Books

WATER SHINING BEYOND THE FIELDS
7x5 1/2, 192 pp, $14.00 (Tres Chicas Books, 2006)

"A picaresque journey of vagabonding in the timeless tradition of the
wanderer who sets out on raw paths, unhurried in stride, reflective amid
unexpected encounters which provide him with both poetic source and personal
renewal. Brandi's adventure is full of long walks, misty temples, wild bus
rides, solitary river excursions, culinary escapades and off-the-wall humor.
It is also a cultural and political journey, one that eventually throws
light on our survival options in a troubled world."

In What Disappears

6x9, 112 pp. $15.00 (White Pine Press, 2003)  

"Delicate, gracious and eloquent, John Brandi's moving new collection of poems, In What Disappears, reveals that he remains an extraordinarily profound poet of prayer and praise.  His tradition is that of the timeless spiritual mendicant, the perpetual wanderer, the seeker who travels the raw paths of experience in search of the world's wisdom.  His is the most honorable and heroic of ambitions --- to dress our broken world in the clothes of language, trust, and hope."  - David St. John

Reflections in the Lizard’s Eye:
Notes from the High Desert

6x9, 190 pp, photos. $14.95 (Western Edge Press, 2000)

Thirteen essays celebrating the land and people of the American Southwest: hidden nooks, mysterious uplifts, eccentric loners, spunky elders, wandering poets, Hispanic curanderas, maverick truckers, lone cowboys, Mexican folk artists, & Hopi mesa dwellers. Hailed by novelist John Nichols as “a bittersweet, hardass, heartfelt swan song to the disappearing vestiges of a more truthful way of life.” 

“The power of these prose pieces left me awestruck and full of wonder! John is a shamanic guide into the seasons of the heart.” —Rudolfo Anaya, author of Bless Me Ultima.  

Weeding the Cosmos 

5 1/2 x 6 1/2, 110 pp. $10 (La Alameda Press, 1994)

 Selected haiku, introduced by J. Bryan. “These quick-flash snippets culled from decades of writings—in solitude, while traveling, in work-a-day routines, on high-country switchbacks—spring from a tradition as old as Japanese poet Basho and still just as lively. Falling somewhere between haiku and senryu, these poems bring to light a distinct American style with roots firmly planted in the natural world and in the seasons of the human heart.”

 “As delicious as discovering the moon over and over again, this book says—Wake up! Be amazed at what happens, no matter what.”
                                                —Natalie Goldberg

Unmasking the Fire: Bali Journals

5 1/2 x 8 1/2, 30 pp. $5  (Yoo-Hoo Press, 2000)

 Co-authored with Renée Gregorio, these paired journal excerpts are culled from several journeys to Bali. Two distinctive viewpoints, written in haibun style, enhanced with Brandi’s collage images.

Visits to the City of Light

5 1/2 x 8 1/2, 44 pp. $10  (mother’s milk press, 2000)

Introduced by Jack Hirschman. Poems & prose from travels in the Himalayas, Laos, Thailand, Indonesia—and India’s sacred city of Kashi (Benares). Photos by the author. From Jack Hirschman’s preface:

“It’s not simply the light of Asia that’s informing these poems. In this book one perceives a deepening inward ... moments of absolute epiphany flooded with the details of life. Brandi is a human being, affirming poetry of great beauty and, amid multi-petalings of image-details, lines that speak to the core of the self.”

Stone Garland
a haiku journey: northern Viet Nam

 4 1/4 x 8 1/2, 28 pp. $10  (Tooth of Time Books, 2000)
200 copies numbered and signed by author

96 haiku in a limited edition with loose-wrap cover. From Brandi’s introduction: “While in Viet Nam, my eyes never stopped looking, my pen never stopped writing.  Of the haiku that follow, most are culled from notebooks penned during three inspiring weeks among people of varied tasks—some in the maze of Ha Noi’s Old Quarter, some in village river ports, many at work in the rich, wet poetic mountainscapes nearing Yunnan.”

Heartbeat Geography: selected & uncollected poems, 1966-1994  

6x9, 245 pp. $15 (White Pine Press, 1995)

 Uncollected poems, plus selections from eight out-of-print books, introduced by Scott Nicolay. Sixteen pen-and- ink “glyphs” by the author.

“I love John Brandi’s ‘pledge to clarity,’ his politics in the sense of witness, his candor, his delight & heart towards children & friends, his terrific travel details and his aspiration toward egolessness ... This book sings with life!                                                        —Anne Waldman

 

That Back Road In 

6 x 8 1/2, 150 pp. $10 (Wingbow Press, 1985) 

Poems, 1972-1983, written in the outback of Four Corners, “red geography” where Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado come together. Illustrated by the author’s pen-and-ink “word maps.” From the rear cover: 

“Good strong simple poems, quietly eloquent, shapely as snowflakes.”
                                                        —Edward Abbey                                                                  

“John Brandi’s sandy poem mandalas, crisscrossing back and forth on their own paths, begin to fill out landscapes in depth. Life in both space and time—”                                      —Gary Snyder                                                                                                                 

“Lines as wiry and sinuous and vivid as a desert campfire. Brandi’s idea that landscape ‘projected’ the typography is fascinating.”                                                        —Michael McClure

        A Question of Journey

7x8, 196 pp. $15 (Light and Dust Books, 1995) 

“A celebratory collection of vignettes compiled in Asia.  A journey through distant lands as well as the continent of the heart, rich with non-stop impressions crowding the beholder’s eye: surreal landscapes from India and Nepal, solitary journal jottings from a Himalayan pilgrimage, grim and touching episodes from barbaric urban ghettos, street theater from the deserts of Rajasthan, conversations with waifs, prophets, tillers of the soil and of the soul.”  Eighteen superbly-reproduced photo-montages. 

“Brandi deals with the mysteries of male-female relationships, the loss of innocence, the confrontation with spirituality in the real world, and the complex euphoria of being alive.”

                                                                      —Charlotte Moser
                                                                           Houston Chronicle

                                                      
 

No Other Business Here: a Haiku Correspondence 

5 1/2 x 7, 96 pp, photos. $12 (La Alameda Press, 1999) 

Co-authored with Steve Sanfield. For decades—while on the road or in the solitude of their desert and mountain homes—Brandi and Sanfield exchanged hundreds of plaintive, often whimsical 3-liners full of chuckles, wake ups, quick-spark insight into the world’s fleeting essences, as well as the unavoidable folly preceding the little truths at the core of slapstick stumbles. Here are the best of ‘em.

“Brandi and Sanfield are pioneers of the American haiku. Read these poems only for pleasure.”      —Michael McClure

Empty Moon : Belly Full / Haiku from India and Nepal 

5 x 7, 76 pp. $10 (Pilgrims, 2000) 

"These poems ring true, ring changes on our lives as planet people, caught in our inner bureaucracies of the soul, found in the very lostness we once feared.  Turn off your computer, stop the car and muffle the cell phone: find something human, right here in your hand." 
— William J. Higginson

Send cash orders to John Brandi, PO Box 275, El Rito NM  87530. Add $3 postage for all orders except Visits to the City of Light,Unmasking the Fire, and Stone Garland, ($1). Direct credit card orders to Small Press Distribution www.spdbooks.org (800.869.7553). Or, for Reflections in the Lizards Eye:  www.mtnpress.com or http://www.mtnpress.com/otherpages/HISTORY/bookpage/RefltLiz.htm


For portfolio of current work, please send inquiries to johnbrandi@cybermesa.com