Albuquerque: Coming Back to the U.S.A.

'On 1/18/1984, I left Managua & came home. I had been away for 23 years...this book is about my home-coming, that re-entry. It is a book about coming back to the United States, & it consists of journal entries, poems, dreams, photographic images, medititations. Its fragmentary character is intentional, conveying, I hope, the texture of this experience, ongoing of course in many ways but it is also a pattern of strangeness-become-familiarity once more--as my senses undergo changes. My eyes are growing old for a second time as I settle back into a remembered, but different, space.'--from the introduction. 'Yesterday was raw with the death in El Salvador of Newsweek photographer John Hoagland. Floyce saw it on TV early in the afternoon. A CBS crewman who had been near Hoagland (Nickelsberg from Time, & a few others who were also there) said the tragedy had taken place during corssfire between the army & the guerrillas. From the testimony it seemed likely that it had been the army that hit Hoagland--in fact, it seemed purposeful--& that the guierrillas had brought the body out & laid it on the road. The CBS crewman clearly said he thought the soldiers were firing at the journalists.'--from 3/18.