David Brazil | Jacket2

Norma Cole: 'Where Shadows Will' // 2009

street of the heart and / the street crossing it

David Brazil

My main man for poetry in Ithaca, New York — last residence prior to Oakland — was Joel Kuszai, a graduate of Buffalo’s poetics program and publisher of chapbooks (Meow Press) and print-on-demand perfect-bounds (Factory School).

Robin Blaser: 'The Holy Forest' // 2008

dear beings I can feel your hands

David Brazil

Early on in my East Bay ramblings, I found my way into Serendipity Books, on University just up from San Pablo. Sometimes you’re in Ali Baba’s cave and you don’t even realize it. Used to be that every bookman in the area had an anecdote concerning Peter Howard, the legendarily perverse and curmudgeonly proprietor of that cavernous establishment.

I lived in the Bay Area of northern California from 2005 until my divorce in 2019. Taking my series title and inspiration from the serial sequences of Robin Blaser’s collected poems, these essays focus on ten books by Bay-associated writers published between 2008 and 2018.

David Brazil is a pastor, poet, and community organizer. His books include Holy Ghost (City Lights, 2017), antisocial patience (Roof, 2015), and The Ordinary (Compline, 2013). With Kevin Killian, he edited The Kenning Anthology of Poets Theater, 1945–1985. His new edition of Philip Whalen’s Scenes of Life at the Capital was published by Wave Books in 2020. He lives in New Orleans.

Jacket2 commentaries feature invited posts by poets and scholars who take a close, serial look at poetry scenes, archives, poetic concerns, or theoretical clusters. Commentaries, although curated, are not edited by Jacket2 staff. We welcome your comments. Send queries and notes to Jacket editors here.