8.5 x 5.5 in wrappers, 194 pp., with French flap covers. Cover design by M.C. Kinniburgh. Co-published with Lost & Found Elsewhere. Edited by Iris Cushing, M.C. Kinniburgh, and Jason Weiss, with contributions by Robin Rule and Ammiel Alcalay.

Jumping into the American River: The Collected Books, Volume II, brings together Korte's six books, published between 1967 and 1991. In addition to publishing her work, this volume contains a narrative bibliography of Korte's publishers and publishing by M.C. Kinniburgh, a history of Rainy Day Women Press by publisher Robin Rule, and afterword by Ammiel Alcalay.

Mary Norbert Korte (1934–2022) grew up on Mystic Street in Oakland, California. She was drawn to poetry at a young age. At 17, she took nun’s vows with the Dominican Catholic Sisterhood, and earned her bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Latin while in the convent. Korte attended the 1965 Berkeley Poetry Conference, encountering Robert Duncan, Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, Jack Spicer and Lew Welch, among other poets. This foray into San Francisco Renaissance poetry altered the course of Korte’s life. She befriended Michael McClure, David Meltzer, Spicer, and Welch, and developed her own mystically-charged poetics. Korte’s first collection of poems, Hymn to the Gentle Sun, was published by Robert Hawley’s Oyez Press in 1967. The following year, Korte formally left the Dominican order and embarked on the lay life of the poet.

From 1973 onward, Korte lived in Mendocino County, on the bank of the Noyo River. She published five more books, including Mammals of Delight (Oyez, 1978), and became heavily involved in environmental activism, working with Judi Bari and Earthfirst! to save old growth redwoods. Between 1979 and 2009, Korte fought tirelessly to protect a large area of redwood forest at the Noyo headwaters, which is now permanently preserved by the Mendocino Land Trust. Korte was a prolific, compassionate, often hilarious poet. 

Patrick James Dunagan writes: "Mary Norbert Korte in nun habit beaming with utter joy in conversation with Jack Spicer during the 1965 Berkeley Poetry Conference: an iconic photograph of two late 20th century North American poets. As Ammiel Alcalay’s 'remembrance' included here recollects, for poets who come after/out of those featured in Donald Allen’s anthology New American Poetry 1945-60 the photograph remains a stirring image in our collective imagination. Korte’s poems are all her own: birthed from out projective verse, the Beat aesthetic, and a healthy sense of one's own needs for individual rooted sustenance. Delving deep into timeless themes, such as needless war, unfortunately relevant as ever, Korte writes of everyday matters in such a way that 'We are all part,' as she expresses in Beginning of Lines: Response to Albion Moonlight. What’s more, M.C. Kinniburgh details in the essential 'narrative bibliography' portion of her introduction how Korte’s books were published by some quintessential small presses of the San Francisco Bay Area. Yet more than just terrific poetry, Korte's work tracks the truly heroic epic tale of one woman's journey from out under strictures of family and society to wield her life experience on her own terms."

Printed by David McNamara at Publish Publish, with layout by Amir Andalib.

As new.