Look Like You Know Your $hit 2014 Poetry as Gifts Guide

Tags

2014 Poetry Collections, a note passed to superman, A Whole New World, Ahsahta Press, Aladdin, Alaska, Alice James Books, Anne Ferry, Apiology with Stigma, Bad NDN, Black Ocean, Carrie Olivia Adams, Claudia Emerson, Clay Matthews, Commonplace Invasions, contraband of hoopoe, Copper Canyon, Dan Vera, Dancing Girl Press, Debt to the Bone-Eating Snotflower, Ewa Chrusciel, Figure Studies, Forty One Jane Doe's, Graywolf Press, Hanging Loose Press, Happenstance, Helena Nelson, holiday gift giving guide, HOT TOPIC, How a Poem Happens, Jo Pitkin, Julie Funderburk, Kelly Andrews, Lavender Ink/Dialogos, Letras Latinas, Look Like You know Your Shit, Louisiana small press, LSU Press, Mad Honey Symposium, Marguerite Guzman Bouvard, Mule-Skinner, NOLA poetry, Omnidawn, Plot and CounterPlot, Poem for Plutocrats, poetheads, Rachel Piercey, Red Hen, Rivers Wanted, Sabotage Reviews, Sally Wen Mao, Salmon Poetry, Sarah Lindsay, Scandlous, sexy christmas elf, Sherman Alexie, southern lit, Southern Messenger Poets, Speaking Wiri Wiri, Split This Rock, Starlight on Water, Steven Scafidi, supernatural, The Cabinetmaker's Window, The Emma Press, The Leviathan of Parsonstown, The Light That Shines Inside Us, The Overhaul, The Title of the Poem, Thoughts to Fold Into Birds, To Whoever Set My Truck on Fire, Unicorn Press, What I've Stolen What I've Earned, women poets

Yes, it is that time of year again, friends….the time of ‘best of’ lists and holiday buying hives. Ok, maybe that’s not you, but you really, really want to impress that super hot poet that lives down the hall or maybe deigns to talk to you in the Starbucks line you happen to keep timing just right so as to consistently run into him/her.

Or maybe, you are married to one of these poethead monsters.  Or gasp! You are one of those word-flingers.

 

Sexy-Christmas-Elf-me can practically guarantee to get you a good snog under the mistletoe, if you will wrap up  a few of these (mostly) 2014 collections.

From AHSAHTA PRESS

Forty-One Jane Doe’s

This is actually a Spring 2013 release that made it into my basket early this year, but boy am I glad that it did.  Combining a print book with a DVD of short films, this combo from  Carrie Olivia Adams (better known as poetry editor for Black Ocean) is definitely a keeper.

Love this tagline:  “A woman knows her body . . . until it is exploded into a multitude of Janes.”

 

from ALICE JAMES

Mad Honey Symposium

Sally Wen Mao‘s May-released debut stunner. Feast your eyes on lines from “Apiology, with Stigma” HERE

I Know! Your eyes are totally blown out of your head.

 

Moving on to 2 Titles from COPPER CANYON  

Debt to the Bone-Eating Snotflower

Sarah Lindsay delves into skeleton-eating worms, sweet potato and squid with brief jaunts to Iraq

Read “The Leviathan of Parsonstown” here

 

 

Sun-Bear  also from Copper Canyon

Matthew Zapruder‘s 4th collection, another zinger from one of Cali’s hottest poets

Check out “Poem for Plutocrats”

 

 

and don’t forget my go-to press DANCING GIRL bringing us…

 

Mule-Skinner by

Kelly Andrews, coeditor of Pretty Owl Poetry/economic journalist, delivering a kick-ass first chapbook plus she loves cats. What’s not to like?

Read a sample poem at the purchase link above.

 

And from (The) EMMA PRESS, one of the cooolest small presses in the UK…

Rivers Wanted

Rachel Piercey’s 2nd pub with EP, but her first full-length pamphlet, bringing every bit of her gobsmacking wit and charm to a head.

