Letters, by Stephen Ratcliffe and Barbara Guest

Description

Correspondence / Poetry / Art

ISBN 978-1-946104-37-3. 198 pages.

Barbara Guest has been one of the finest American poets working, since the 1950s, known as one of the New York School poets. Her work took a radical, opening change that was influenced by her love of the visual arts, her move to California later in life, and her friendships and relationships with innovative California poets, including Stephen Ratcliffe. Guest’s Collected Poems, edited by Hadley Guest, was published in 2008, after her death in 2006.

Stephen Ratcliffe is the author of more than twenty books of poetry, including Painting (Chax 2014) and Selected Days (Counterpath 2012), which won the Poetry Center Book Award. He has also written three books of literary criticism. His ongoing series of five 1,000-page books written in 1,000 consecutive days is available from Editions Eclipse, and his daily poems and photographs are available at Temporality (stephenratcliffe.blogspot.com). He lives in Bolinas, California.

Letters gives us the substance of their intense care about poetry and art, their sharing of a deep friendship based on that care. This book is a welcome addition to our understanding of the work of both poets.