived wearing a lime green poncho shirt and was immediately schooled by my patrician classmates in how to dress (blue blazer, blue button-down Gant shirt, khakis, and brown Bass Weejun loafers). Once in awhile, I'd be invited to stay over at friends' houses ("mansions" to my way of thinking) in Scarsdale, Boston's North Shore, etc. Ultimately, I felt the need to reciprocate, and my friends came to stay over at our exceptionally modest house in Queens. I was very nervous about this, but they always loved the Italian food, openness, good humor and warmth of my folks. Still, for a long time, I felt that I had been "found out."

Later in life, I did vocational rehabilitation counseling with industrially disabled workers under California's Workers Compensation system. In this capacity, I developed a new affinity for the salt of the earth, blue collar workers. It brought me back to my roots and a respect for those who the patricians in our government, but for their platitudes, sadly neglect.

So, at this time, with Barack Obama and Joe Biden leading the way (and let's also hold their feet to the fire), let's join in proclaiming anew and with feeling, "All power to the people of this great nation!"

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Most Hypocritical List

I was going to refer to this quotation as "The Most Hypocritical Quotation of All Time" when I reigned myself in, "Whoa! There's a lot of competition out there!" How about us all compiling a "Top 10" list of hypocritical quotes. Here's my first nominee.

From David Bonior, former Michigan congressman, after the Edwards revelation:

"You can't lie in politics and expect to have people's confidence."

But, David, something like a mind-numbing fifty percent of the population still believe Cheney's big lie that Iraq was involved on Sept. 11!

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(P3) Philosophical

Noise Drenched Lives
by William Edelen - August 3, 2008

The distinguished anthropologist Loren Eiseley wrote that, "Never in the entire history of our species, homo sapiens, has one generation been subjected to so much chaotic noise." He writes that , "We will not know the damage it is doing for years." (press this link to continue reading)

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RaceCardFever/Dept of Peace/BushResume/Poem

(P1) Political

What Race Card?

Instead of just playing the press's game, why doesn't Barack just come out swinging with:

"What race card. I'm the black guy, not McCain. I'm the guy who had to overcome race to get where I am, and I've done a marvelous job of that. Where the hell are you guys coming from acting like you've been victimized by me. Yes, last time I looked in the mirror, I had fairly dark skin, perhaps not dark enough to satisfy you when you were saying I wasn't black enough! So this is what I mean when I say I look different from all those other guys on the dollar bill! I do! I'm black! And I'm proud! Were there one thing that might keep me from winning a landslide victory in the age of Bush, it would be what the polls cannot show us, namely how voters will feel when they enter the booth and decide whether or not they want to vote for a black man (spell that B-L-A-C-K). Otherwise, there's really no other choice in this election. I'm smart, informed, attractive, not Republican, certainly not Bush or McCain. Oh, and, not so incidentally, I'm black!"

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George Bush's Professional Resume

As stated by the friend who sent this to me, "It's nice to see all of this in one place."

This person needs a job, an executive position, will be available in January 2009, and is willing to relocate.

RESUME-GEORGE W. BUSH

EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE:

(continue here)

(P2) Philosophical

Response to Those Against Department of Peace

Interestingly, the majority of my responses to support for a U.S. Department of Peace have focussed not upon the positive goals but rather reasons to say no to another bureaucracy. I'd really be interested in your observations. Hit "comments" below. In the meantime, hear is typical correspondence:

Anonymous said...

Has anyone actually read Kucinish's bill? While it is an interesting idea in theory, it is totally unworkable from a practical standpoint. The governmental department turf wars alone would render the "Secretary of Peace" impotent.

4:35 PM

Ed Coletti said...

Dear Anonymous,

In the future, please add your name or nickname. That would add more moral force to the comment. My support of a Dept. of Peace is not so much based upon it's bureaucratic workings as upon the transformative nature of the words "Secretary of Peace." Regardless of how it works out, a Dept. of Peace gets people talking about Peace. What's a Dept of Defense? When was the last time troops were used to defend this country? Don't you think that focusing upon family serenity, gang neutralization, an Academy of Peace (paralleling the 4 "service" Academies), etc, might have a more positive effect? Tell me, Anonymous, why do you focus merely on the negative? So there would be "turf wars." I suspect the war turf might gain the advantage over the peace turf. But then, what do we have now? War turf and No Turf.

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(P3) Poetical

In Silence
by Thomas Merton

Be still.
Listen to the stones of the wall.
Be silent, they try
to speak your

name.
Listen
to the living walls.