Check out the great write-up from Sabotage Reviews here.

from GRAYWOLF PRESS

The Overhaul

Ok, a bit of a cheat.  This is forthcoming Feb. 2015, but I just love the Scottish hell out of Kathleen Jamie and couldn’t help but put this up even without a pre-order button. Why is there no pre-order button?

Oh well, buy this as soon as it’s out.

 

then there is this ball-buster from HANGING LOOSE PRESS

What I’ve Stolen, What I’ve Earned

Sherman Alexie is hands-down the baddest NDN around with multi-genre superpowers, and I basically want to be him when I grow up, only better-looking in a dress, which should be red with imitation feathers.

 

from HAPPENSTANCE  (another small press from across the pond)

Starlight on Water and Plot and Counter-Plot

These pamphlets are actually from 2003 and 2010, but I’ve only just discovered Helena Nelson through performance circles, so bear with me.

Both of these babies rock the cover art and feature marvellous poems.

from LAVENDER INK/DIALOGOS 

The Light That Shines Inside Us

Marguerite Guzman Bouvard‘s poems so good they should have their own shrine. And I am I totally not just saying that because this is like my favorite NOLA based press. Who Dat, Y’all!!

 

from LSU PRESS  (Purple and Gold, Baby)

The Cabinetmaker’s Window from the sexy poet-carpenter who is all over the Southern lit magazines. Love me some Steven Scafidi.

Read “To Whoever Set My Truck on Fire” at How a Poem Happens and see.  See!

Now buy the book and

also snap up

Figure Studies by

Claudia Emerson

which pairs really well with Forty-One Jane Doe’s  from above [top of the list]

 

then again, you can’t really go wrong with most of the Southern Messenger Poets series 

 

 same goes for Ewa Chrusciel, whose latest from OMNIDAWN 

 

contraband of hoopoe has just the right mix of art and ritual to make you want to do research and never stop traveling even if it’s all just in your mind

 

well, that doesn’t really do her justice.  just pick up the book and work your way into her genius.

 

RED HEN also has a stunner with its 2013 Winner of the inaugural Letras Latinas/Red Hen Poetry Prize

Speaking Wiri Wiri by Dan Vera

is good, good, good stuff

Hear him read here. Funny, charming. Brave experimenter with language.

[Dude, I know it was on Split This Rock’s recommended list from last year, but I just got it…so now I’m telling you it’s good. LOL]

 

from SALMON POETRY

Commonplace Invasions by

Jo Pitkin, is a must-have.  She has been accused of “bewitching” her readers, but in the best possible way. 🙂

Everything out of Salmon Poetry is top-notch.

 

and from UNICORN PRESS

Thoughts to Fold Into Birds by

Julie Funderburk

“grounded in the coastal carolina’s wind, sun, and sea”

ahhhhhhhhhhhh. small press goodness from NC.

 

Also, you’ll look really, really smart if you buy and then read….

 

The Title of the Poem by

Anne Ferry

Seriously, though, this will open up a whole new world. Trust me!!!!

Small Press Q&A with Lavender Ink/Diálogos

Tags

A Sweeter Water, All Night It is Morning, Andy Young, Bill Lavender, Chris Sullivan, Ever, Laura Madeline Wiseman, Lavender Ink/Dialogos, Levertov, Louisiana literary magazines, Mardi Gras, Marthe Reed, megan burns, N.O. Lit 200 Years, Nancy Dixon, New Orleans Literature, New Orleans small press, Peter Thompson, poetry trends, post-Katrina, Ralph Adamo, Sabotage Reviews, Sara Henning, small press poetry, small press Q&A, Some Fatal Effects, Sound and Basin

In true New Orleans style, whenever I ask the good folks at Lavender Ink/Diálogos for review copies of new titles, I always get a little lagniappe thrown into the box. And somehow I always love everything that they send me.  It’s as if they have some sort of mind reading powers. Or maybe it’s just the common roots.

