"I first met Neeli Cherovski in the Caffe Trieste in 1977, he sat at the table next to mine, quietly reciting a new poem to a friend. We began a conversation about poetry and painting that has continued for thirty-five years. As his faithful companion I would follow him across the hills of San Francisco day and night, listening to him recite and discuss Lorca, Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and Ezra Pound. In his small apartment at 28 Harwood Alley he created a warm and wise shelter for poets young and old, feeding them and caring for their writing. For months at a time he took in Bob Kaufman, Gregory Corso, Marty Matz, and others in need. In the midst of this generous life Neeli wrote poems daily. He celebrated a love and learning in language that is exuberant, vivid, and reflective. Neeli lives for poetry. Long may this great imagination thrive."

Raymond Foye
author The Unknown Poe, editor of The Collected Poems of John Wieners

"Writing now at the height of his powers, Neeli Cherkovski has evolved into a quintessential San Francisco poet of international stature speaking not only to our times but back across the ages to those greats of whom he is a certain successor: Whitman and Neruda, Patchen and Pasolini, his poems hard-earned yet easeful, lyrical but tough."

Alan Kaufman
author of Drunken Angel, editor of The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry