Over the last year I have visited Western New Mexico on numerous occasions, including many of the settings of Trinity Fields and its sequel, Ariel's Crossing. Morrow's description of the New Mexican countryside and its people is exquisite, allowing me to see that beautiful State with a fresh appreciation of its natural, historical, and spiritual beauty.

Morrow's treatise on the human affinity for and in the end the banality of war-particularly Vietnam-is worthy of another Pulitzer. The metaphorical power of the friendship of Kip and Brice is best understood as complementary alter egos, forces and instincts that exist side by side within many of us.

I read Ariel's Crossing prior to reading Trinity Fields. While I also loved the sequel, I recommend reading Trinity first, since Ariel builds on the characterizaions so carefully wrought in Trinity. Read them both for a great literary experience.

Philip argues with Victor about his love for Chloe as Victor claims he's too young to know what love really is. When their argument heats up, Victor grounds him for having low grades and being distracted by Chloe. Stefano overhears Brandon pleading with Lexie to give Isaac to Hope where he belongs. Stefano first offers him money to keep quiet and then threatens him but Brandon isn't frightened which worries Lexie. When Stefano complains to Rolf about this trouble, Rolf decides to kill Brandon. Belle and Chloe look for Bo and Hope to tell them about what Belle saw at the river. Hearing the fire department found nothing after dragging the river again, Bo decides Hope's right that J.T. is still alive. This, folks, is the wonderful world of "Trinity Fields." Read it and learn the meaning of the word "enthralled." Here's how many tiny yet flamingly intense white dwarfs I give it: ****************************************************************************. Wow!

Brad Morrow has a way with words ... He crafts them into exquisite sentences, paragraphs and mental pictures that are wonderfully refreshing. The story is compelling ... His Characters believable. I loved it! Great job, Brad!

this book has made me stop wasting my time with secondary new things and try to focus onthe top books. i thank rexroth for getting me to read f m ford's "some do not..." , a really great novel. his remarks on homer are great,and his comments make wonderful reading.

Rexroth was "the father of the beatniks" and steeped in a humane understanding of the classics. Rexroth's book discusses sixty volumes, such as the Illiad & Odyssey, Beowolf, Njal's Saga, Job, Mahabarata, Kalevala, Sappho, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Herodotus, Plato, Livy, and so on, through Mark Twain and Chekhov. A second volume contains similar sweep across different authors/works. As Rexroth says, these classic texts from around the world are "basic document in the history of the imagination".

A review of Rexroth's book in the Villlage Voice, written three decades ago, says that "The talk is expansive, linking the archaic and the immediate, finding in Euripides 'the first psychedlic system of values, a middle-class substitute for mystical vision,' or noting how in Caesar's _Gallic War_ 'the simple nouns and verbs carom off each other like billiard balls... The rapid and complex movement of simple elements deploys on the page exactly like the battle it describes.'...The books he loved he saw as emanations of living feeling, line of communication miraculously kept open."

Or, to quote from Rexroth himself: "Life may not be optimistic, but it certainly is comic, and the greatest literature present man wearing the two conventional masks; the grinning and the weeping faces that decorate theatre prosceniums. What is the face behind the mask? Just a human face -- yours or mine. That is the irony of it all -- the irony that distinguishes great literature -- it is all so ordinary."

Without denigrating the non-Western tradition -- in fact, by including many essays about non-Western classics -- and without paying homage via knee jerks, Rexroth succeeds brilliantly.

Black Sparrow Press, as most people know it, is famous for publishing the works of Charles Bukowski. But anyone who loves to read the advanced guard of American Literature, knows that BSP is actually the leading independent publisher in the world. Looking through this scholarly resource book might seem dry (it basically describes the title page, size, layout, printing history, etc. but NOT reviews, or summaries of the books) to the uninititated, but for anyone serious about 20th Century American Literature this book is a necessity. The authors, besides Bukowski, that Black Sparrow has published in its 35 year history regularly fill anthologies of "America's Best." Just to name a few, you'll find books by: Gertrude Stein, Cid Corman, Sam Shepard, Fielding Dawson, Micheal McClure, Joyce Carol Oates, Diane Wakoski, Wanda Coleman, Gerard Malanga, Tom Clark, Wyndham Lewis, D.H. Lawrence, Sherril Jaffe, David Bromige, Robert Creeley, Charles Olson, Ed Dorn, Paul Blackburn, etc., etc. New voices such as, Eileen Myles, Lucia Berlin, Andrei Codrescu, Lyn Lifshin, and Michael Lally come later in the press' history, and therefore their work is not compiled here. This is one of the two problems with this book; it's seriously outdated (representing only the first 12 years of BSP's existence), and the photos of the beautiful book covers and title pages are in black and white. Hopefully, they plan to do a new version for the coming millenium! Still, this volume is a valuable source material for scholars, collectors, and fans of the best of the best. Get this along with the bibliography of Bukowski's work by Aaron Krumhansl and start collecting!