Either way, you’ll find me gushing about their titles: here or in the upcoming roundup for Sabotage Reviews. But before we get into all the goodness that exudes from the press, let’s get to know some of the faces behind it.

This week I spoke with Founding Editor Bill Lavender (pictured here with his Mardi Gras face) about choosing manuscripts, his vision for the press and of course current trends in poetry.  Hope you enjoy!

Bill Lavender

Q& A

What mishmash of fictional, historical or pop culture characters best describes the press?

Imagine that Emily Dickinson (looking cynical and uncomfortable), Ted Berrigan, Nikki Minaj, Samuel Beckett, Bertolt Brecht and Jacques Lacan were sitting at a table reading manuscripts and drinking. At a certain point they all pass out. Then I come in and clean up, forging their signatures to the stuff I like.

 

Who are your literary superstars, mentors and heroes?

They are both too numerous and too few to mention. When I was younger I went through brief periods of romantic attachment to the Romantics (mainly Coleridge), feelings of Marxist historical burgeoning for the German Expressionists (like Brecht), drug-crazed word burnout on Rimbaud, prosey oceans of Joyce, meta-enchantment with John Barthes and Paul Auster, swung both ways on the Derrida/Lacan argument, heard the dumb thrumming of language in Zukofsky and its watery mirror in Lorrine Niedecker, feel into Jack Spicer’s trance, drummed with the Beats, and rejected it all as being too precious. One thing I have always hated: the contemporary United States poetic establishment: the “big names” in po-biz, AWP, MFA programs (even though I taught in one, for a time), “Best American Poetry 20xx” (an embarrassment, if it were true), I could name names but I’m too discreet—and I mean I ALWAYS hated this crap. I didn’t come to hate it after loving it for a minute in misspent youth. I came into poetry because it offered an ESCAPE from John Ciardi (just to name one who was famous when I was cutting my teeth—actually I don’t remember them; I paid no attention.) I did have the great privilege of growing up poetically in the same environs as Frank Stanford and C.D. Wright—I remember C.D. turning me on to some French poets I didn’t know, this was back in about 1973 or 4. Frank didn’t like my work (it didn’t deserve to be liked), but I learned tons from the Battlefied…. It was like finding a French surrealist in my hometown.

 

How was the idea for the press born in you, and what is your vision for its future? Proud milestones? Recent successes?

Now that I have basically retired—perhaps not from money-grubbing but at least from doing it in soul-killing bureaucracies like universities— I’m putting a lot of time, energy, and money into the press, even to the detriment of my own writing, so I seem to be determined to accomplish something. In some ways my press adventures are all experiments: I want to see what happens if I disseminate a certain work in a certain way. I’m intrigued by the notion of financial success, but so far that is entirely theoretical.

 

Tell me about the process of choosing manuscripts. Who do you most want to see published? Any collections you wish had come out of your press?

I have several people, sort of an informal board, most of them authors published by us, that I regularly ask for advice. Peter Thompson, at Roger Williams University, has been my partner in Diálogos from the beginning, and I always confer with him on matters of translation. In the end, though, all the decisions come back to me.

Peter Thompson

And lately, I should add, my publication decisions have come to depend more and more on concrete matters at hand… that is, isn’t ONLY that I feel the work SHOULD be published (for in truth, anyone can publish anything now; that old sacred goal of PUBLISHING really doesn’t exist any more) but HOW it should be published, where it should be pushed, encouraged, what sorts of conversations and interactions it might produce. For a long time I eschewed the humble form of the pre-pub blurb, but lately I’ve come to see that the pre-publication discourse, of which the blurbs can be the locus, can be as important as any other segment of the book’s arc.

 

What brought about the 2012 expansion from exclusively poetry into fiction and other genres?

