The Equalizer

Michael Schaivo has been executing an interesting experiment throughout the month of October. He's put together what he calls "an occasional poetry series" titled The Equalizer. The Equalizer: First Series has been getting sent out weekly in fifteen parts over the course of the month, which means there's just one part left before the end of this run. You can visit michaelschiavo.blogspot.com for more information, including updates & links to websites that will be hosting some or all of The Equalizer sections.

Matthew Henriksen, whose first book Ordinary Son is forthcoming from Black Ocean, appeared in The Equalizer 1.7. I myself appear in The Equalizer 1.14 along with: Tony Tost, Maureen Thorson, Lytton Smith, Richard Deming, Cosmo Spinosa, James Meetze, Matt Cozart, Eric Unger, Janaka Stucky, Cody Walker, Katherine Factor, Matt Hart, Buck Downs, and Jim Behrle.

Other poets who have appeared throughout the series...

The Equalizer 1.1  Summer Block, Jim Behrle, Macgregor Card, Mark Bibbins, Emily Anderson, Aaron Belz, Don Share, Cody Walker, Christopher Salerno, Amick Boone, Adam Clay, Buck Downs, Stephanie Anderson, Owen Barker, and CAConrad. (HTMLGiant and Maureen Thorson)

The Equalizer 1.2  Matt Hart's "Write This Today While You Were." (HTMLGiant and Maureen Thorson)

The Equalizer 1.3  Joshua Corey, Stephanie Anderson, Buck Downs, Shanna Compton, Laura Carter, Peter Davis, Alana Dagen, Reb Livingston, Cody Walker, John Cotter, Craig Santos Perez, and Chris Martin. (HTMLGiant and Maureen Thorson)

The Equalizer 1.4  A selection from John Gallaher's Guidebooks. (HTMLGiant and Maureen Thorson)

The Equalizer 1.5  Cynthia Cruz, Reb Livingston, Allison Gauss, Jill Alexander Essbaum, Cody Walker, Buck Downs, Barbara Cully, Peter Davis, Lucas Farrell, Stephanie Anderson, Noah Falck, Carol Fink, Corrine Fitzpatrick, Matt Hart, Maureen Thorson, Amy King, and Chris Martin. (HTMLGiant and Maureen Thorson)

The Equalizer 1.6  Lucas Farrell's "The Dual-Shade of Six-Prong." (HTMLGiant and Maureen Thorson)

The Equalizer 1.7  Whit Griffin, Shafer Hall, Stephanie Anderson, Brian Henry, Amy King, Richard Deming, Chris Martin, Buck Downs, Christopher Salerno, Jennifer Michael Hecht, Matthew Henriksen, Evan Kennedy, James Meetze, Matt Hart, Cody Walker, and Douglas Kearney. (HTMLGiant and Maureen Thorson)

The Equalizer 1.8  Sonnets & sonnots from Nathan Austin, Jo Turner, Ernest Hilbert, Kevin Shea, Samantha Caan, Matt Hart, and Curtis Jensen. (HTMLGiant and Maureen Thorson)

The Equalizer 1.9  Mike Hauser's Samples. (HTMLGiant and Maureen Thorson)

The Equalizer 1.10  Mike Hauser, Buck Downs, Stephanie Anderson, Katherine Factor, Maureen Thorson, James Meetze, Mark Lamoureux, Katy Lederer, Alexis Orgera, Ada Limón, Kristi Maxwell, Cate Peebles, Richard Deming, Carmen Giménez Smith, Matt Hart, and Cody Walker. (HTMLGiant and Maureen Thorson)

The Equalizer 1.11  Evie Shockley's "the cold" (HTMLGiant and Maureen Thorson)

The Equalizer 1.12  Andrew Hughes, Chris Martin, Stephanie Anderson, Buck Downs, Jason Myers, Richard Deming, Morgan Lucas Schuldt, Carmen Giménez Smith, Cody Walker, Christopher Rizzo, Travis Macdonald, Matt Hart, Ravi Shankar, and James Meetze. (HTMLGiant and Maureen Thorson)

The Equalizer 1.13  Henry Gould's Lanthanum 4 (Maureen Thorson)

Pigafetta Circumnavigates again!

