<DIV><p>"O'Brien's [is] a poetry that asks for patient attention, and gives back all the void's abundance."?<I>Rain Taxi</I></p><p>"Whether in a poem composed using words and phrases from the Patriot Act, a sestina with dauntingly common repeating end words, or in flat-out theory, O'Brien shows himself to be capable of portraying the muddled traffic of life in the Internet age."?<I>Publishers Weekly</I> (starred review for <I>Metropole</I>)</p><p>In his most autobiographical collection to date, Geoffrey G. O'Brien explores?via the "promise of happiness" in great works of art?the dream of a working freedom not relegated to Sundays. Crossing traditional poetic material with contemporary political struggle, O'Brien captures the complex feelings of the present.</p><p><I>Here again just a few minutes<br>To see what we've done with what they let us have.<BR>Like spring in Washington, D.C.<BR>The way we're taught to imagine days<BR><BR>As reprieves from other days, cherries snowing<br>Inexpressiveness, the nation's capital<BR>An experience of how it is to be<BR>Caught up in pink and white again.<BR></I></p><p><B>Geoffrey G. O'Brien</B> is the author of <I>Metropole</I> (2011), <I>Green and Gray</I> (2007), and <I>The Guns and Flags Project</I> (2002), all from University of California Press. He is the co-author (with John Ashbery and Timothy Donnelly) of <I>Three Poets: Ashbery, Donnelly, O'Brien</I> (Minus A Press, 2012). O'Brien teaches at UC Berkeley and also for the Prison University Project at San Quentin State Prison.</p><BR></DIV>