Who are you?
Who
are you? Whose
silence are you?

Who (be quiet)
are you (as these stones
are quiet). Do not
think of what you are
still less of
what you may one day be.

Rather
be what you are (but who?)
be the unthinkable one
you do not know.

O be still, while
you are still alive,
and all things live around you

speaking (I do not hear)
to your own being,
speaking by the unknown
that is in you and in themselves.

“I will try, like them
to be my own silence:
and this is difficult. The whole
world is secretly on fire. The stones
burn, even the stones they burn me.
How can a man be still or
listen to all things burning?
How can he dare to sit with them
when all their silence is on fire?”




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Junk Assemblages/zzzMcCainFever/Jack London/

(P1) Poetical

4 Junk Assemblages

Just before leaving for Colorado, Richard Denner gave me two of his "junk assemblages" which now hang from fences at the Coletti homestead as do the two additional assemblages Richard inspired me to do.






Two Untitled by Richard Denner and Water Hole by Ed Coletti








Mylar Homage to Ira Cohen by Ed Coletti
Detail-Mylar Homage to Ira Cohen









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(P2) Political

McCain "Fever"





















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(P3) Philosophical

Jack London on Democracy

"By a pure democracy is meant a form of government in which the supreme power rests with and is exercised directly by the people instead of the present form, which is a republican form of democracy, in which the supreme power rests with the people, but is indirectly exercised by them, through representatives.

"Representatives may be corrupted, but how could the whole people be bribed? It would be a Herculean task, and as Lincoln said, 'You may fool all the people part of the time; part of the people all the time; but not all the people all the time."

- Jack London - "What Socialism Is" in The Radical Jack London edited by Jonah Raskin (University of California Press 2008)

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"McCain Withraws"/ Schevill Poem/ Peace Alliance/

(P1) Political

"McCain Withdraws 'For Health Reasons' "

Now before you go scurrying to the New York Times for confirmation, please realize that I made this up but did so in the way of prophecy. I suspect he will withdraw in August. I'm not alone in this speculation. He will say it's due to his "health." However, of course, it will be the Republicans, knowing that he has no chance of winning, who will force his hand.

The GOP is not into "throwing" an election. I've been saying for some time that Obama will win the November election in a landslide. The Republicans fear this. Therefore, in their view, McCain must go." So who will take his place? Romney, Hegel or Bloomberg? Probably not the last who is a virtual Democrat. Chuck Hegel is a mid country conservative who correctly opposes the war. Romney flip flops with the worst of them. Were the Republicans to overcome their feelings of betrayal, Hegel could be their best bet by providing a fresh face and an apparent major "change" position (even if only on the war) and pull a late-term steal of Barrack's thunder. Then (and please don't laugh at me), there is always Jeb Bush. There is this nagging feeling that Jeb will prevail as the "smart Bush." Who better to cover up the criminal behavior of the current administration and to obstruct special prosecutor appointments and even war crimes investigations.

You may disagree with me that McCain will pull out, or that Obama will win in a landslide. But realize that he is now winning even in Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio! His wife Michelle is positioned as another Jacqueline Kennedy and already influencing fashion while intelligently framing issues and parrying attacks. Don't underestimate the importance of a strong first lady "candidate" in an election.

Finally, there is McCain himself. While I don't engage in ageism, because that will come back to bite me, I can say that this is a thoroughly lackluster personality facing a dynamic force. Then there are his hopelessly garbled and inconsistent statements on the issues (see what immediately follows), and, now I rest my case.


Please listen to the entire 3 minute video compilation of John Mc Cain's incredible series of pathological direct contradictions of John Mc Cain!!!


Watch the incredible 3 minute video


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(P2) Poetical

The Will of Writing

The will of writing is
to make the pen
sound a word,
the sound neither hard nor soft,
but of that balance
which gives forth
something surrounded,
shining and stopped.

(James Schevill)

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(P3) Philosophical

U. S Department of Peace Revisited

Recall several months ago when I mentioned my membership in The Peace Alliance and urged you to contribute a significant portion of your stimulus check "gift" from George Bush to The Peace Alliance in support of the legislation to create a Department of Peace with a Secretary of Peace. Just saying those words is transformative.

Listen to Walter Cronkhite speak eloquently on behalf of this legislation. Then go to the additional links below.