Joe Hall is touring behind is gnarly new book, Pigafetta Is My Wife. You might want to go see him read, so you can bring him pieces of gold and not anger his white, bearded conquistador ass:

October 2 – Yes! Reading Series
Albany, NY Albany
Social Justice Center
w/Bernadette Mayer and Travis MacDonald

October 16 - Brickbat Books
Philadelphia, PA
w/Kate Greenstreet and James Belflower

October 30 - So & So Reading Series
Raleigh, NC
w/Rauan Klassnik and Paula Cisewski

November 12 - Barrelhouse Presents at The Black Squirrel
Washington, DC

December 3 - Earshot New York , NY

From the Black Sea comes the Black Ocean

Julie Doxsee is traveling all the way from her home in Istanbul to tour the U.S. behind her book Objects for a Fog Death. Below are the dates & cities. For venue details visit Julie's blog: 

 

27 August 2010 - NYC

28 August 2010 - Boston, MA

29 August 2010 - Northampton, MA

1 September 2010 - Washington DC

2 September 2010 - Richmond, VA

3 September 2010 - Philadelphia, PA

4 September 2010 - Raleigh, NC

9 September 2010 - Chicago, IL

12 September 2010 - Minneapolis, MN

 
She's also done a virtual tour at the following internet venues:

Excellent Centurion

Zachary Schomburg's Scary, No Scary makes the Web 100 list for books:

http://www.web100.com/books-100/poetry/scary-no-scary

Other poets on the list include D.A. Powell (Chronic), C.P. Cavafy (Collected trans. by Daniel Mendelsohn), Lucia Perillo (Inseminating the Elephant), Amy Gerstler (Dearest creature), David Baker (Never-Ending Birds), Heather McHugh (Upgraded to Serious), and Philip Levine (New of the World).

I'd like to take a moment of silence now, to thank God that it is Friday.

Two Black Ocean Poets on West Coast Tour!

Joe Hall is touring behind his new book, Pigafetta Is My Wife, with Black Ocean veteran Rauan Klassnik (Holy Land, 2008). Check out these West Coast dates:


June 27 – Seattle
w/RAUAN KLASSNIK
7 PM / Pilot Books / 219 Broadway E
www.pilotbooksseattle.com/wordpress/

June 29 – Portland
w/RAUAN KLASSNIK
7:30 / 3968 SE Mall St., Apt A
http://ifnotforkidnappoetry.blogspot.com/

July 3 – Eugene
Details TBA

July 6 – San Francisco
w/RAUAN KLASSNIK
7:30 / 99 Books / Books and Bookshelves / 99 Sanchez Street

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.

Black Ocean Open Reading Has Begun!

We are now accepting unsolicited poetry manuscripts for consideration from June 1st through June 30th. For complete guidelines, download the PDF available on our Submit page here.

We charge no reading fees and give everyone a fair read. In exchange we ask that you give us your best work. We also ask that you familiarize yourself with the work we have already published so as not to waste our time and your hope, because, let's be honest--both are in short supply these days...

It also behooves you to pick up a few of our titles for your personal collection because at least a conversational knowledge of two or more of our authors is now considered de rigueur for any cocktail party worth attending. [Also, as a poet, I have to ask: why would you trust us with your beloved manuscript if you don't even know what we publish? Are you that callous and desperate?]

This is an exciting time we live in! What are you waiting for? Let's become very close.

More Interview Goodness!

The newest issue of Boston University's literary journal, Clarion #14, has two short, fun interview in it:

The first is an interview with local poet Ben Mazer, who has two new books out with Dark Sky Book and The Pen & Anvil Press (look for reviews on this blog coming soon). Ben is a great poet and I find there's no such thing as "small talk" with him. Please take a few minutes to check him out.

The second is an interview with yours truly, in which I discuss death, poetry, the death of poetry, altered states, and hitting people in the face.

If you order the print version of the journal, you'll also be treated to creative work by: William Doreski, Janet Butlerm, Alan King, Franz Baskett, Peter Schwartz, Marie Gauthier, Irene Koronas, Zachary Bos, Jenna Dee, Graham Hillard, Jasmine Bailey, Sharron Singleton, Daniel Hudon, J. A. Tyler, Joseph Goosey, Sergio Ortiz, Joseph Dorazio, KJ Hays, Jenny Grassl, Adam Tavel, Samuel Lovett, Erik T. Johnson, Sean Campbell, and Nora Delaney.

Surrealism in Gulf Coast

This five-way conversation recently appeared over at Gulf Coast between Heather Christle, Hannah Gamble, Matthew Rohrer, Zachary Schomburg, and Matthew Zapruder. We're reposting because we love five-ways, and surrealism. Here's the intro below, but you'll have to go to their site to get the full text.

