Jinzhou, Kyoto, Baltimore: Poems New and Selected

Poems of a nearly forgotten China caught in abject poverty. A long sonnet sequence full of jokes and puns, inspired by the transcendental energies of the gardens of Kyoto. A sequence of tanka-like images celebrating America's western mountains, deserts and shores. A longer work detailing a ten-year-old's attempts to understand his uncle's death in Vietnam. A semiautobiographical epic expressing the inner life of a man caught in a savage ice storm. Jinzhou, Kyoto, Baltimore is an inspiring, forthright book, which never shrinks from taing the contradictions of the inner life and resolving them through the art of poetry.

Scott Francis received an MFA from the University of Califoria, Irvine, where he was a Regents Fellow. He went on to teach in Jinzhou, China from 1986 to 1989. In 1989, he moved to Kyoto, Japan and taught there, staying for sixteen years. His peregrinations after his return to the United States ended up in Baltimore, Maryland, where he works for the public school systems.