A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER follows Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery down the Columbia River from Wallula Gap to the mouth at Astoria. That this work is brief rests on two factors: The first is the obvious fact that it is short. This is not the definitive history of the river. The second point is that not all of the river is described. Lewis and Clark joined the Columbia at its confluence with the Snake at Walla Walla; and this account follows their journey from Sacagaw...

He is standing under the eave of his house as rain drizzles down. Possibly he will be nameless. The eighteen chapters of the book all take place as he stands beneath the eave. Five or six minutes pass. Say six, giving six parts of three chapters each. The long narrative prosepoem is constructed within that time frame, and upon the framework of a syllabus for a class on Ornithology. With flashbacks, internal monologues and stream of consciousness, his life unrolls as he stands watching the ...

Plug Nickels is a selection of Gary Simoni's early poetry. His preference is to consider the poems as word games rather than poetry; and prefers to think of himself not as a poet, but rather as a wordsmith. While the poems are written, for the most part, in free verse, there is some structure to each of the pieces, and, perhaps, an occasional insight.

A novel needs to contain 50,000 words and more if you wish to be in the good graces of Publishing, which I don't, don't give a hoot, suggesting that if you question my label your answer becomes the misfortune of the question. REFLECTION is what the reader makes of it. Wilfred Bion's only goal as a psychoanalyst was to teach people to think, to think so as to ameliorate, in some practical way, the psychological trauma of what we chose to call reality. Reflection is a drop in the bottomless ...

Consulting Huang Po is a long narrative prosepoem similar in its format to the medieval prosimetra. Central to the story is the work of 17th century Japanese wordsmith Bashō who often wrote haibun, the Japanese prosepoem. Protagonist James Lee Cunningham teaches a course on the poet's Narrow Road To the Deep North. This course and Asian culture generally provide the background motifs for the story. Cunningham's wife, Mia Sakai, his friends, and university students interact to weave their o...

The cluster ofbuildings that was MacKensie sat in its cleared patch of forest in its valley all hemmed about by ridges, the sky immense overhead, the stars galling with their glow and twinkle. The new highway had gone north through Santiam Pass. The old highway became, then, simply Main Street, the town truncated, kept small by circumstance, cut off within its loops of river and ridge. With the welcome cold settling down from the ridges, displacing the hot day, with fog rising from the pon...

After The Death of Robert Francis Kennedy is a short novel that follows the intellectual and emotional development of Thomas Malleus. The story is structured like a classic five paragraph essay; but its style is more that of free verse. Malleus, something of an outcast, is faced with the common challenges of all young men in that contentious decade, the 1960s. Set in San Francisco in the fall of 1968, he seeks to cast off the personal. religious, and social shibboleths that mark t...

CONVERSATIONS WITH A HYPOXIC DOG is a collection of essays, stories, and poems from Gary Simoni's later work. The book explores the nuances of both the physical and the metaphysical aspects of one's existence, but does so, more often than not, with tongue in cheek. His prose and poetry offer up insights into life's little indigestions.

AMIGOS is a farcical, often satirical, novel that pokes and pulls at American culture in particular and world culture in general. Hump Ureaker and his crippled, mute partner Josh Randall head south to rescue the brothers Smith and Jones not without the odd bit of misadventure, muddle, and misfortune. Both detective story and saga, sometimes slapstick then again droll, often bawdy, the tale acknowledges the persistence and ingenuity of the conquistadors and inquisitors of the planet. If the...

Killings and koans, mayhem and metaphysics, the DoubleNickel Detective stories serve up the usual mix of characters, clues, and conundrums. Called DoubleNickel as a boy for his thick glasses, and 'Nick' as a college man, he remains without a name in the stories. He is a brown paper sack, a rumpled suit, a mutt of mixed ancestry. His father is Japanese; his mother is Irish. He is sardonic with a penchant for wit and whiskey. He is a private cop who lines up with the hard-boiled boys. Might ...