On Time ─ Poems 2005-2014

On Time is Joanne Kyger's first full-length collection of poetry in nearly a decade. Beginning in 2005, in the throes of the endless wars of the Bush administration, and proceeding chronologically to 2014,On Time may be seen as the day book of a master poet, moving between the personal and the political, the natural and the spiritual in a restless quest for sanity. Reflecting her practice of Zen Buddhism, and her long engagement with environmentalism,On Time is a profound examination of contemporary culture from a perspective of wisdom and maturity, permeated with righteous indignation and fierce criticism.

Praise for On Time:

"On Time offers exquisite panoramic views of eternity. It reads like an early morning drive up the coast with sunlight showing through the branches. Joanne's words gain a perfect stillness hanging in the air. They sound in our mind then dissolve to a hairline edge. Glide with the turn. Get blown away. There is no greater voice in American poetry."Cedar Sigo

"Oh reader, you can just relax and spend hour upon hour inside Joanne Kyger’s On Time, Poems 2005-2014, for oodles of pleasure and line-fun! Kyger beautifully observes her life and times. She’s realistic, yet graceful and good-willed, annotating herself, her friends and acquaintances, while definitely saying no to Sartre’s dictum, 'hell is other people.' What a graceful, complicated and wonderful book!"Ed Sanders

"Like the double meaning of the title, Kyger’s poems speak to the phenomenologicalboth to the observations of the state of being and to one's own placement in the world. Her poems step / about entering into an agreement / with the page of the moment'. Working elegantly, tone by tone, her poems are by turns political, pointed, intimate, humorous, ordinary, and profound. Here you will find instructive or incriminating dreams, world affairs, human frailties, friends that come and go, wisdom and whimsy. Visually sculpted, rich in mood movement, provocative and pleasurable, these are poems like the moon: illuminating, in transit, stately, and enduring.”Hoa Nguyen

About the Author:

One of the major women poets of the SF Renaissance, Joanne Kyger was born in 1934 in Vallejo, CA. After studying at UC Santa Barbara, she moved to San Francisco in 1957, where she became a member of the circle of poets around Jack Spicer and Robert Duncan. In 1960, she and then-husband Gary Snyder traveled in Japan and India where, along with Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky, they met the Dalai Lama. She returned to California in 1964 and published her first book,The Tapestry and the Web, in 1965. In 1969, she settled in Bolinas, where she continues to reside today. She has published over 30 books of poetry and prose, includingStrange Big Moon, The Japan and India Journals: 1960-1964 (2000), As Ever: Selected Poems (2002), andAbout Now: Collected Poems (2007), which won the 2008 Josephine Miles Award from PEN Oakland. She occasionally teaches at Naropa University.

One of the major women poets of the Beat Generation, Joanne Kyger was born in 1934 in Vallejo, CA. After studying at UC Santa Barbara, she moved to San Francisco in 1957, where she became a member of the circle of poets around Jack Spicer and Robert Duncan. In 1960, she and then-husband Gary Snyder traveled in Japan and India, where, along with Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky, they met the Dalai Lama. She returned to California in 1964 and settled in Bolinas in 1969, where she continues to reside today. She has published over 20 books of poetry and prose, including Strange Big Moon, The Japan and India Journals: 1960-1964 (North Atlantic, 2000),As Ever: Selected Poems (Penguin, 2002), and About Now: Collected Poems (National Poetry Foundation, 2007). She occasionally teaches at Naropa University.