Home from the Dark Side of Utopia. Clifton Ross

that day, and that evening she came back to stay with me at House on the Way. Given her free spirit, her eccentricities, and her open and defiant honesty, it was clear to me there was just no way we were going to live a problem-free life in the basement of a Catholic Church. After a few days living together in the basement we briefly moved into Dave Smith’s apartment; we house sat for different people and stayed in a friend’s vacant house as we looked for something more stable. Then, by chance, as Gwen skateboarded through East Oakland looking for apartments, she found a studio upstairs from Red Star Black Rose (RSBR).

      I began working nearly full time at RSBR and in the evenings I translated and edited A Dream Made of Stars: A Bilingual Anthology of Nicaraguan Poetry (ADMOS). Eventually a storefront space next door to RSBR opened up and Gwen and I shared that space with Jim Martin who started working on a project called Flatland Distribution. It was a strangely tranquil time in many ways, even accounting for all the non-traditional facets of our life together.