The Peace Alliance and a Dept. of Peace


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Casals & Flower Bombing/ Spitzer & Me/

(P1) Political

Love Without Borders

The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border? - Pablo Casals


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(P2 & P3) Poetical /Philosophical

Without the Wind

Philosophy is the boat we all end up sailing in.- Jim Spitzer

More like the doldrums, Jim.

Where wind ceases to blow

And the spinnaker loses its bluster.

Stillness catching an inner sail

Launches the soul on its way.

(© 2008 Ed Coletti poem with Jim Spitzer drawing)

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Big Hug/Love of "Liberal"/Sunbeams/Forgiveness/

(P1) Political

<- The Real John McCain

Then, in case you've accepted the propaganda that "Liberal" is a curse word, check out the following cool piece...

Day In the Life of Joe Middle Class Republican

TvNewsLIES Reader contribution.
By John Gray Cincinnati, Ohio -

Joe gets up at 6:00am to prepare his morning coffee. He fills his pot full of good clean drinking water because some liberal fought for minimum water quality standards. He takes his daily medication with his first swallow of coffee. His medications are safe to take because some liberal fought to insure their safety and work as advertised.

All but $10.00 of his medications are paid for by his employers medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance, now Joe gets it too. He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs this day. Joe’s bacon is safe to eat because some liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

Click here to read the complete funny article

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(P2) Philosophical

A few "sunbeams" from The Sun magazine

I am not so arrogant as to presume that only my intellectual superiors can teach me. If such were the case then the teacher would learn nothng from her disciples, the parents nothing from their children, and I nothing from the animals, from whom I have learned so much.

- Caroline Cozza

Sit at the feet of the master long enough, and they'll start to smell.

- John Sauget

We are here and now. Further than that, all knowledge is moonshine.

- H.L. Mencken

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(P3) Poetical

Forgiveness

The one who forgives restores,
even though it seems a small segment,
the wholeness of being.

Everyone's history
is, without doubt, part of the world's history,
is, in fact, the world's history.

In other words,
whatever a man or a woman does,
even in secret, touches,
no, even more, shapes all humanity.

- Jaime Sabines
(translated by Rebeca del Rio)

And, do yourself a favor and get down to the Marin Poetry Festival.

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Bon Voyage, Richard Denner

(P1) Poetical

Farewell and All the Best to Richard Denner

Here's Richard in just a few of his incarnations. I and all of his friends will miss him as he embarks on a multi-year retreat in Colorado. Richard Denner has demystified poetry and life. That he is quintessentially human once again was evident as he presided over my mother's memorial in March of this year. How deeply he will be missed as he moves further onward divested of everything and every one from his past for now. All the very best, Richard.

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Cool Video/Elitism-So What/Dept. of Peace/2 More Cartoons/

(P1) Philosophical

The Zimmers

I still love this most wonderful You Tube presentation from England!


(P2) Political

What's all this Republican B.S. about "the elites"? Do we really want a President who can demonstrate the ability to bowl, shoot, and toss back shots of whiskey? We got something like that the last two times around.

Jon Stewart, invoking the image of Jefferson, addressed the E word on The Daily Show recently with "Doesn't elite mean good? If you don't think you're better than us, then what the fuck are you doing? I want a president who's embarrassingly superior to me, speaks 16 languages and sleeps two hours a night in a chamber they themselves designed."

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Use Some of Your Stimulus Refund For Peace

Check this out! Joyce and I are going to do it! Just imaginining people some day uttering the words "Secretary of Peace." That's transformative! Peace Project contribution.


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(P3) Poetical


Creature #14 (Mask & Long Potato)

Creature #17 (Ready to Launch)

(2 cartoons by ed coletti)

Egg Cup & Electric Boy/Gary Snyder/Melting/Tolle/

(P1) Poetical

The Tree & the Egg Cup and The Electric Boy & Gary Snyder

(2 cartoons by Ed Coletti)







Thank you Larry Robinson for alerting me to the following

Hiking in the Totsugawa Gorge

      pissing

      watching

      a waterfall

           - Gary Snyder

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(P2) Political/Survival

Uh Oh!  Western Antarctic ice chunk collapses

by Seth Borenstein 25 March 2008

A chunk of Antarctic ice about seven times the size of Manhattan suddenly collapsed, putting an even greater portion of glacial ice at risk, scientists said Tuesday.

Satellite images show the runaway disintegration of a 160-square-mile chunk in western Antarctica, which started Feb. 28. It was the edge of the Wilkins ice shelf and has been there for hundreds, maybe 1,500 years.