 

"Good Warm Sad Blood Spilling Out in the Forest"

a conversation with Heather Christle, Hannah Gamble, Matthew Rohrer, Zachary Schomburg, and Matthew Zapruder

The following conversation took place over email in the fall of 2009, although, as Matthew Rohrer articulated in a preliminary exchange, we would rather have been together in a hotel conference room eating Chinese takeout. Gulf Coast organized this conversation because it seemed, to us, that a new generation of surrealist- and absurdist-influenced poetry had emerged in the U.S., written by poets ranging from their mid-twenties to mid-forties and rooted in small presses like Wave Books, Black Ocean, and Octopus Books. But what does “surrealism” even mean, in American poetry today? We decided to ask some of the editors and authors associated with these small presses what they thought about the “surrealist” label and their relationship to it.

AWP 2010 Denver Treasure Haul

Books I picked up at AWP this year:

 

Bluets by Maggie Nelson (Wave)
Black Life by Dorothea Lasky (Wave)
My Zorba by Danielle Pafunda (Bloof)
One Neither One by Shane McCrae (Octopus)
The Difficult Farm by Heather Christle (Octopus)
Sleeper's Republic by David Gruber (Astrophil)
Sister by Alyssa Wolf (Cannibal)
The Hours by Matt Hart (Cinemathique)
In a World of Idea, I feel No Particular Loyalty by Adam Clay (Cinemathique)
Team Sad by Emily Kendal Frey & Zachary Schomburg (Cinemathique)
O City by Wayne Miller (Cinemathique)
What Sucks Us In Will Surely Swallow Us Whole by Ada Limon (Cinemathique)
Bee-Stung Aviary by Eric Baus (Further Adventures)
The Plot Genie by Gillian Conoley (Omnidawn)
The French Exit by Elisa Gabbert (Birds, LLC)
The Trees Around by Chris Tonelli (Birds, LLC)

I know some of those books are so 2009 (or earlier) but I was doing some to-do shopping. Damn, that list makes me hot. In another week or so I'll actually get to start reading these...

 

Janaka Stucky wins "Boston's Best Poet"

The Boston Phoenix recently held their annual Best of Boston Reader Poll, and included a category for Best Poet this year--for the first time as far as I can recall. The nominees in that category were:

Sam Cornish
Robert Pinsky
Louise Gluck
Rosanna Warren
Margo Lockwood
Frank Bidart

Then there was a blank spot for write-ins. While I admire the writing of Gluck and Bidart; the community work of Pinsky; and Cornish was even an instructor of mine as an undergraduate at Emerson (and is also Boston's first Poet Laureate), I thought the options were a little tame and predictable. So, I suggested people write me in as an alternative, just to shake things up a little. And guess what--I won.

This is not to say that I think I'm a better poet than all of these candidates; my point was that there are many great poets in Boston that weren't represented on this list--probably because they don't have high profile university affiliations. In a largely transient city many artists come and go, and it's not surprising that more poets don't stay without security in a job that pays decently. I love Boston, and have lived here my entire life--but I can't blame people for giving up on it; it's a tough nut to crack and its peculiar, complex charm takes acquiring.

All that said, this is why winning this category means a lot to me. As someone who grew up literally reading poems in the woods on the shores of Massachusetts; who has walked or driven every major street in this city, at times elated or sad or drunk or stoned and even occasionally lost--and who has spent my adult years reading the Boston Phoenix as a barometer for what's cool, interesting and fun around town--winning their Reader Poll for Boston's Best Poet is a personal landmark, even if I don't think it actually carries much bearing on my poetic talent.

Thanks to those of you who voted. You made my year.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

from the Phoenix:

Best Poet
Janaka Stucky

In stature and talent, imposing. JANAKA STUCKY, who triumphed this category in write-in votes, has lived with junkies, been killed onstage as his Black Cat Burlesque alter-ego J. Cannibal, is a zombie fanatic, founder and managing editor of Black Ocean press, the head of the magazine Handsome, a part-time undertaker, and a poet. Brave Men Press (a very cool, local publishing house) recently put out his chapbook, Your Name Is the Only Freedom. He likes “his whiskey neat and his music dirty,” and his poems are lovely — pre-mortem glances at mortality and connection.

 

Zachary Schomburg is now on tour!

