New Book From the Porch — Something To Be: Poems On The Workday

Something To Be: Poems On The Workday

by Mark J. Mitchell

127pps, $10 US

ISBN-13: 978-1-948920-29-2
ISBN-10: 1-948920-29-8

Eclogues for the hypermodern work-a-day round, Mark J. Mitchell swims through city streets gathering sensations and folding them into bread, or roses, or most often, both:

A MINOR GODDESS, BEFORE WORK

The fog’s back, licking the city. Low horns
almost form names. Rare newspapers skid
onto driveways. The air is thick un-liquid
and Dawn is scanning the obits. She’ll mourn
any death. She stands, tide slow, plastic bag
dangling. She selects a choice funeral
and climbs back to her door. Her stiff, small
hand has trouble with the lock. A slow drag
from her neglected cigarette revives
her will. Turning, she looks at the gray scrim
now lit by rosy fingers. We all die,
she knows. Her old black dress is clean. Coffee
awaits inside. She’s flush this month. A grim
cab ride. Closed casket. Sigh. Nothing to see.

These are witty poems that do not assume, and refuse to make a show of their intelligence.

---

Mark J. Mitchell has worked in hospital kitchens, fast food, retail wine and spirits, conventions, tourism, and warehouses.

He has also been a working poet for almost 50 years.

Born in Chicago, when he was four when his family moved to Southern California, where he attended Catholic schools in Torrance and Redondo Beach. At the University of California at Santa Cruz he studied writing with George Hitchcock, Barbara Hall, and Raymond Carver, and Dante and Medieval literature with Robert M. Durling.

He has published two novels, Knight Prisoner and The Magic War. Another is on the way. An award-winning poet, he is the author of five full-length poetry collections, and six chapbooks.

He is very fond of baseball, Louis Aragon, Miles Davis, Kafka, Dante, and his wife, activist and documentarian Joan Juster. He lives in San Francisco, where he once made his marginal living pointing out pretty things. Now, he is seeking work once again.

A primitive web site exists:
https://mark-j-mitchell.square.site/

And he can be found reading his poetry here:
https://www.youtube.com/@markj.mitchell4351