This is the result of global warming, said British Antarctic Survey scientist David Vaughan.

Because scientists noticed satellite images within hours, they diverted satellite cameras and even flew an airplane over the ongoing collapse for rare pictures and video.

"It's an event we don't get to see very often," said Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo. "The cracks fill with water and slice off and topple... That gets to be a runaway situation."

While icebergs naturally break away from the mainland, collapses like this are unusual but are happening more frequently in recent decades, Vaughan said. The collapse is similar to what happens to hardened glass when it is smashed with a hammer, he said.

The rest of the Wilkins ice shelf, which is about the size of Connecticut, is holding on by a narrow beam of thin ice. Scientists worry that it too may collapse. Larger, more dramatic ice collapses occurred in 2002 and 1995.

Vaughan had predicted the Wilkins shelf would collapse about 15 years from now. The part that recently gave way makes up about 4 percent of the overall shelf, but it's an important part that can trigger further collapse.

There's still a chance the rest of the ice shelf will survive until next year because this is the end of the Antarctic summer and colder weather is setting in, Vaughan said.

Scientists said they are not concerned about a rise in sea level from the latest event, but say it's a sign of worsening global warming.

Such occurrences are "more indicative of a tipping point or trigger in the climate system," said Sarah Das, a scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.

"These are things that are not re-forming," Das said. "So once they're gone, they're gone."

Climate in Antarctica is complicated and more isolated from the rest of the world.

Much of the continent is not warming and some parts are even cooling, Vaughan said. However, the western peninsula, which includes the Wilkins ice shelf, juts out into the ocean and is warming. This is the part of the continent where scientists are most concern about ice-melt triggering sea level rise.




(P3) Philosophical

To Die Before You Die


Death is a stripping away of all that is not you.
The secret of life is to "die before you die"  —
and find that there is no death.


(Eckhart Tolle in The Power of Now)

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my you tube piece/jeanne powell poem/bucky fuller/

(P1) Poetical

On Getting Old & Fat

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Democrats, Unite!/Proehl's Wisdom/ Margo's Verse /

(P1) Political

Democrats, Unite!

Now! While I have many friends who have supported Hillary Clinton during her very determined fight for the nomination, I feel I must urge these friends quickly to switch their allegiance to Barrack Obama who I totally believe will be the eventual candidate.

At this point, Obama has the most primary popular votes, the most states by far, and, most significant, the most delegates. For Senator Clinton to stay in by hoping for a deal with the "super delegates," is understandable only in the context of old style back-room-brawling ("nuclear option") politics.

Since, in my strong opinion, we need to unify the party NOW, please urge Sen. Clinton to recognize and accept the reality of the situation and throw her support to Sen. Obama, who I've long maintained, sets the absolute right tone for both the nation and the world at this most critical juncture in our history. To continue the ugly madness of "Preachergate" and "Bosniagate" only gives succor to the true opposition and forces of reaction and promulgates what David Brooks refers to as "The audacity of hopelessness."

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(P2) Philosophical

The ego seeks to control its experience,
a futile task. For this reason
ego is always insecure.

-Peter Proehl-

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(P3) Poetical

You Grasp At Straws or Caveat Clinton
by Margo van Veen
(May also be sung to the tune of Charles Aznavour's "Tu T'Laisses Aller"

You felt so sure, so confident
Poised for first female president
Such skills, such drive, well known, a pro
But since your rival stole the show
When, like bonobos check for fleas,
You try to find Obama flaws—
Honestly, Mrs. Clinton, please—
You grasp at straws, you grasp at straws.

Forgone conclusions now seem wrong
As if illusions all along
Of course you feel like fighting back
But do not paint Obama black
You should not stoop to schemes or sleaze
Nor steal his thunder and applause—
Be honest, Mrs. Clinton, please—
You grasp at straws, you grasp at straws.

You speak of ‘stolen words’, ‘all talk’
In vain attempts to clean his clock
But barring an Obama-gate
Won’t stop this juggernaut for change.
You can’t undo rules as you please
Although the process has its flaws—
Be honest, Mrs. Clinton, please—
You grasp at straws, you grasp at straws.

But should you be the nominee
Obama fans, will they agree
To vote for you against McCain?
They still want change, no war, that’s plain;
So chances are those votes you’ll seize
that most will only cast because—
Honestly, Mrs. Clinton please—
They grasp at straws, they grasp at straws.