Kenneth Rexroth was one of the most significant and influential American poets of the last half of the 20th century. This long overdue volume collects all his published poetry, as well as a wealth of previously uncollected material. Rexroth's erudition is remarkable, and his strongly syllabic verse is sometimes subtle, sometimes didactic, but always richly musical and intellectually sophisticated. His long poems, particularly "The Phoenix and the Tortoise" and "The Dragon and the Unicorn" are especially recommended, as are the "translations" he wrote in the guise of a Japanese woman poet, "The Love Poems of Marichiko."

Rexroth has for too long been overshadowed by his brief association with the Beats. Hopefully, this collection will demonstrate the lasting contribution he made to American literature.

Now with any luck Sam Hamill and Company at Copper Canyon will see fit to publish a collected translations, and perhaps a collected prose...

Conjunctions has for a long time been a source of truly new and groundbreaking writing in American Literature. The current issue not only continues this trend, but even exceeds the high water mark set by earlier editions of the journal, taking the time, as it does, to focus only on prose (saving the poetry, I understand, for the next issue). Collected in one place we have stories by some of our finest writers, set alongside works by newer, promising authors. From Coover's phantasmagoric and playful "Alice in the Time of the Jabberwock" to Paul West's haunting tale, this collection is thought-provoking and expansive.

Hover has beautiful, intriguing photographs. The stories are haunting and wonderfully written to match the photographs. I highly recommend this delightful book.

Rexroth scores again in this second "Classics Revisited" volume. The books he loved -- the classics of the non-Western and the Western world -- he saw as emanations of living feeling, lines of communication miraculously kept open.

Rexroth wrote in the first volume: "Life may not be optimistic, but it certainly is comic, and the greatest literature present man wearing the two conventional masks; the grinning and the weeping faces that decorate theatre prosceniums. What is the face behind the mask? Just a human face -- yours or mine. That is the irony of it all -- the irony that distinguishes great literature -- it is all so ordinary."

(By the way: These essays are such that one can read volume two before volume one.)

This book was great. In it, Miller visits every continent inhabited by humans and speaks with local gays about their lives. The great thing is, he makes a point of speaking to lesbians, gays of color, and the HIV-positive in all these countries. This would be a great book for gays and lesbians of color to read. There are two chapters on Thailand and this may feel a little exploitative and sex-touristy, but Miller is an obvious progressive and wouldn't mean to offend intentionally. While reading this book, you will ask yourself how Miller got the money to do so much travelling and investigating in the first place. Readers will wish they had the opportunities that the author had. This book was both informative and fun.

I am amazed whe I go into a bookstore in San Francisco and find that they don't carry any of Kenneth Rexroth' many books. For many of us that lived in San Francisco during his life he was the teacher. Very few creative artists have been as generous in praising other artists.

His poetry has it's own flavor. Particularly touching are the series written over many years about his first wife Andree. Go to the library!read him!

I found Ariel's Crossing difficult to put down. In fact, I skipped Morrow's reading in New York for fear of something being revealed that I had not yet learned. Not only does Morrow tell a fascinating, multi-layered story, he creates wonderful characters. I was struck with the realization mid-way through the book that I really LIKED all the characters (except David, but that is his own fault), not so common an experience. Which is not to say that they are some kind of exemplars, they are ordinary, flawed human beings who make mistakes, but grow; people who I could care about.

I found Ariel's Crossing difficult to put down. In fact, I skipped Morrow's reading in New York for fear of something being revealed that I had not yet learned. Not only does Morrow tell a fascinating, multi-layered story, he creates wonderful characters. I was struck with the realization mid-way through the book that I really LIKED all the characters (except David, but that is his own fault), not so common an experience. Which is not to say that they are some kind of exemplars, they are ordinary, flawed human beings who make mistakes, but grow; people who I could care about.

I have been waiting for this book for five years, and it is so worth the wait! I fell in love with Morrow's "Giovanni's Gift" and went on to read everything I could get my hands on, and my favorite was "Trinity Fields", which is the sister book to "Ariel's Crossing". But now that I've read "Ariel's Crossing", it tops my list. Ariel is a wonderful, inspiring young woman whose journey to self-discovery, through some amazing yet completely believable twists of fate, so often resonates for me personally. I also love Franny (aka Mary), who discovers herself by simply re-inventing herself as someone else, and Sarah Montoya, the wise mother who guides her whole family (adopted and otherwise) with wry intelligence. (Not to mention Francisca, the ghost whose very presence seems to make a place home.) Also, Morrow's use of language is sublime---so rich and lush---and yet, unlike so many writers, it enhances his storytelling rather than interfering with it. You really *live* with these characters, you feel like you're walking through the landscapes with them---you're right there on horseback with Ariel when she---but I won't blow it for you--you've got to read this book!