Big Sur poet and artist Carolyn Mary Kleefeld can often be found on the cliffs of Big Sur reading poetry to a resident condor.

“Art is where I gamble,” she says. “It’s Taoistic and intuitive.”

Cosmically, the gamble is paying off. Already a Big Sur icon, her international profile as a literary and artistic force continues to grow with the recent publication of her 10th book of poetry, Vagabond Dawns, the adoption of her work into the curriculum of a Welsh university, and a new series of Romanian translations.

Vagabond Dawns is a 100-poem volume filled with work that spans the last 20 years of Kleefeld’s creative life. The poems address a broad range of universal themes, such as human nature, the cycles of life, love and intimacy, spiritual transformation and a pantheistic relationship to the natural world.

“The themes of my poems are in continual flux, as my living is,” Kleefeld says. “Over time I think I have become more involved with the music and rhythm of poetry and the lyrical aspect of my poems has become more developed.”

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