AWP: everything that's fit to print

AWP is the one stretch of time during the year that our staff and many of our authors are together in one place, and we had a great time working the table, meeting our wonderful readers, and being surrounded by so many presses we admire. This year, we debuted our two newest titles Butcher's Tree by Feng Sun Chen and Fjords Vol. 1 by Zachary Schomburg, along with our newest issue of Handsome. By the end of the conference, we sold out of all the copies we brought of Butcher's Tree and Handsome. Thank you to everyone who stopped by our table and supported us!

The Hideout was completely packed for our off-site event Friday night, featuring a reprise of the collaborative live performance of Fjords with Zachary Schomburg, Manual Cinema, and the Chicago Q Ensemble, readings by Feng Sun Chen, and authors from Letter Machine Editions and Octopus Books. Then we danced, drank, and partied past the point of sanity. Of course, enjoying ourselves as much as we did means that most of us were too caught up in the festivites to take too many photos that would prove just how awesome it was.

For those of you who pre-ordered one of our new titles, or bought a 2012 subscription, we begin shipping orders this week. If you haven't picked up a copy of Fjords or Butcher's Tree, you can read exerpts from the books just posted on Everday Genius. Click here for Butcher's Tree and here for Fjords Vol. 1.

Many people at the conference also asked about a 2012 subscription. As a staff of poets, a few of us aren't so good at remembering numbers, so if we gave you confusing answers forgive us! You can order a subscription here for $50; it includes our two newest titles along with our forthcoming Fall releases (see the link for a full list). This is the first year we will be releasing five titles, so we're pretty excited and hope you will be too!

I hope everyone who made it to the conference is happily recovering at home. We'll see you next year!

Wednesday Around the Web

Happy hump day! Enjoy these links for your Wednesday reading pleasure!

Holy Land by Rauan Klassnik was reviewed on the Huffington Post as part of Seth Abramson's Contemporary Poetry list for February! Abramson begins with the declaration that "[t]hese poems may well be among the most vulgar and violent published in the English language in the past quarter-century" and goes on to argue "[i]n both its tender and horrifying moments, Holy Land aptly maps how we are chained to time, place, ourselves, and one another by a million minor assaults--only some of which are physical." Read the review in full here and be sure to click the link for an excerpt.

Ordinary Sun by Matthew Henriksen is on POETS.org's "Books Noted" right now! The post offers a mini review and excerpt. Read it here!

Staff Profile: A. Minetta Gould

Though we provide very extensive bios on our crew page (everything you wanted to know about how Janaka takes his whisky, which El track Carrie writes her poems on, and Minetta's worries over rust), in the coming weeks, we’ll be sharing staff profiles of the clandestine figures behind Black Ocean. You’ll get a sneak peek into what we do behind the scenes and how it all comes together.

A. Minetta Gould is our illustrious Managing Editor. When not hosting elaborate dinner parties, she works like mad juggling spreadsheets, contacting authors, and greasing the cogs of our dark machine.

On how she got involved:

Black Ocean was born for me in some hot springs north of Boise, ID. Martin Corless-Smith and I were giving Paige [Ackerson-Keily, Handsome Editor] (she was here as our visiting author, In No One's Land had recently released from Ahsahta Press) the full Idaho experience. It was right before the last AWP Chicago...2009...and after a few hours hanging out in the pools Paige announced that I must introduce myself to Janaka, the editor of Black Ocean. I think she said we were similar souls and that we'd get along well. Something like that. A few weeks later I was standing in front of the Black Ocean table at AWP, still drunk from the night before, announcing that we were supposed to know one another, that Paige had said so (I also in this heat of morning drunk passion told Brandon Shimoda that I loved everything he did and wept at a Wallace Stevens presentation, in case anyone was wondering what I'm like upon first meeting me). Janaka gave me his card, I went to the Black Ocean reading that night, and understood this is what I wanted. My actual position is the product of a few basic elements: I was around when something needed done, I did said thing. Rinse: Repeat. 

