Robert Bonazzi
Robert Bonazzi is the author of the critically-acclaimed biography, Man in the Mirror, the only book on Black Like Me author John Howard Griffin (1920-1980). As Literary Executor for The John Howard Griffin Estate, he has edited and written introductions or afterwords for Griffin's books: Black Like Me (Penguin 1996, Wings 2006, and a Japanese Edition 2006); Scattered Shadows: A Memoir of Blindness and Vision (Orbis Books 2004); Street of the Seven Angels (a novel, Wings 2003); Follow the Ecstasy, a biography of Thomas Merton (Orbis 1993, Burns & Oates, UK ed.1993, a German ed.1994); and Encounters With the Other (Essays, Latitudes Press, 1997). His works on Griffin have been in The New York Times, Bloomsbury Review, Motive, New Orleans Review, Southwest Review, Texas Observer, Fort Worth Star-Telegram and The Historical Dictionary of Civil Rights. He has published three books of poetry (Living the Borrowed Life, Fictive Music, Perpetual Texts). His essays, stories and poems have appeared in 200 publications – in France, Germany, the UK, Japan, Canada, Peru, Mexico and the US – in 22 anthologies and in publications like Transatlantic Review (London), TriQuarterly, Minnesota Review, Chelsea, New Letters, Mississippi Review, Village Voice, National Catholic Reporter, Library Journal, Excelsior (Mexico City), etc. Bonazzi is a member of the Authors Guild. From 1966 until 2000, he edited and published over 100 titles under his independent literary imprint, Latitudes Press. Born in New York City, he has lived in Mexico City and San Francisco. Presently, Bonazzi lives in San Antonio and writes a column on poetry for the San Antonio-Express News.
Literary critic Paul Christensen included a chapter on Robert Bonazzi's poetry in his West of the American Dream: An Encounter with Texas (Texas A&M University, 2001).
"Robert Bonazzi is a legendary figure in Texas letters and longtime publisher of Latitudes Press. . . . Bonazzi, whom I met in 1974, has inspired many of us over the years with his deeply honest literary life, his integrity, authenticity, and caring, disciplined work. His poems are a gift to our pages, and he has always been a gift to this state."
– Naomi Shihab Nye, in The Texas Observer
About Living the Borrowed Life (Poems, New Rivers Press, 1974):
Robert Peters wrote in Small Press Review that "Bonazzi has a consummate style and the poems are sophisticated in their patterns and designs." This first book was recommended by Library Journal and Poetry Now, and praised by Pulitzer Prize poet Mark Van Doren.
About Fictive Music (Wings Press, 1979):
Paul Christensen wrote in The Pawn Review about the first two books: "Bonazzi's books advance our culture. He is a Prospero of this heat and sunlight, a visionary, an enchanter, an amuser. Rarest of all among poets, he is a player with his medium, a musical bard with wit and charm in an age of factions and morbid cliques of verse." Cited as a "significant book of prose poems" in The Prose Poem: An International Anthology and praised in Publishers Weekly, Choice and Library Journal.
About Perpetual Texts (Poems, Latitudes Press, 1986):
" Like all good art," wrote E. C. Curtsinger in Way, "Bonazzi's lucid poems become a weapon against whatever profaning spirit says that truth is only a matter of opinion."
About poems published after 1990:
The late Guy Davenport commented: "Bonazzi's style can do all sorts of things and the poems have a balance and grace all their own."
Robert Bonazzi is the author of::
- Living the Borrowed Life
- Perpetual Texts
- Fictive Music: Prose Poems 1975-1977
- Man in the Mirror: John Howard Griffin and the Story of 'Black Like Me'
Bonazzi is the editor of the following works on this site:
- Black Like Me
- Scattered Shadows
- Street of the Seven Angels
Contact Robert Bonazzi
Website: http://www.authorsite.com