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Mission Accomplished/Nuns with Guns/Sad Kids

(P1) Political

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(P2) Philosophical

Oops!










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at edcolett

(P3) Poetical

When Your Mother Is Only 15 & Your Grandmother 32

Once is awhile I take a break from "serious" reading and relax with an Elmore Leonard or Robert B. Parker crime novel. This time, reading in Parker's Small Vices, I came across the following insightful passages which, more than many, seem to capsulize the trap of the ghetto. Here, private detective Spenser is speaking with a grizzled and wise black cop.

"Ellis got the same story most of the kids you can see got," Jackson said. He made a graceful inclusive gesture with his right hand.

"His mother's about fifteen years older than he is. She and him live with her mother, his grandmother. Nobody's working. Don't know who the father is. Mother does some dope 'cause she got nothing else that she knows how to do. Grandmother does what she can. Which ain't much. She's got no education. She's got no money. She don't know who fathered her daughter. When Ellis was born., his grandmother was about thirty-two. Ellis don't go to school much. Nobody at his house seems able to get up early enough in the morning to get him there. He's a gang banger soon as they'll have him. Ran for a while with The Hobarts. By the time he's a grown-up he got his career mapped out. He does strong arm, dope dealing, small-time theft. For recreation he molests women. Anybody he seen in his whole life, that he actually knows, who's a success, that's what they do. Michael Jordan may as well be from Mars."......

I watched the kids walking past us on the sidewalk. They looked pretty much like any other kids. They were dressed for each other. Oversized clothes, sneakers, hats on backwards, or sideways. Most of them tried to look confident. Most of them were full of pretense. All of them were a little over matched by the speed at which the world came at them. But these kids weren't like other kids, and I knew it. These kids were doomed. And they knew it.......

......"So I say, you people have simply got to stop talking 'bout fucking 'inner city' when you mean black. And you really got to stop taking about fucking 'parents'. Kids in the 'inner city' got the usual biological folks. But mostly they ain't got no fucking 'parents'. Mostly the only family they got is the gang, and the only thing that they can insist on is respect. And the only things they got to insist on it with is balls and a gun."

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Valentine/Race&Gender,etc/Moe's

(P1) Philosophical

Love...A Mystery That
Transcends Reason

William Edelen

February 03, 2008

"The heart has reasons that reason cannot know..." Blaise Pascal

Thousands and thousands of years before the bible was written, or Jesus was born, love filled human hearts and dreamed of immortality. Resting gently on my mind is a vision of the dawn of humanity, perhaps on an African savannah. A scene opens before my eyes. Staring; into space over a grave, filled with flowers, a first tear flooded two eyes.

Whence came that first tear flowing out of a heart having experienced love? Whence came that first sob in the throat but from the source of love...? And today, still, the mystery of life and death, two mysteries which are yet one, remain. Life and death are equal Kings. Presidents and babes lie side by side. Kings and Peasants share the same soil. Every birth asks: "Whence came thou?" Every grave asks..."Whither goest thou?" The most unlettered person weeping over a loved one can answer the questions of this mystery equally as well as the most learned scholar in his study. For we are all equal as we stand with tears in our eyes before a loved ones grave.

The mystery of love remains. Humans have intuitively sensed, from religious mystic to philosopher...poet and musician, that it is through something we call "love" that the ultimate significance of our existence is most deeply experienced on this planet we call "Earth."

For the very inspiring full essay, press here.

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(P2) Political




















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(P3) Poetical

Tuesday, March 25: Ed Coletti and Lynne Knight

Lynne Knight taught in Upstate New York for many years and moved to Berkeley in 1990. She teaches writing at two Bay Area community colleges. Knight's first collection, Dissolving Borders, won a Quarterly Review of Literature prize in 1996 and appeared in its Contemporary Poetry Series. Night in the Shape of a Mirror, Knight's third full-length collection, a sequence of poems on her mother's descent into dementia, appeared from David Robert Books in 2006. In addition to her full-length collections, Knight has published three prize-winning chapbooks. Her poems have appeared in a number of journals, including Poetry Northwest (where she won the Theodore Roethke Award) and Beloit Poetry Journal (which nominated two of her poems for Pushcart Prizes).

Poet and Essayist Ed Coletti is founder of the Bay Area–wide SoCoCo Poetry Series in Santa Rosa as well as Round Barn Press and the popular "Ed Coletti's P3," online. Google it! His most recent book publications have been Bringing Home the Bones and Quiet Now through dPress and Kapala Press respectively.

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