They were equal-ethnicity bombers, hitting three holy places-a mosque, a cathedral, and a synagogue-as well as two universities and an airport, killing over nine hundred people of all ages and nationalities in six countries.Īs we understood it, GAR (Great Antiestablishment Reset) had sprung from the rubble of Middle Eastern terror groups. This task force had been formed to address a local threat by a global terrorist group known as GAR, which had claimed credit for six sequential acts of mass terrorism in the last five days. We had just been assigned to a counterterrorism task force reporting back to Warren Jacobi, chief of police, and also Dean Reardon, deputy director of Homeland Security, based in DC. It's been said that watching paint dry is high entertainment compared with being on stakeout, but this was the exception to the rule. We had parked our 1998 gray Chevy sedan where we had a good view of the six-story apartment building on the corner of Leavenworth and Turk. That muggy morning in July my partner, Rich Conklin, and I were on stakeout in the Tenderloin, one of San Francisco's sketchiest, most crime-ridden neighborhoods. AGAINST MISANTHROPY aka HAPPY 20TH ANNIVERSARY TO.I don't know that I'd ever thanked him specifically for his role! Que horror! So belatedly, sheepishly, but sincerely, I say, MARAMING SALAMAT, Anselm! Without Anselm's interest, I may never have written the actual poems but might just have continued blathering about its underlying concept.

Until editing AGAINST MISANTHROPY, I'd forgotten about Anselm's role in 147 MILLION ORPHANS.

Without Anselm Berrigan, the 147 MILLION ORPHANS might not exist. I respect both Anselm and The Rail and so wanted to respond to the solicitation. But I was mostly relishing its concept, and only wrote its first few poems after Anselm Berrigan solicited me for The Brooklyn Rail. I blogged for months about 147 MILLION ORPHANS because I just loved the idea of using my son’s words that he learned over the course of a schoolyear. To wit, here's an excerpt from the book:Īn example relates to 147 MILLION ORPHANS, a “haybun” which is a form that combines hay(na)ku and other text.I’m excited about 147 MILLION ORPHANS partly because each word forming a hay(na)ku is taken chronologically from an 8 th grade project by my son who was charged to learn English partly by studying 25 new words a week. And finishing up my experimental biography manuscript, AGAINST MISANTHROPY, reminded me that one of my ideas became reality only because of Anselm Berrigan. Like many people, I have tons more ideas than what moves from idea stage to become reality.

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