When my poetic focus shifted in the early ‘90s from nature to romantic love as I had known it, Wakoski hit home for me. Hers were love poems but far from the sunlight, chocolate, and roses “I can’t live without you” stereotype of the hopeless/helpless romantic.
Hers were alive in an admission of the continuing impact of adolescent awakening and desire, no matter your age, and the imagery was unmistakably American with a rock’n’roll plus Hollywood warp.
The title Motorcycle Betrayal Poems captures the energy, and her fine volumes from Black Sparrow Press fill a stretch of a shelf in my library.
She was a kind of guardian angel in a stream of poems I produced in the decade. For a sample, see my Blue Rock ebook collection.
Jnana's Red Barn 