Wild Dog Days (2010) by Gino Sky
Letterpress printed during the fall of 2010 in a limited edition of 400 copies.
Letterpress printed during the fall of 2010 in a limited edition of 400 copies.
Letterpress printed during the fall of 2010 in a limited edition of 400 copies.
In this long poem, published in honor of the poet’s 75th year, the indefatigable Gino Sky, author of the novel Appaloosa Rising: The Legend of the Cowboy Buddha (Doubleday, 1980), reflects on history, memory, and the power of poetry in bringing an end to the Vietnam War.
Publishing a sixties underground literary magazine called Wild Dog that the FBI took notice of, Sky tells a story of all that swirled around the magazine during an eruptive time in America. First published by the poet Ed Dorn in Pocatello in 1963, Sky moved Wild Dog to Salt Lake City and then to San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbery district right at the moment of the counter-cultural revolution. In Wild Dog Days, Sky exuberantly chronicles the time, the place, and the peace movement with hallucinogenic clarity.
Illustrated with photos of some of the poets who helped hand-crank the pulse of a small press movement, Wild Dog Days is dedicated to “every man, every woman, every kid, every dog who marched for peace and stopped the war.”
Gino Sky has published two novels, a collection of stories, and a dozen books of poetry (including Hallelujah 2 Groundhogs & 16 Valentines, also available from Limberlost Press, 1999). His novel Coyote Silk (North Atlantic Books, 1987) has been translated and published in Korea. He and his wife Barb Jensen live in Salt Lake City.
