Blue Book Poetry. No. 1. January 1999.

San Francisco: Blue Press, 1999. Staplebound. [92] pp., illustrations, wraps. Ads for three chapbooks: The River by Lewis MacAdams and California Redemption Value by Kevin Opstedal; also Texas Crude (forthcoming) by Dale Smith. A folded, one-leaf insert solicits donations to continue publishing the journal and chapbooks.

Poetry journal from a San Francisco small press, which began during the late years of the dot-com bubble. A few clip art-like illustrations in this, the debut issue. At least 8 numbers of this journal were issued, and the press published books until about 2016. Opens with five poems by Charles Bukowski. Other contributors include. Elaine Equi, Joanne Kyger, Michael Price, Anselm Berrigan, Connie Deanovich, Edmund Berrigan, Amy Gerstler, Tom Clark, Brett Evans, Noel Black, Dick Gallup, F. A. Nettlebeck, Janine Hayes, Paul Di Filippo, Lisa Miller, Nathan Walkes, Roger Snell, Roy Earle, and Vincent Vega. Closes with a review of Billy Collins’s Picnic, Lightning (“Collins is wry and intent, evidently about something, but when you get to where he takes you, you feel kind of cheated… This guy’s going places and there’s nothing we can do about it. I like the title of this book a lot, though… That’s about the most positive thing I can say”).

Cat.No: 298645

Price: $25.00