On what she does and why she loves it:

I am the Managing Editor. This means I manage things. I have about twenty different spreadsheets for various aspects of the press that I keep updated. Time lines for awards. Reading organizers. Reviewers. Various other contacts. Pretty much everything that isn't creative about running a press I have a hand in. I like it this way...I could mess up creativity but I can't mess up whether or not a book store carries our titles. Janaka still takes care of a lot of organizational things like AWP related tasks, but most tasks that exist in the cloud I do.

I like that my job is to help make the press grow. A lot of the time when I'm doing tedious projects (ever try to decide whether every independent bookstore in the country would want to carry your books? Definitely tedious.) I am reminded that what I do is make this press more efficient and sustainable. 

I think the most surprising thing about my position is when I get approached about the press. Sometimes when I'm in my little spreadsheet world I forget that people really love and admire this press. A few months ago a group of students from Montana came through Boise to read and afterward one of them cornered me and was all gushy over Black Ocean. 1. It threw me that he knew who I was 2. After a few drinks he kept saying to people "Do you understand who she is?!?" or variations of a sort. I am a symbol for him of something bigger, and that throws me whenever it happens. 

On what it’s like to work virtually with staff and authors:

I think most small presses work virtually, don't they? I worked for Ahsahta Press prior to my position at Black Ocean and all of that was in the flesh. Most of it didn't need to be. It was nice to have everyone in a single room doing the same things, and impromptu conversations could arise that can't happen via email, but I think this system works well too. I like feeling popular, and when I get emails I feel popular, so days when we're discussing a topic in a long email train thrill me. Days when I can see Janaka or Carrie or Nikki working over in their time zones because I have five different email subject lines from them are awesome. It always makes me want to work harder. I don't think I'd have the same experience if we were all in the same place right now. I don't think it effects how I think about books or authors, beyond its nice to meet them in the flesh if I never have. A cherished moment kind of thing.

The Best Kind of Sellout

In case you didn't read it on our Facebook page or the Harriet blog, we have some news to share--a milestone for Black Ocean, and a good sign of vitality of poetry. Zachary Shomburg's Scary No Scary and The Man Suit have sold out, and are going into their second and third printings respectively. Read our press release below for full details about these books and others, and get fresh copies for yourself by clicking the catalog link at the top of the page!

10,000 Scary Man Suits and Counting

Who says poetry doesn’t sell? And who says no one wants to read tangible, physical books anymore? Not Black Ocean, that’s for sure, who this month are celebrating the 10,000th printed copy of a Zachary Schomburg book.

Schomburg’s The Man Suit has entered its third printing, and his Scary, No Scary has entered the second—making for a combined 10,000 copies in print.

At a time when very established university presses and other poetry publishers consider themselves incredibly lucky to sell-through a poetry print run of five hundred copies, Black Ocean’s success is not only rare, but it is a quantifiable testament to Black Ocean’s commitment to beautiful books and unique promotion.

Of course, it helps to have fantastic and unusual books to work with—Schomburg has been called by Publisher’s Weekly “one of the sincerest surrealists around,” and the Huffington Post boldly declared: “Schomburg is possibly the man who will save poetry for all of those readers who are about to give up on the genre.”

He is at once a poet’s poet and a people’s poet, and his work has found new audiences and unexpected readers and inspired everything from tattoos to full-scale theatrical adaptations (with shadow puppets no less!).

This penetration of unconventional spaces and forms with poetry is exemplary of the Black Ocean mission that encourages its poets to take poetry on the road and tour, while saturating the public with skilful and passionate forms of expression through a wide variety of mediums.

Schomburg isn’t the only title with above average sales either. With standard print runs at 2,000 copies, recent books by Matthew Henriksen, Brandon Shimoda, Joe Hall, Julie Doxsee—and translations of the Swedish poet Aase Berg by Johannes Göransson—all speak to the triumph of Black Ocean’s ideal. For those who say it can’t be done, that publishing poetry is a fool’s gamble, evidence of our recent successes are proving them wrong.

