Dear Friends,
My name is Robert Yarra, founder and director of the Golda Foundation.
For many years, I worked as an immigration lawyer in Fresno, California, helping thousands of campesinos — Mexican farmworkers — gain legal residency in the United States. During those years, I was lucky enough to earn a good living, and I often used that good fortune to help support my artist friends. When my accountant saw how much money I was giving away, he suggested I create a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation so that my gifts might be tax-deductible. That suggestion was what led to the creation of the Golda Foundation, which I named in honor of my mother.
The tax write-off part hasn’t worked out yet, but I’ve had great fun publishing books, which I think of as “love letters to my friends.”
The first book the foundation published was Vali Myers: A Memoir, by Gianni Menichetti, about the extraordinary Australian artist Vali Myers. I met Vali through an introduction by my friend, the Beat poet, Gregory Corso, at the Chelsea Hotel in New York. Gianni shared her remarkable existence in the wild valley of Il Porto near Positano, where they lived with their huge animal family — everything from a donkey, goats, pigs, eels, and foxes.
Through Gregory and Vali, and my own dumb luck, I had the good fortune to meet many other gifted artists, a number of whom became dear friends. Since that first book, the Golda Foundation has published eight more titles included in the catalogue linked below. Among them is A Certain Kind of Wizard, published jointly with Danny Rosen of the Lithic Press, a collection of poems, prose, photographs, and interviews with my sweet and wonderful buddy, Ira Cohen. Another is my own chapbook, Gregory Gave Me the World, published by Counter Culture Chronicles in The Hague, about my friendship with Gregory.
Other books include Aliens in the Necropolis, stories by the acclaimed guitarist, Francis “Superguitar” Kuipers; El Sol, the posthumous poems of Rosemary Manno; The Ascent of Mt. Obvious, poetry, poems, collages, and translations by the New York and San Francisco poet, Ronald Sauer; Animal Loves of My Life, by Gianni Menichetti, about the many animals he and Vali lived with in their valley; Barbaric Haiku, an accordion-style book of poems and paintings by my beloved Irish friend and “brother,” Herbert Kearney; Jazz Poet, paintings and an extended interview with the San Francisco artist, George Long; and To the Places That Beckon: In India Beyond the Horizon, by Lila Cavaleiro, a luminous account of her wanderings and adventures in India as a young woman.
We are also preparing several new books for publication, including The Ghost of Brooklyn, as well as a book of selected poems by the internationally acclaimed dramatist, actor, poet, and novelist, Edgar Oliver; new poetry by Gianni Menichetti; the poetical works of the reclusive New York poet, Theodore Schroetter; post-Katrina journals by Herbert Kearney; interviews with George Scrivani, a life-long friend of Gregory Corso; and a book of stylized self-portraits by the extraordinary Burmese artist, Aung Aung Taik.
Books are worthwhile only if they are read. If any of these titles interest you, I would be delighted if you chose to read one or more. And your support would help us continue publishing the work of remarkable writers and artists.
With all best wishes,
Robert Yarra
The Golda Foundation