This question is more troubling and troubled than its brevity would portend. It actually has many answers, one being that I have begun writing fiction (novel) myself (get the ebook), but that practice, too rises out of a growing… disillusion is the wrong word; there is still a lot of poetry that interests and satisfies me… let’s say a growing sense that poetry is no longer expanding, that it is no longer implanting itself at the true center of the culture and fomenting rebellion there. That it is, in short, fizzling. I know a lot of people will protest this vociferously, and it may actually be that part of the problem is their sheer number. It may be the fact that we have now sanctioned “National Poetry Month”…. Such efforts culminate in a Disneyworld of poetry; wax (well, PVC) effigies of social responsibility. Where prose right now, with its complete and entirely unnostalgic commodification, actually presents an opportunity for subversion; cracks in the editorial edifice open up because the editors ARE accountants and have no idea what they’re reading.

 

In the aftermath of Katrina, much of coastal Louisiana has eroded. Do you feel that same sort of erosion is true for its culture? Was the publication of the 200 yrs of N.O. Lit title important to its preservation? And is the current literary scene still thriving or on its deathbed?

Well, I certainly don’t think it’s on its deathbed. There is so much happening in New Orleans right now it’s hard to keep track of. One of the reasons we cut off N.O. Lit pre-Katrina was that there is so much contemporary material that the book would have doubled its already substantial size. The real impetus for Dr. Nancy Dixon’s N.O. Lit: 200 Years of New Orleans Literature was a teacher’s desire to see a sampling of the very rich, disparate, multi-lingual field of the city’s literature collected into a single volume to use as a teaching tool. It’s astonishing, really, that no one ever attempted such a collection before.

 

Talk to me about your relationship with the city of New Orleans and the Louisiana connections of (most of) your authors.

I’m not an unreserved fan of New Orleans and its cultural output (I thought Treme, for example, was awful—an embarrassment.) And lately in the poetry community there has been some talk about our unsung past, about how the Beat movement had more roots here than we are given credit for, etc. Such chest beating bores me. What doesn’t bore me are the actual poets and writers at work here with little or no recognition. I could name names: Joel Dailey, Megan Burns, Chris Sullivan… but this list is simply the Lavender Ink catalog.

 

 

Who are some of the other faces behind the press?

Well, my wife and constant inspiration, Nancy Dixon, is second in command. She reads in her field and I never design a cover without consulting her. Peter Thompson at Roger Williams U. is a great friend and consultant on matters of translation and on Diálogos titles in general. I have called on almost every author in my list, at one time or another, to help out with editorial duties, from manuscript recommendations to copy editing to fact checking, etc. And they are all great and generous partners in the endeavor. In the end, though, I’m too cantankerous and autocratic for most people to work with, so it pretty much ends up being my baby.

Dr. Nancy Dixon

 

How does Dialogos (an imprint) fit into the larger press? Is the cross-cultural focus an outgrowth of New Orleans’ history as a port city?

No. It comes from my earliest experiences with poetry that excited and moved me, which was always poetry in translation. There was a real flowering of translation as its own art form when I was cutting my teeth in the 60s, and I was disappointed to see a waning of interest in literature in translation in later decades. I think there was brief flowering of internationalism back then that coincided with the country’s general swing to the left. That, of course, is gone now and we have sunk back into (the normal human condition of) paranoid xenophobia. Now I enjoy being an irritant, at least as much as I am able…

 

Current trends (in poetry or fiction) that frighten you? Those that excite you?

Certain things do frighten me, but they aren’t the things you’d think. It doesn’t worry me that “no one reads poetry any more.” No one ever read poetry. Nor does it bother me that fiction lives at the whim of capitalism. The novel was born in Grub Street and was never meant to be anything but a means for hustlers like Defoe to add a few pounds to their income. What worries me is precisely the opposite of these… Maybe too many people read poetry now; maybe we are actually developing an inflated idea of poetry’s potential and importance. Poetry doesn’t make revolutions. Poetry—fine poetry that describes in great detail our innermost feelings and defines in certain terms the parameters of our identity—can exist in the most egregious police state and be written by the most ruthless bureaucrats. Didn’t Mussolini write haikus? There might be such a thing as poetry that can change the world, inspire rebellion, bring out the knowledge we didn’t know we had—but most of us just want to run when we encounter it.

