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The Ascent of Mt. Obvious

The Ascent of Mt. Obvious

Ronald F. Sauer (2025)

The Ascent of Mt. Obvious includes poetry, prose, translations and artwork by Ronald Sauer. This posthumous collection spans the period 1979-2019. It features over 60 collages, translations of Baudelaire, Bertrand and Prévert, personal photos of Ronald and friends, as well as poetry and prose written in San Francisco and around the world. 
The afterword, Dino, was written by Robert Yarra and is available here as a PDF.

ISBN: 979-8-9851293-5-9
Publisher: Golda Foundation
Publication Date: 2025
Format: Paperback
Pages: 261
Language: English

View a sample Read Dino by Robert Yarra

THE ASCENT OF MT. OBVIOUS: What a wonderful, wonderful book–a trove of treasures! From dazzling, vibrant collages that set the mind thinking, to new translations of PARIS SPLEEN, to offbeat slices of life in Prague, Venice, and North Beach. 
I love Ron’s use of language. He uses big words, but never just for their own sake, but because they are precisely what he wants to say; and he pays attention to their sound, their rhythm, which fit perfectly into the lines of his poem. 
I like the way his mind works, and the honesty of his mind. He reports every impression he has, whether embarrassing, politically wrong, or just silly, because this is his life and to record its preciousness is part of his mission as a poet.

Gerry Nicosia
Ronald Sauer © Dennis Hearne

Dear Bobby,

I want to send you heartfelt congratulations on the magnificent RFS  book you have published. You’ve taken an entire life‘s work and put it in a beautiful form that one can sit with and enjoy. I’ve never seen a poetry book quite like this. Ronald is so fortunate to have you as his protector guide. I was always so distracted and enamored of the principal beats like Corso and Lamantia, I never really gave proper attention to poets like Ronald and Rosemary. But I have now, and I see how wonderful they were.
Tate sent me a copy of this book. It’s been a constant companion this past week. 
Ronald’s translations of Jacques Prévert are the finest I have ever read.
He must’ve been a lot of fun to hang out with, although perhaps trying at times? He has an unhinged quality that is sort of the secret to his work.

Raymond Foye

Buy The Ascent of Mt. Obvious for $42. This price includes postage within the United States. Order with the Buy Now button.

For orders outside the US, please send an email to goldafoundation@gmail.com.

3 Book Release Party

Book Release Party for:

  • The Jazz Painter by George Long
    Interviews by Ayla Ginger
  • The Ascent of Mt. Obvious by Ronald F. Sauer
    Poetry, prose, translations and artwork
  • Barbaric Haiku by Herbie Kearney
    an accordion-style book of poems and drawings, republished by Golda Foundation

On Monday 1 September 2025 from 3 – 8pm
and Friday 5 September 2025 from 5 – 8pm

We’ll be celebrating with poetry, jazz and artwork at
LIVE WORMS GALLERY
1345 Grant Avenue, San Francisco — Map

Read about the books

A conversation about A Certain Kind of Wizard

Please join City Lights bookstore on August 19, 2025, in the virtual world, as Ira Landgarten and Tate Swindell discuss the life and work of Ira Cohen. We are celebrating the release of A CERTAIN KIND OF WIZARD – a dual publication from Lithic Press and Golda Foundation. Please note this is NOT an in-store event & you will need to REGISTER HERE for the Zoom broadcast. It begins at 6pm SAN FRANCISCO TIME. It will be recorded and posted online, eventually. You can turn your camera on or off, and you will be muted by City Lights. 

A Review of Pyramid of Fire

A review of Pyramid of Fire: The Lost Aztec Codex: Spiritual Ascent at the End of Time by John Major Jenkins and Martin Matz

“Indeed, this book, with the beautiful introduction extracted from the works of Aldous Huxley, might be required reading to those traveling to Margarita Island. Not only does it reveal in initiatory tradition in the past of the same people among whom one is living, the Arimacoa, it signals the loss which this community has & is experiencing.”

–Louise Landes Levi
Read the review

Bowery Poetry Club Celebration of Ira Cohen

It was a wonderful evening of readings and remembrances at the Bowery Poetry Club to celebrate Ira Cohen’s life and work.

May 14, 2025, hosted by Tate Swindell with readings by
Timothy Baum, Karen Butcher, Lila Dlaboha, Hamid Idrissi, Baba Ben Israel, Shiv Mirabito, Valery Oisteanu, Ondi, Chris Rael & Danny Rosen.

