Poetry. California Interest. PAST & PRESENTLY erupted in two outbursts between Dan De Vries' longer excursions in fiction. PAST takes off in Ann Arbor in the year of the Foole (1981), and touches down a couple of years later in Redwood City with the birth of his daughter. PRESENTLY pops up in 2006 in San Francisco when a co- conspirator from a previous era challenges some friends with poetic tendencies to turn baseball games in various North American cities into poems, all on the same day. In either set, the poems tend toward the observational: what's going on--in public events, both sporting and political--the poet's fevered brain, and recreational jaunts into the distant past in hopes of figuring out what THAT, whatever it might have been, was all about."This book is an amazing collection, traveling a lifetime of work from the personal to the political, from religion to the environment to baseball, ringing in tone from righteous wrath to tenderness to hilarity, sounding echoes of fellow, but sadly passed on, poetic travelers Ted Berrigan, Anselm Hollo, and Charles Olson. As enlightening as it is entertaining--and boy is it entertaining--we get intimate glimpses of De Vries' life and times, ranging from Michigan to British Columbia to California and back again. He speaks of poetry as a life of 'wealth without money.' Indeed! It is alive and well in Dan's living and breathing character. Amen to that."--David Schaafsma "Read the whole book. It will give a poetic understanding of now."--Washboard Hank "The voice has an edge to it, you'll notice. [...] There is exuberance in the voice too. Watch for it."--Paul Harris