In November 2026, Finishing Line Press (Georgetown KY) will publish a chapbook I edited of poems by my late friend, California author Dennis Saleh (1942-2020).

Last winter, I assembled a volume of Dennis’ selected poems and submitted it to the Press. They then asked me to put a chapbook together and re-submit. I was very pleased when a gathering of 20 poems, called The Days Asking After Themselves, was accepted, and is now on the Press’ publication schedule.

The poems cover many of Dennis’ poetic focuses, including family life, surrealism, pharaonic Egypt, chameleons, and the languorous passing of a day, season, or year in a seaside town. “The poems of Dennis Saleh . . . are so mysterious, so surprising, so delightful,” wrote Naomi Ruth Lowinsky in LA’s Jungian magazine, Psychological Perspectives. “They open doors into unexpected worlds.”