Jocelyn Saidenberg is one of the brightest stars to emerge from the San Francisco State University Creative Writing department in recent years. She has published in Arshile, B-City, Stilts, 14 Hills, and with bated breath I await for her first book--Mortal City --to appear next year from Parentheses Writing Series, and for the anthology Tense Present which will feature another grand helping of her work. Saidenberg's poetry is formally rigorous and quite a challenge, yet underneath its coat of protective ice a warm heart beats and gives it power and endurance. She's the Ekaterina Gordeeva of poetry.

March 6, 1998