Books like Poems and Problems

When I was living in the Bay Area a few years ago, we used to go shopping most Sunday mornings at the Mountain View Farmers Market. There were these two characters called Cello Joe and Airielle, whom you could often see busking on the corner of West Evelyn and Hope. Cello Joe played blues on his cello, and Airielle (I presume, his girlfriend) sat on the sidewalk and composed poems to order on an old manual typewriter. She'd write you a short free verse poem on any subject you cared to name while you waited, generally charging a couple of bucks a go.I was curious to see how good she would be with a more challenging commission, and asked if she would compose a metaphysical sonnet on chess for $20. Here is the result - well, I'm sure it's possible to criticise it on several counts, but all things considered I'd say she did a pretty reasonable job. The rest of this review is in my book If Research Were Romance and Other Implausible Conjectures