A Warm Welcome!

We are excited to welcome D.j. Dolack (forthcoming 2013) and Zach Savich (forthcoming 2014) to the Black Ocean family! Their manuscripts were selected from our recent open reading period. They join an already amazing crew, and we're so happy to have them.

In case you haven't seen it, here's our lineup for 2012. If that looks good to you, consider a subscription for only $50 (mad savings!). Click here to check it out.

Hunger Transit by Feng Sun Chen (Spring 2012)
Fjords by Zachary Schomburg (Spring 2012)
Handsome Vol. 4 (Spring 2012)
Dark Matter by Aase Berg, trans. Johannes Göransson (Fall 2012)
The Moon's Jaw by Rauan Klassnik (Fall 2012) 

Link Roundup

Hi everyone!

Our authors and their books have been popping up around the interwebs, and here are a few recent places: 

  • Brandon Shimoda's The Girl Without Arms was just reviewed on The Rumpus. Charles Kruger writes, "I wish I could explain to you, to myself, the effect this language has upon me, but I can only say it makes my skin crawl. In a good way." And for more good reading, you might want to check out the Albums of Our Lives feature, set into motion by Katy Henriksen (wife of Matthew Henriksen, and all around swell gal).
  • One of our favorite blogs to follow, Montevidayo, just posted two articles involving Black Ocean authors Aase Berg (With Deer) and Feng Sun Chen (forthcoming title from Black Ocean in 2012!). Johannes defies any tidy summing up, so you best just read this and this for a discussion that hovers around language, influence, ambiance, accesibility. You won't be sorry.

Beyond the internet realm, Carrie went to Iceland this summer, and rocked it out in her Black Ocean t-shirt. We're all jealous!

We'll be rolling out a few new features on the blog in the next month or so--if there is something you want to see here, please let us know in the comments!

 

FJORDS!

Four poems from Zachary Schomburg's Fjords, forthcoming from Black Ocean in 2012 are featured in the most recent issue of iO: A Journal of New American Poetry. 

                                        ...Everyone  looked
at me with a face that said let’s never speak of
this.  Let’s  not  look  directly  at what  is meant
to   be   loved   in   secret.

from "BUILDING OF UNSEEN CATS"

If you like what you see, you may be interested in a 2012 subscription. For $50 you'll receive Fjords, along with four other choice selections. August subscribers also receive Julie Doxsee's  first two books, Undersleep (Octopus Books) and Objects for a Fog Death (Black Ocean). 

Bookslut: Interview with Matthew Henriksen

In the most recent issue of Bookslut, Nick Sturm asks questions like: "How many bees does it take to eat Matthew Henriksen?"

We always enjoy hearing more from Matthew Henriksen, and this interview is no exception. Here, he reflects on Frank Stanford, his experience teaching in Harlem, and the "awe at the pervasive beauty that surrounds us all" in poetry, and especially in life. Be sure to check out the full interview here.

‎The best poems are apostrophes. Talk intensely and without irony to no one long enough and your start to see your own investments in other people's interests fall away. You can't fit much experience into a poem at all if you don't first break everything down. The line, of course, delivers everything in a poem by disrupting our usual habits of perception and processing. I could call the line the force that drives disfiguring music. I see both nature and society as disfigured, and in that flaw beauty becomes more readily apparent. The line attempts to force us to hear and to see.

Hot Sun

July is hot, and so is Ordinary Sun, which was recently featured on Huffington Post in an article called " 20 of the Best Books from Independent Presses You Should Know About." So if you haven't checked it out already, well, do it! Don't miss the nod to The Girl Without Arms either.

And, if you want to bask in the heat a little more, purchase a 2012 Black Ocean subscription this month and recieve a free copy of Ordinary Sun. 75th subscriber also wins a free t-shirt, made fresh!

Elsewhere

Everyone's talking about their summer reading lists lately, so what are you reading? If you're looking for something a bit more engaging than the next Harlequin, why not check out the latest issue of Fulcrum, which includes a feature on Frank Stanford written by Matthew Henriksen. Read more about it here.

