Fits of Dawn was published in 1965 by Ted Berrigan's legendary "C Press." Joe and Ted were close friends, both entirely aware of the everyday plights of poets who chose to marry and bear the enormous responsibilities of love and fatherhood at close range. It is hardly coincidence, but perhaps fate or destiny, that Joe and Ted died within several years of each other as they approached middle-age in the 1980s.

The example of William Carlos Williams went a long way to get Ceravolo and Berrigan through the initial years of being poets/husbands/fathers, without losing their bearings in a publishing field composed largely of predictable, manneristic tastes and indifference to their unpretentious, reality-based sensibilities. When Ted formed C Press and published Fits of Dawn, Joe's poetry of authentic mysticism in the moment, no matter who you are, found its first audience of kindred spirits.

Fits of Dawn was influenced by disparities as varied as James Joyce and Vivaldi, Mexico and Astoria, NYC, and the sheer ecstasy of language as a tool, a weapon, and the most effective medium to communicate the passion at work in the heart, soul, and mind of a man totally immersed in life and poetry at once.

Because this book is completely unavailable at the current time, we've included the "story", A Story From the Bushmen from Chapter III of Fits of Dawn.