Louisiana Literary Fais Do-Do

Tags

Aqueous Books, Bayou Magazine, Belle Journal, Deep South Magazine, Gris-Gris, Kindred, Lavender Ink/Dialogos, Louisiana literary magazines, Louisiana Literature, Louisiana Small Presses, McNeese Review, New Delta Review, New Orleans Review, Octavia Books, Portals Press, Red Ochre Lit, Rougarou, Swamp Lily Review, The Reading Life WWNO, The Southern Review, THEMA, Trembling Pillow, Tulane Review, Xavier Review

Bienvenue en Louisiane!

 

Welcome to the great state of crawfish, jazz and Mardi Gras.  Besides our world-famous food and rockin’ music scene, Louisiana is home to a whole smattering of literary magazines, small presses and independent bookstores.

Here’s what you need to know:

LIT MAGS

Bayou Magazine

–biannual print mag published out of the University of New Orleans
–reads Sept 1 through June 1

Guidelines

 

Belle Journal

–print/online journal based out of Baton Rouge, showcasing the work of women with ties to the South
–reading period varies

Guidelines

 

 

 

Deep South Magazine

–online magazine out of Lafayette, covering the food, travel, culture, arts and literature of the South
–reads year round

Guidelines

 

Gris-Gris

–biannual, online mag coming out of Nicholls State University
–reads year round          Guidelines

 

Kindred

–quarterly from Anchor & Plume Press of Baton Rouge
—Reads in two open periods

1)December 30, 2013-February 7, 2014
2) June 2, 2014-July 7, 2014           Guidelines

 

Louisiana Literature

–biannual, print from Southeastern Louisiana University
–reads year round

Guidelines

 

 

 

New Delta Review

–print/web out of Louisiana State University
–reads year round

Guidelines

 

 

New Orleans Review

–print/web from Loyola University
–reads year round

Guidelines

 

 

 

Red Ochre Lit

–online mag out of Baton Rouge
–reads year round

Guidelines

 

 

 

Rougarou

—Online Journal from the Univ. of Louisiana, Lafayette
–reads Aug 15 through April 15

Guidelines

 

Swamp Lily Review

—Online Journal out of Lake Charles, publishing those with ties to LA, TX, MS, AL & FL
–reads year round

Guidelines

 

 

The McNeese Review

—print/web journal from McNeese State University
–reads year round

Guidelines

 

 

 

 

The Southern Review

—print journal out of Louisiana State University
–reads Sept 1 through Dec 1

Guidelines

 

 

THEMA

—print journal with themed issues, produced in Metairie by THEMA literary society
–deadlines vary with theme

Guidelines

 

 

 

Tulane Review

—print journal out of Tulane University
–reads Aug 20 to Feb 19

 Guidelines

 

 

 

 

Xavier Review

—print journal out of Xavier University with a focus on African American, Caribbean and Southern literature, as well as works that touch on issues of religion and spirituality
–reads year round

 Guidelines

 

SMALL PRESSES

Aqueous Books

 

 

Lavender Ink/Dialogos

 

Portals Press

 

Trembling Pillow

 

 

MOST HAPPENING N.O. BOOKSTORE

Octavia Books

 

AND A LITTLE LAGNIAPPE

 

The Reading Life on WWNO Radio

 

 

 

Hope y’all enjoy!