To ensure your future reading list satisfaction, remember to get a 2012 Black Ocean subscription this month! Details here. We're still trying to reach 50 subscribers (with the ultimate goal of 200). Will you be one of them?

Ordinary Sun on Hazel & Wren

Very excited to see this review over on Hazel & Wren. A sort of virtual community space, Hazel & Wren seems to have a lot to offer. Read the review and see for yourself!

... he’s searching for something real in all the muck that is this world, and attempting to find a way to be happy with that through his images. “What we don’t know is our only law” he writes in “Copse.” This is the governing theme throughout, exploring the unknown. The poems resonate with an honest, unflinching beauty. They border on disturbing, tragic, and even violent in places, yet they are full of natural grace and most of all, acceptance.

 

Our subscription drive continues! We've now met our goal of 25 subscribers and are moving upwards to 50. The 50th subscriber will recieve a Black Ocean t-shirt. And all June subscribers recieve a signed, limited-edition hardbound copy of Zachary Schomburg's Fjords. Subscribe here.

An Interview of "Black Ocean" Quality--The Blood Jet Writing Hour

Joe Hall (Pigafetta Is My Wife) and Brandon Shimoda (The Girl Without Arms) recently sat down for an interview with Rachelle of the Blood Jet Writing Hour. They beging by talking about the mighty Black Ocean itself and its aesthetic. Brandon mentions that he thinks our aesthetic is "encapsulated in the name" and:

To me it's a feeling; it's kind of a feeling that combines great empathy, a metallic taste--it's kind of a color. Thinking about the aesthetic, their books are so different, but I think one of the qualities they all share is a great empathy.  There's a lot of deep investigations into the darker ends of love.

Joe adds that

I latch onto the black part of the black ocean. It's like a dark pulsing heart....there is a darkness there that is a luminous darkness.

They go on to read excerpts from their books and to reflect on their processes.

Some highlights:

Brandon on form in The Girl Without Arms:

The girl without arms was sort of a different world. It was more a matter of finding the right instrument with which I could scrape out the inside of my brain.

I like arranging things and I like the way things present themselves visually...I'm not sure I was thinking about anything formally--it's kind of like drawing.

Joe on the process of writing Pigafetta Is My Wife and the long poem form:

I had this journal and I realized I wanted to use it, and it just seemed impossible to not write in a long poem format given the scope of the journal itself. And because the book is about this circumnavigation of the world by Magellan, it just seemed like the right thing to do. How could you capture a journey in one poem?

Something that both engaged the reader and taxed the reader at the same time...seemed really important to me. At the same time it was about this relationship I was in with my partner that was occurring over long distance. That was this thing that was always starting and stopping. I wanted that idea of recurrence and that sort of grasping outwards that happened over and over.

 

You can listen to the interview here.

Joe and Brandon were both drawn to Black Ocean for its aesthetic, and the fit they felt with their own work. If you feel similiarly drawn, be sure to submit during our open reading period! There are no reading fees, but we do ask that you consider supporting us, perhaps by purchasing a subscription. More details here: http://www.blackocean.org/black-ocean-blog/2011/6/1/smooth-sailing-on-the-open-black-ocean.html

Ordinary Sun on NewPages

Matthew Henriksen's Ordinary Sun has been reviewed on New Pages today! If you haven't picked up the book yet, this review provides a lot of great excerpts to whet your appetite. After recent conversations discussing the accesibility of these poems, I think Patrick James Dunagan gets to the heart of what this book offers--vision and wonder reflected though surprising language.

The fact that Henriksen appears not concerned with knowing what to do with experience itself is one of the saving graces of his writing. His comfort to be caught up with wondering his way through puzzling detours presented by life via language affords him opportunity to weave the reader into the presence of being with the poem. He doesn’t push any agenda, but gives way to the visions of the poem that they be manifest...

If you're bored of agenda and ready to experience language, be sure to check out Ordinary Sun today.