Albert's Books
Singletrack Mind: Finding Wisdom & the Poetry of Life on Two Wheels is a collection of essays about the spirit of mountain biking in wild places featuring photographs by legendary adventure photographer Mattias Fredriksson. The book was inspired by a piece Albert wrote for Adventure Journal magazine and which was published in AJ-21, Summer 2021.
This is a book about the power of healthy play, connection to place, and expanded awareness of the natural world. The book is an inspirational wisdom pocket-guide-travelogue that you can pop in your bike pack and take along on the trail—a beautiful and compelling book about the spirit of mountain biking in wild places where you the reader/rider get taken on a poetic and visually stunning journey from California to Croatia and beyond.
Finding Wisdom & the Poetry of Life on Two Wheels
Singletrack Mind
“This book takes you on some beautiful journeys and reminds us of the essence of adventuring on two wheels. It’s all about being in the moment. Switch on your senses and take it all in. It’s a wonderful read that will inspire your next adventure.”
—Hans "no way" Rey
“This book takes you on some beautiful journeys and reminds us of the essence of adventuring on two wheels. It’s all about being in the moment. Switch on your senses and take it all in. It’s a wonderful read that will inspire your next adventure.”
—Hans “no way” Rey, the “Wayne Gretzky of Mountain Biking” is a multiple Trials World Champion, and Extreme Mountain Biking pioneer.
“Loved the book! This quick read is genuinely beautiful. The visceral textured esthetic DeSilver paints with words is relatable and thrilling to read.”
—Matt Paul, Director, Sacred Rides: Mountain Bike Adventures World Wide
Editing, rewriting, and the path of spiritual transformation
The meditative approach to storytelling―how not being trapped in your story liberates your capacity to create
How you can spark your imagination by connecting to the groundless source of creation
Meditating with poetry to deeply embody the power of language
Engaging curiosity, playfulness, and spontaneity to keep your regular practice fresh
How to approach writing and reading with a greater level of presence and immersion
Constructed as a year-long exploration with a new focus for each month and season, Writing as a Path to Awakening includes:
A Year to Becoming an Excellent Writer and Living an Awakened Life
Writing as a Path to Awakening
"Gentle, Lucid, Erudite and COmpassionate"
Bestselling author
Dani Shapiro
"A MUST READ!" —
After six years of sobriety, poet DeSilver admits he was "still one sip of beer away from hell." After 10 years of sobriety, he writes that he wanted to kill the "drunk, stupid and confused" boy he had been at age 19.
The emotional force of DeSilver's memoir lies in the author's ability to record raw and painful memories of addiction, while also reflecting on turning points that lead him to form a new identity. Skirting a fine line between acceptance and blame, he describes the eccentric characters implicated in his downward spiral, as well as the heroes who helped save him.
DeSilver's seesawing journey from drug and alcohol addiction to recovery—all filled with epiphanies and backsliding, clarity and bewilderment—will keep readers committed to his story until, at last, he learns to "beam" without self-destructing and finds peace and stability in a loving relationship and meditation.
A Memoir Of Recovery And Awakening
Beamish Boy (I Am Not My Story)
"A BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN MEMOIR... POIGNANT AND INSPIRATIONAL" —
"Letters to Early Street is a beautiful collection, lyrical and inventive, in which shapes are to be seen 'noodling along a rather lengthy road of torque and vapor.'
The world is astonishingly present yet there are 'multiple enigmas,' those mysteries and vacancies where beauty clings, as it must, to its cave.
Creating a 'community nerve garden," 'he poetry of Albert Flynn DeSilver is of a high order of attention, like sitting at the rear window of a moving train."
