If there was an official poet laureate of the West, Don Thompson would be my choice. For four decades he has reminded us what it means to be alive out here, coping with a world we do not fully understand. In Local Color, he employs an original format to present, as usual, wonderful word-pictures. Also as usual, "place" is a character in his work, but not just any place: the south San Joaquin with all its peculiarities and wonders. No writer has seen more there or told more telling tales as a result. This is narrative poetry that really narrates
-Gerald Haslam, author of Straight White Male and Leon Patterson: a California Story