The project I am starting today is pragmatic. I have too many books of poetry, so I am getting rid of some of them. It began with removing all of the books from eight 23-inch shelves, and from other places around my work room. I then decided what the poetry shelves would look like going forward, answering the question, what poetry do I want to have close at hand? The result was full shelves of poetry, 79 books left for disposition on my sorting table, and three linear feet of open space on my bookcases.

Once I saw the 79, I wanted to read them before disposing of them. That’s not likely, but I will read some of them, then write about the experiences for this project.

Let’s begin with There’s Always a Moon in America by Max Finstein. This thin, blue-covered volume has the look of being hand made. In the end papers, it says, “Printed by Clifford Burke in an edition of 600 copies.” It is without page numbers.

I can’t recall how it came to my shelves. I likely acquired it while studying at university from a poet named Darrell Gray who sold many of his books and other belongings before leaving for San Francisco to practice his trade.

Finstein was a co-founder, in 1967, of New Buffalo, a hippie commune near Taos, New Mexico. The book was printed in 1968, while he lived there. He left New Buffalo in 1969 to start another commune called Reality Construction Company in the area.

The poetry is rooted in the late sixties and doesn’t stand up well outside that context.

From TO PRAISE A COMMON VEGETABLE:

   the question you asked
   in the center of the world we were making

   to prove the splendor of the breathing of being
   — was about cauliflower.

To “make a world” feels very sixties in it’s outlook. It suggests we can leave our culture behind and create something new of our own, the way Finstein did by establishing New Buffalo, a “back to the land” commune seeking a countercultural alternative to modern consumerism. In 2026, cauliflower is easy to grow in a kitchen garden. and available in grocery stores.

I took the time to read Finstein aloud, but nothing worked to bring back whatever he felt while writing these poems. Because of the hippie culture of sexuality evident in the verse, this one is not for donation to the public library in a time when the legislature is trying to ban books and prosecute librarians. If I can’t find it a suitable home, it will go to the burn pile along with Jonathan Livingston Seagull to be returned to the elements from which it came.

This will be an irregular series written whenever a whim from the great beyond arrives. (Meher Baba, who is also very 1960s, is the source for “whim from…”)