Poems
Letters To Early Street
— Alice Notley
"The pronoun I in its word-tissue forest...'a book of elastic steel, an opposable piano.' Meet tea leaf man, iced-over man, and others, as the inside-outside window collapses. 'I am wind in the paper.' Beautiful. 'I alone as mirror to the world'''
— Ian Ayres
"WALKING TOOTH & CLOUD, the collection of prose poems from California poet Albert Flynn DeSilver, reaches 'into your skull and reshape[s] and reshape[s] your brain like wax after lighting its wick.'"
Poems
Walking Tooth & Cloud
This book includes a gorgeous suite of drawings by San Francisco artist Will Yackulic with poems by some of America's finest established and emerging poets: John Ashbery, Anne Waldman, Ron Padgett, Eileen Myles, Clark Coolidge, Joanne Kyger, Alice Notley, Lisa Jarnot, Brandon Downing, Anselm Berrigan, Jordan Davis, Brenda Coultas and many more.
Poems
Evidence Of The Paranormal
A selection of limited edition handmade poetry/art books, chapbooks, and hand-made pamphlets by Albert Flynn DeSilver:
PLEASE NOTE: These titles are not for sale EXCEPT to institutions and archives. Please use the contact form for more information about these and all THE OWL PRESS titles from 1997-2010.
First PoemS, 34 pages 1996/1997.
Another Right Angle Dismantled
Early Poems,
70 pages,1997
Musical Note Pupils
Poems, 62 pages,1998
The Book of Not
A SINGLE LONG POEM WITH WATERCOLOR COVER IMAGE BY THE AUTHOR, 32 PAGES, 1998
albeit
A book of sequenced short poems with hand-painted covers by the author. Limited edition of 100 copies
100 PAGES, 1998
Foam Poems
A book of 10 visual poems for the artist todd pickering. Limited edition of 50 copies
10 PAGES, 1999
Ten Sea Birds
Collaborative journal writings and drawings from a coast-to-coast road trip. Cover and interior drawings by Marian Cremin. 36 pages, 2000. Limited edition of 50 copies.
Al & Marian's Coast to Coast Round-Up
A long poem written in one glorious day on the North Mendocino Coast.
34 pages, 2001. Hand-printed covers by David LRSN
A Pond
A long poem in pieces on the occasion of my father’s death. 20 pages, 2001. Cover drawings by Marian Cremin.
Time Pieces
A Full-length collection of An ongoing long poem. 86 pages, 2004. Cover painting by Marian Cremin.
Some Nature
A collection of sky poems on one page and vow poems on the opposite page, written During the run-up to our wedding.
January-June, 2002, 64 pages
Vows & Skies
A chapbook of poems published by Angry Dog Midget Editions # 11. Colorado Springs, Colorado, 2002. With drawings by Neil Osborn.
Ageless In Sleep
Prose poems, the titles of which came from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Dictionary of Occupational Titles, 2002. This is A booklet of 16 poems printed on Job Work-Order Forms in a limited edition of 100 copies, 2005.
Working Title
A chapbook of sound poems for the poet Dana Lomax. Cover art by the author. 18 pages, 2006
dismissiles/rains
Concrete poem/drawings based on bird flight patterns. Cover photograph and design by the author.
15 pages, 2011. Limited edition.
a space in the sky where some birds have been
A chapbook of poems.
30 pages, 2010, with cover painting and drawing by Marian Cremin.
A Field Guide to the Emotions
A full-color chapbook documenting the adventures of the famous Marin Poetry Chair, my project as Marin County California’s first poet laureate from 2008-2010 in which we (the artist Todd Pickering and I) built a giant chair made out of poetry books and took it around to various public spaces such as Mt Tamalpais, Stinson Beach, the Plaza at Dominican University, the County Fair, a Gas Station, the Mall, etc. inviting people to sit, read and write poetry on the spot. The booklet is mini anthology of the journey.
THE MARIN
POETRY CHAIR
A full color collection of photographs by Todd Pickering with poems by 8th grade students at the Lagunitas School with an essay by a watershed biologist from the Marin Municipal Water District, which funded the project. 60 pages, 2005.