Small Poetry Presses Part II

Tags

Ahsahta Press, Apogee Press, Belladonna, Black Radish Books, BlazeVox, Blood Pudding, Blue Light Press, Calyx Books, CavanKerry, Cervena Barva Press, Chax Press, Cider Press Review, Counterpoint Press, Fence Books, Futurepoem, Gold Wake, Headmistress Press, Hedgerow Books, Hobblebush, Hyacinth Girl Press, Kelsey Street Press, Knives Forks and Spoons, Kore Press, Lavender Ink/Dialogos, Les Figues, Maverick Duck, Nightboat, Omnidawn, Salmon Poetry, Seven Kitchens Press, Shape and Nature, Sheep Meadow Press, Spuyten Duyvil Press, Sundress Publications, Ugly Duckling Press, Wild Ocean Press, Wind Publications, Wings Press

Thanks to everyone who chimed in.  Here are your favorites:

Chax Press	US/AZ	http://chax.org
Kore Press	US/AZ	http://www.korepress.org/
Apogee Press	US/CA	http://apogeepress.com/
Blue Light Press	US/CA	http://bluelightpress.com/
Cider Press Review	US/CA	http://ciderpressreview.com/bookstore/
Counterpoint Press	US/CA	http://counterpointpress.com/
Kelsey Street Press	US/CA	http://www.kelseyst.com/
Les Figues	US/CA	http://www.lesfigues.com/
Omnidawn	US/CA	http://www.omnidawn.com/
Spuyten Duyvil Press	US/CA	http://www.spuytenduyvil.net/
Wild Ocean Press	US/CA	http://wildoceanpress.com
Ahsahta Press	US/ID	http://ahsahtapress.org/
Wind Publications	US/KY	http://windpub.com/
Black Radish Books	US/LA	http://blackradishbooks.org/
Lavender Ink/Dialogos	US/LA	http://www.lavenderink.org/content/
Cervena Barva Press	US/MA	http://www.cervenabarvapress.com/
Gold Wake	US/MA	http://goldwakepress.com/
Hedgerow Books	US/MA	http://www.levellerspress.com/hedgerowbooks.htm
Shape and Nature	US/MA	http://www.shapeandnature.com/About.htm
Hobblebush	US/NH	http://webpages.charter.net/hobblebush/
CavanKerry	US/NJ	http://www.cavankerrypress.org
Maverick Duck	US/NJ	http://www.maverickduckpress.com/
Belladonna	US/NY	http://www.belladonnaseries.org/index.html
BlazeVOX	US/NY	http://www.blazevox.org/
Fence Books	US/NY	http://www.fenceportal.org/
Futurepoem	US/NY	http://www.futurepoem.com/about.html
Nightboat Books	US/NY	http://www.nightboat.org/
Sheep Meadow Press	US/NY	http://sheepmeadowpress.com/
Ugly Duckling	US/NY	http://www.uglyducklingpresse.org/
Blood Pudding	US/OH	http://bloodyooze.blogspot.com/
Calyx Books	US/OR	http://www.calyxpress.org
Hyacinth Girl Press	US/PA	http://www.hyacinthgirlpress.com
Seven Kitchens Press	US/PA	http://sevenkitchenspress.com/
Sundress Publications	US/TN	http://www.sundresspublications.com
Wings Press	US/TX	http://wingspress.com/wingspress.cfm
Headmistress Press	US/WA	http://headmistresspress.blogspot.com/
Salmon Poetry	Ireland	http://www.salmonpoetry.com/index.php
Knives Forks and Spoons Press	UK/Eng	http://www.knivesforksandspoonspress.co.uk

Late Additions:

Shearsman Books	UK/Eng	http://www.shearsman.com/
White Violet Press	US/CA	http://kelsaybooks.com/guidelines/guidelines-for-white-violet-press
Accents Publishing	US/KY	http://www.accents-publishing.com/contact.html
Wilderness House Press	US/MA	http://www.wildernesshousepress.com/
Autumn House Press	US/PA	http://www.autumnhouse.org/contact-us/