I met Dorthea at Lowell high school in San Francisco back when it was on Hayes St at Masonic. And then I met her again at a Halloween party at the San Francisco Art Institute. She was already a good poet at 19. Dorthea did not read her poems in public very often. She won a prize for the poem "Mediterranean" at College of the Holy Names. Dorthea had a bachelor's degree from the San Francisco State College in geology. She also had a master's degree in Anthropology. Dorthea often writes about personal events from her life. Her ability to connect these with the impersonal and perennial is one of her strongest assets. In the poem "The Ambassadors" there is a death event, a migration, as the entire poem involves a cultural change brought about by a shamanic transformation with man, animal, and plant. In the poem "Prayer" she speaks about creative confidence, but also about the humility necessary to gain entrance to the archetypal and the always. In the line "pieces of self" from the poem "The Ambassadors," we are reminded that we are constantly changing, reintegrating our wholenss. Our self is influenced by associations, our friends, everything including the food we eat. Resolution by eating, again from "The Ambassadors," somehow nourishes us the reader. The line "Follow the night in the sun's receding" from the same poem lets us know that the night has not taken over here "in the sun's receding" but has become included in the day. The inner light, her inner light, is what is being followed. Follow the night to get back to the light. The line "His hand at the industrious grain" reminds me of the reference to farming in John Keats poems. The poem about William Blake is also one of my favorites. I intentionally put it at the back.- Edward Millett October, 2025
