Collected poems, 1967-2012 From the Foreword by Jack Hirschman, former Poet Laureate of San Francisco: "I think I can say a few words about what makes American poetry tick..., and by way of that indicate the importance of this book and John Curl in the pantheon of revolutionary poets... it is 'transform, transform' that John Curl is forever sounding and resounding with his depth charges... We're talking about transforming a society totally in which process poetry serves as a beaconing forward. Curl's signature achievement linguistically, it seems to me, is to have developed a language where lines of images often are contrary to one another and that friction or opposition does more than 'surrealize' the lines (Curl knows the techniques of all the avant-garde poetry movements of the 20th century)-what he is writing is often a poetry of dialectical motion itself. The singular intent behind John's writing is to actualize in poetry the urgent need for working-class consciousness, ... and Curl succeeds in so many poems and in so many imaginings in this book that one realizes that Revolutionary Alchemy is a book of major importance. John Curl... has earned a place-with this book of poems-among the foremost revolutionary American poets since the end of WW2." From Sharon Doubiago, National Book Award nominee: "John Curl's Revolutionary Alchemy is a magnificent account of a radical poet's work, the lifetime of poems, the inner story of an important generation, its psyche, the history. What deep and meaningful pleasure to read this alchemy, mix of love with the bombs. 'I cried when I heard the war was over and/ when I remember/the war still rages on/ I cry again...To resolve my pain I/must resolve yours....'" From Art Goodtimes, Poet Laureate of the Western Slope: "The procreative force, the cosmic sensibility, the oracular insight Curl brings to the reader is constantly astonishing. These poems help define and give rise to a verse of the surreal poetarian vision of the left. Here unrealism attempts to seize and transform imperialist reality. Curl writes like the lead miner in a pit crew. As such, he is a major poet on the people's side. There is not a thing to be bought off in his poems, there is only the amazement of truth." From Mary Rudge, author of Water Planet: "A Master Poet who uses language in a remarkable, innovative way, he gives us information on contradictions in the evolving state of human consciousness. The tensile lines of these poems are a strong loom holding the strength of an interwoven theme of Social Justice making deliberate design through the poet's understanding of actions and attitudes. John Curl shows us the undersides of clouds and cultures but also shows immutable order in chaos. He can, in a single poem, give at least 15 ways of changing personal, social, political darkness, including purification by fire. Though some are seemingly surreal, strange and new, your intellect tells you each line is someone's reality at the core."
About the Author: Born in New York City in 1940, John Curl's family was a mixture of Irish Catholic, English Protestant, and Romanian and Austrian Jew. One grandfather was a Republican, the other a Communist, and his parents New Deal Democrats. During the winters he grew up in New York City, and during the summers in New Jersey farm country without electricity or running water. His father was a post office worker, and his mother had been a show girl before she became mom, working for a while with Abbot and Costello. He has a degree in Comparative Literature from New York City College. He currently resides in Berkeley, California with his wife, and has one daughter. He is a professional woodworker by trade, and chairman of West Berkeley Artisans and Industrial Companies. He served as a Berkeley planning commissioner. He was a founding member of Berkeley Indigenous Peoples Day in 1991, and has worked on the Berkeley powwow for over 20 years. He is vice-president of PEN Oakland, "The blue collar PEN." His play The Trial of Christopher Columbus was produced by the Writers Theater in 2009. His transliterations from Quechua formed the libretto for Tania León's Ancient (2009). He represented the USA at the World Poetry Festival in 2010 in Caracas, Venezuela. OTHER WORKS BY JOHN CURL Memoir: Memories of Drop City (2008). History: For All The People (2009, 2012); History of Collectivity in the San Francisco Bay Area (1982); History of Work Cooperation in America (1980). Translation: Ancient American Poets (2005). Poetry: Scorched Birth (2004); Columbus in the Bay of Pigs (1991); Decade (1987); Tidal News (1982); Cosmic Athletics (1980); Ride the Wind (1979); Spring Ritual (1978); Insurrection/Resurrection (1975); Commu 1 (1971); Change/Tears (1967).