Before Kodachrome

Set in Fresno, the Sierra Nevadas and Greece, the poems in Before Kodachrome look back unflinchingly at a fractured California childhood in the 1950s and '60s. In the process they lay out in stark contrast the dimensions of a life where parents, real and surrogate, are at once loving and violent, attentive and neglectful, righteous and morally bankrupt. From his adopted homeland, the cradle of Western civilization, the poet weaves stories from classical mythology, the Old Testament, fairy tales and popular American culture that show how a balanced adult self can be formed, not by avoiding childhood trauma and insistently "moving on," but by using language and narrative to delve deep into one's past and bring back artifacts that provide meaning, stability and, yes, at times, transcendence.