Andrew Joron is the author of Trance Archive: New and Selected Poems (City Lights, 2010). Joron’s previous poetry collections include The Removes (Hard Press, 1999), Fathom (Black Square Editions, 2003), and The Sound Mirror (Flood Editions, 2008). The Cry at Zero, a selection of his prose poems and critical essays, was published by Counterpath Press in 2007. From the German, he has translated the Literary Essays of Marxist-Utopian philosopher Ernst Bloch (Stanford University Press, 1998) and The Perpetual Motion Machine by the proto-Dada fantasist Paul Scheerbart (Wakefield Press, 2011). As a musician, Joron plays the theremin in various experimental and free-jazz ensembles. Joron teaches creatiuve writing at San Francisco State University.

Michael Friedman is the author of the just-published Martian Dawn & Other Novels (Little A) and two full-length books of poetry, including Species (The Figures, 2000), and four chapbooks. His first novel, Martian Dawn, was published in 2006 by Turtle Point Press. His work has appeared in several anthologies, including Great American Prose Poems (Scribner, 2003). Previously, he was the board chair of The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church and an adjunct faculty member of Naropa University’s MFA writing program. He is the cofounder of the literary journal Shiny, grew up in Manhattan and lives in Denver.

Angela Hume is the author of the poetry chapbooks Melos (Projective Industries, 2015), The Middle (Omnidawn, 2013) and Second Story of Your Body (Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs, 2011). Her first full-length book of poetry is forthcoming from Omnidawn (spring 2016). She co-curates Hearts Desire, the reading series of the Bay Area Public School, and lives in Oakland.

Andrew Joron
A = A

Mine to ask a mask to say, A is not A.
No one, ever the contrarian, to answer.
The moon is both divided & multiplied
    by water: as chance, as the plural of chant.
O diver, to be sea-surrounded by a thought bled white––
    a blankness as likely as blackness.
What is the word for getting words & forgetting?
Might night right sight?
I, too late to relate
    I & I, trap light in sound
& sing no thing that breath can bring.

Michael Friedman
from Chapter One of Martian Dawn in Martian Dawn & Other Novels

    She watched Richard move silently through the house, stopping to rearrange the flowers and pictures. Sometimes, she reflected, he was like a wild animal—a black panther padding through the brush of Equatorial Guinea at dusk.
    She knew that Richard was a sucker for her “come-hither” look. Lately he had been like putty in her hands. Because he would do whatever she wanted, she often had to pause to think about what it was she did want. And, too often, she didn’t know. Did she even want Richard, now that she had him? Why not? He was a handsome movie star with millions of dollars. His intellect was passable.

Angela Hume
from melos

dignity of a Jeffrey
   pine      single

impression
upon a

bolt of cloth, indigo-dyed      tonight’s
   Sierra Nevada

(out from under
   urban land cover

dry day      bedding down      low
   water, bleached

riprap
   crumpled     
skeleton

impossibly
   luminescent—

and you
   what must be

protected

most fiercely: that which
   is past

False starts is curated by Steven Seidenberg (falsestartsreadingseries@gmail.com)