By Harvey Mudd
The Plain of Smokes
Poetry
The Plain of Smokes is a book-length poem about the city of Los Angeles similar to Hart Crane’s portrayal of America in The Bridge. Drawings by California artist and ceramist, Ken Price capture the modern city’s red funk jazz of movement and light.
The Plain of Smokes was shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times poetry book of 1983.
Author
Harvey Mudd
Harvey Mudd is an American poet, writer, and painter who, disillusioned with American politics and culture, lives in France.
His memoir, Leaving My Self Behind, recounts the events and influences—from a prestigious family with ancestry that goes back to the first generation of American settlers in 1630 to the modern day—that formed the values and historical reference that led to his self-imposed exile.
It is also an experiment in “lean” autobiography, a “life” stripped of the romantic entanglements, but which includes an examination of a severely dysfunctional birth family and the resulting personal trials that shaped his character.
Other Books by Harvey Mudd
Leaving My Self Behind
Leaving My Self Behind recounts the childhood of the scion of a distinguished Los Angeles family under the shadow of an abusive mother with unconscious agendas.
There Was a Peacock
An eccentric collection with commentary of the provocative, irreligious, and often dark drawings by the Mexican journalist and illustrator, Juan Ezekiel Fontana.
Spinoza’s Dog
A third of this collection represents the poetic sensibility of Harvey Mudd’s previous books of poetry with the rest written in the last ten years that he has lived in France.
A European Education
This a book-length poem is based on diaries author and poet Harvey Mudd kept during a six-month exploration of the places of the Holocaust in the winter of 1979-80.