[New-Poetry] Happy Birthday to Forrest Gander!

[Anny Ballardini]

from Garrison's Almanac:

It's the birthday of poet *Forrest
Gander<http://www.elabs7.com/c.html?rtr=on&s=fj6,djki,dv,c3w6,fjdt,3hrs,fxvj>
*, (books by this
author<http://www.elabs7.com/c.html?rtr=on&s=fj6,djki,dv,ip1v,6zns,3hrs,fxvj>)
born in Barstow, California (1956). He mostly grew up in Virginia, where his
mom was an elementary school teacher. But he spent summers with his father,
who ran a bar in Greenwich Village in the 1960s. It started out as a college
bar and then became a gay bar.

He grew up along the Potomac River, fishing with his Swedish grandfather,
who recited Edgar Allan Poe poems and prayers in Swedish while they fished
for bluegills.

He majored in geology and English, and not long after he graduated from
college he was diagnosed with cancer, third stage melanoma. After cancer
treatment, he said, "A fevered seriousness visited upon me. I looked like a
veteran of some awful conflict and I was ready to change my life."

He moved to San Francisco, where he met his partner in the poetry room of
the San Francisco State Library. The two of them moved to Mexico, and Gander
became fascinated with Mexican poetry and began to translate it. He's since
published translations of Pablo Neruda and many other poets, as well as
several collections of his own poetry, including *Eggplants and Lotus
Root*(1991). Last year he published his first novel,
*As A Friend* (2008).


-- 
Anny Ballardini
http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/
http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome
http://www.moriapoetry.com/ebooks.html
I Tell You: One must still have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing
star!
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