In Cities

by David Ball

Poetry. A sequence of poems by poet and scholar David Ball, whose poems have previously appeared in fugitive editions from a.o. and Burning Deck. He is also our major translator of the works of French poet Henri Michaux (Darkness Moves, U of California Press). In the Sixties, Ball and Ron Padgett co-edited the Paris-based poetry magazine Blue Pig, one of the first publications to feature the work of Tom Raworth. The cities of these poems are Paris and New York, seen in a darkly humorous "The past is present. But the past is gone. / The present flutters / in the little squares. / A phone rings, muffled / by time perhaps, like the people moving / through pictures on the dark walls."

40 pages, Paperback

First published January 28, 2001

About the author

David Ball has been to 60 countries on six continents. He has lived and worked in various parts of Africa. In the course of researching his novel Empires of Sand, he crossed the Sahara desert four times, and got lost there only once. Research trips for other novels have taken him to China, Istanbul, Algeria, and Malta - a little island where so far he hasn't gotten lost at all.

A former pilot, sarcophagus maker, and businessman, David has driven a taxi in New York City and built a road in West Africa. He installed telecommunications equipment in Cameroun and explored the Andes in a Volkswagen bus. He has renovated old Victorian houses in Denver and pumped gasoline in the Grand Tetons.

He has a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University and enjoys skiing, fishing, running (some have described it as more like hobbling), baseball, and opera.

His novels include Empires of Sand, China Run, and Ironfire. A short story, The Scroll, appears in the anthology Warriors, another, Provenance in the anthology Rogues.

David lives with his wife, Melinda, and their children, Ben and Li, in a house they built in the Rocky Mountains.