WHERE THE WEATHER SUITS MY CLOTHES


When I bought a signed copy of John Godfrey's Where the Weather Suits My Clothes at SPD last spring for less than a pack of smokes, Brent Cunningham said 'they just don't make covers like that any more.' And he's right. I was going to direct readers to SPD to pick up a copy, but it looks like they're gone. Printed by the legendary Steinhour Press in Lunenberg, Vermont for Kenward Elmslie's Z Press based in Calais (not too far from where I used to live in the late 90s) this is an important early book by a poet whose work I consistently admire. The more Godfrey I read, the more respect I have for his work. He's among the distinguished writers of his generation (b. 1945) who has been cautious not to publish anything less than his best work, and he's been at it for nearly 30 years. Free from the publish-or-perish pressures of the academy, Godfrey works as a nurse caring for homebound children with AIDS in Brooklyn.

Fortunately, SPD does have copies of: Midnight on Your Left (The Figures, 1987); Push the Mule (The Figures, 2001); Private Lemonade (Adventures in Poetry, 2003) and City of Corners (Wave Books, 2008).

0 comments:

Post a Comment