Ira Cohen tribute 5-14-25 Bowery Poetry Club, NYC
Video by Robert O’Haire

To the Places That Beckon

To the Places That Beckon

Lila Cavaliero (2025)

Portuguese traveller Lila Cavaleiro’s memoir, To the Places That Beckon: In India Beyond the Horizon, chronicles the hippie trail origins of her lifelong love affair with India.

In early autumn 1971, Lila Cavaleiro and her man Wim van der Grijn set off from Amsterdam on an overland journey eastward, starting off by catching the legendary Orient Express to Istanbul.

This marked the beginning of a transformative pilgrimage for Lila who went on to spend years discovering India solo. Guided by intuition and destiny, To the Places That Beckon: In India Beyond the Horizon unfolds as a mystical and deeply personal journey, told with humor and courage, shattering old paradigms and exploring new ways of being.

Lila’s story is a feminine odyssey of the soul, immersed in wisdom and wonder–truly a must–read for lovers of freedom, natural magic and the road less traveled.
Printed in Kathmandu on handmade Nepali lokta paper, this handcrafted limited edition book is a radiant testament to the playful spirit of the 1970s counterculture.

View a sample

ISBN: 978-1-57027-437-3
Publisher: ALLEY Publications, Golda Foundation, SHIVASTAN Press
Publication Date: 2025
Format: Hard cover, Nepali lokti paper, color photographs
Pages: 145+
Language: English

Buy To the Places That Beckon for $30. This price includes postage within the United States. Order with the Buy Now button.

The book is also available from the Woodstock Shivastan Bookshop.

For orders outside the US, please send an email to goldafoundation@gmail.com.

A Certain Kind of Wizard

A Certain Kind of Wizard

Treasures From the Vaults of Ira Cohen

A compendium of work—notebook and diary entries, interviews, music and book reviews, poetry and prose, and photographs—by Ira Cohen.

ISBN: 9781946583369
Publisher: Golda Foundation in partnership with Lithic Press
Publication Date: November 21st, 2024
Format: Paperback
Pages: 410
Language: English

Poet, photographer, filmmaker, publisher, and dauntless world traveler, Ira Cohen was a mythic figure of boundless energy who was a catalyst for creative scenes in New York, Tangier, Kathmandu, Amsterdam, and wherever else he happened to alight in his wanderings. Cohen knew the best and the brightest — William Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Vali Myers, Brion Gysin, Paul Bowles, and Charles Henri Ford, among so many others. Julian Beck and Judith Malina of The Living Theatre and filmmaker Jack Smith were close friends and often collaborators on artistic projects. A Certain Kind of Wizard includes Cohen’s poetry, photos, interviews, and prose writings from his remarkable journals. This is a book not to be missed.

Buy A Certain Kind of Wizard for $35. This price includes postage within the United States. Order with the Buy Now button.

The book is also available from Lithic Press.

For orders outside the US, please send an email to goldafoundation@gmail.com.

A Certain Kind of Wizard Celebration

Please join us to celebrate Ira Cohen in NYC

There will be poetry and poetic remembrances, photographs, film clips, music and more. Refreshments will be provided.

Wednesday May 14th, 2025 at 7pm
Bowery Poetry Club at 308 Bowery, NYC

Thursday May 15th, 2025 at 7pm
The Bunker at 222 Bowery, NYC

Poet, photographer, filmmaker, publisher, and dauntless world traveler, Ira Cohen was a mythic figure of boundless energy who was a catalyst for creative scenes in New York, Tangier, Kathmandu, Amsterdam, and wherever else he happened to alight in his wanderings. Cohen knew the best and the brightest — William Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Vali Myers, Brion Gysin, Paul Bowles, Charles Henri Ford, and so many others. Filmmaker Jack Smith, Julian Beck and Judith Malina of The Living Theatre were close friends and collaborators on many projects. A Certain Kind of Wizard includes Cohen’s poetry, photos, interviews, and prose writings from his remarkable journals.

A Review of Time Waits

A review of Time Waits: Selected Poems 1956 – 1986 by Martin Matz

“Matz at times comes close to reaching the breath-taking heights that Kaufman achieved in his great works of poetry, especially his final work, The Ancient Rain, but there is something distinctive and slightly haunting about his style. It reaches deep into the cosmos (outer space) and also down into the innermost recesses of the poet’s own self (inner space) and the imagery jumps from one luxuriant image to the next, in a psychedelic ‘feast’ of images that coalesce into a whirlwind, a swirling chiaroscuro of colors, like the colors that grace the cover of this book, that build upon each other, and reflect or refract previous images. The effect is both hypnotic and captivating to the reader who is under its spell.”

–Matthew James Mclaughlin
Read the review
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