Next month Bootstrap Productions will publish John Wieners' long, lost A Book of Prophecies in what may be the biggest event in the press' 7-year history.

In the past week or so I've gotten a chance to look through this 100+ page gem and I have to say I am truly excited to see this project come into print both for the press itself and for Michael Carr and his fanatical inquisitiveness, without which the book would never have seen the light of day.

Written in 1971, A Book of Prophecies was dug out of a collection at Kent State University where it has resided for an unknown period of time. Included in the manuscript are a number of fantastic poems and fascinating lists, the most memorable might be "The Poets I Have Met" in which Wieners lists all the poets he had met before 1971. Anyone who thinks they know a lot of poets will most likely feel floored by both the legendary names and the shear numbers of poets in Wieners' list! As for poems, one of my favorite is the following prophetic poem, titled "2007." Read it, savor it, and prepare to devour the whole book when it comes out in June.

2007

A generation of new, advanced hip persons could reach maturity, filling the Western world with cosmology, renaissance dichotomy & principles of extended thinking.

The full flowers of the crop, freshly planted would spring forth, applying the experimental processes of the mid-20th century to the burgeoning problems of the 21st.

Telegraphy, montage will be the harmonies of environment and design. The cities will be purified of extremes in stability, and the movements of essential diversity will promote renewal peace and perceptive pleasure. Programs will be less theoretical and provide for adventurous paths to be everyday pursuits in the accepted patterns of existence.

Imagination will be more pervasive and progress made in travel over ocean and space. Dress asymmetrical and modes of greeting and conversation elliptical and extreme Bizarreness absent Except in bigness, mammoth grandeur of architecture and color. Music string and forms of verse controlled symbolism.

(NOTE: I intentionally kept the cover shot small for fear that Derek Fenner will scold me for posting it in the first place... Oh, but I couldn't resist!)