Letter from the Editor
Jonah Raskin
Photo by Christopher Bernard
Welcome to the Summer 2024 issue of Caveat Lector. The credit for the cover photo: Chris Bernard. This issue is packed with glorious poetry, enticing fiction, and compelling nonfiction. We also offer a movie. Not the first, but we’re happy to have it. You can see and hear San Francisco’s outgoing poet laureate, Tongo Eisen-Martin, filmed by Starr Sutherland, who is also making a documentary about City Lights, the bookstore and publishing company. The title of the Starr/ Tongo film is “The Possibility of Being One Person.”
City Lights publishes two of Tongo’s books, Heaven is All Goodbyes and Blood on the Fog. A father for the first time, Tongo said at a National Poetry Month event held in April at the Mechanics Institute in San Francisco, “My eyesight is sharper with this newborn.” We’re sure that’s true.
The nonfiction editor (that’s me) has a piece about his own genesis and evolution as an “atheist Catholic.” Poems from my new book, The Thief of Yellow Roses, are also published here. In nonfiction, we feature a thoughtful piece on AI by Larry Ebert, a musician, teacher, and researcher, also an essay titled, “Focus Point,” by Canadian author Allison Cross—a former fashion model, now a therapist in palliative care— and an essay titled “You’ve Got to be Taught,” by Rosalind Kaplan, a physician, who lives in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania. Angela Patera, who was born in Athens, Greece in 1986 is probably the youngest author in the summer 2024 edition of Caveat Lector. Her riviting piece is titled “People You’ve Been Before, That You Don’t Want Around Anymore.”
The eleven electrifying poets in this issue include Christopher Bernard, Larry Beckett, Terrence Culleton, Robert Daseler, Richard Anthony Furtak, D. T. Holt, Donna Pucciani, Jonah Raskin, Dennis Ross, Diane Webster, and John Zedolik. Their bios appear at the end of their poems.
The lineup for fiction includes a potent piece—call it auto-fiction or autobiographical fiction— by Robert Mitchell that’s based on his wartime experiences in Vietnam. A soldier and helicopter pilot who fought on the American side, he came to see that “our” side was morally bankrupt and bound for military defeat. Mitchell’s piece is excerpted from John Christian: Warrior-Shaman, Book 1: Redeeming the Warrior Spirit. Among our short stories is work by Caveat Lector principal Steven Hill, as well as “The Housesitters” by Nicki Chen, in which the two main characters Julie and Riley sit houses in Port Vila in the South Pacific. “The Gift” by Maryanne Chrisant follows a medical doctor through a life-changing event in a town called Quaker Hill along the coast of Connecticut.
As for news: some of us at Caveat Lector have been performing poetry at the exciting monthly open mic hosted by Laura Booth at Black Bird Books on Irving Street in San Francisco’s Outer Sunset. If you live in or near San Francisco please join us. Caveat Lector founder, Christopher Bernard has been wondering lately what he might do with his archive; Steven Hill has been thinking about next November’s elections. Ho Lin’s day job has been paused—not by him. Jonah Raskin has been walking in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park and at Ocean Beach.
San Francisco poet and biographer Neeli Cherkovski, the author of Whitman’s Wild Children and other notable books, passed in mid-March. Look for a new book of his poems coming soon. Also, we have been saddened by the death in Berkeley of Ivan Arguelles (1939-2024), who we pay tribute to in this issue; Caveat Lector has published many of his poems. In 2013, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. His most recent book is The Unfinished Breath (2023).
All of us at Caveat Lector are surviving and trust the same holds true for you in these perilous times and in perilous places that extend from Gaza and Ukraine to Sudan and beyond. Please dig into this issue and enjoy the work.
Jonah Raskin is the author of eight poetry chapbooks and a book about Allen Ginsberg's "Howl," titled American Scream; he is also editor of nonfiction at Caveat Lector. He has been writing and performing poetry for more than forty years. He often performs his poetry at Black Bird Books in San Francisco and is available to perform at other events. He can be reached at jonah.raskin@sonoma.edu.