Author of the award-winning and best-selling collections, The Man Suit and Scary, No Scary, is traveling the United States in his special vehicle. Check out the dates:

St. Louis, MO. 4.14. Stirrup Pants. Exploding Swan Night. A poetry collaboration w/Rats and People Motion Picture Orchestra, a sound presentation by David Weinberg, and intermission crooning by Jaffa Aharanov. Time TBA.

Cincinnati, OH. 4.15. 9-10:30 pm. The Comet. w/Michael Hennessey

Bronxville, NY. 4.17. 3:30 pm. Sarah Lawrence Poetry Festival. Also, on a panel about publishing the following day, 4.18.

New York, NY. 4.19. A house party. w/Curtis Jensen. Details TBA

Stockton, NJ. 4.21. Stockton College. Lecture & Discussion about poetry translation. Philadelphia, PA. 4.23. New Philadelphia Poets. w/ Sasha Fletcher. Screening of poem-films. Details TBA.

Cleveland, OH. 4.25. 6:30 pm. Sunday Roast at The Cafe at Arts Collinwood. w/ Michael Dumanis and Eric Morris.

South Bend, IN. 4.28. 6:15-7:15. Notre Dame University. O'Shaughnessy Hall Room 106. w/ Johannes Goransson.

Chicago, IL. 4.29. 5:30 pm. Columbia Poetry Review new issue release party. Ferguson Hall. 600 South Michigan, 1st Floor.

Baton Rouge, LA. 5.4. LSU. Reading/workshop. Judging the MFA poetry manuscript prize.

New Orleans, LA. 5.5. The Goldmine Saloon. Details TBA.

Miami, FL. 5.8. University of Wynwood. Reading/workshop. Gallery Diet. 174 NW 23rd S. Time TBA.

Athens, GA. 5.13. w/Joshua Marie Wilkinson. Details TBA.

Atlanta, GA. 5.14. Eyedrum. Reading followed by a screening of 60 Writers, 60 Places, a film by Luca Dipierro and Michael Kimball. Other reader TBA.

Conway, AR. 5.17 to 6.4. Hendrix College. Poetry Workshop.

Lincoln, NE. 6.12 to 6.18. Nebraska Summer Writer's Conference. Reading and panel.

Special AWP Digest: Books, Glory, Mountains!

Dear Perennial Volcanoes in Bloom,


This is a special digest for those of you who will be attending the AWP Conference this week in Denver. If you won’t be there, then you can stop reading now and accept our apology for posting a handful of kilobytes that aren’t immediately germane to your existence. If you are going, then boldly read on to discover all we have in store for you!

BOOKFAIR:
We will be at the bookfair all day every day in Exhibit Hall A, at table J25. We have some really cool neighbors this year, as was the case last year, so come join the party. I, your humble publisher, will be there for much of each day along with our newest staff member and Associate Editor, A. Minetta Gould. At various times throughout the conference some of our authors will be sitting around as well: Zachary Schomburg, Paula Cisewski, Julie Doxsee, Joe Hall, and Johannes Göransson. Allison Titus, co-editor for our journal Handsome, will also be around. All our books will be offered directly for the special price of $10, and various package deals will be made available. We’ll also be giving away free perfect bound books and handmade & decorated saddle-stitched chaps by Bill Knott to the first 75 people who request them!

READINGS & EVENTS:
The official Black Ocean event takes place on Saturday. I know it’s a lot of presses and readers on the last day of a long week, but look at this lineup! Also, total reading time will be capped to less than two hours, with a new reader every 5-10 minutes and plenty of breaks:

Possess Nothing: a small press event
Plus Gallery, 2501 Larimer Street (near the conference)
Saturday, April 10th, 7:00-10:00 p.m.
“Watch yourself unfold and close-out the AWP week with five presses that walk the path of dispossession. Fourteen readers; 100 minutes; singular enlightenment. Action Books, Apostrophe Books, Black Ocean, Slope Editions and Tarpaulin Sky Press present: Jessica Baran, Crystal Curry, Julie Doxsee, Sandy Florian, Lara Glenum, Johannes Goransson, Joe Hall, Lucy Ives, Paul Foster Johnson, Gordon Massman, Zachary Schomburg, Abraham Smith, Shelly Taylor, Amy Wright.”

Although it’s not a Black Ocean reading, I would be remiss if I didn’t plug this event, which I’ll be reading at in support of my own chapbook published by Brave Men Press. More to the point, I’ll be joined by some really excellent poets, who also happen to be killer readers on stage:

Historic Falcon
Mercury Cafe, 2199 California Street (near the conference)
Thursday, April 8th, 6:30-9:00 p.m.
“You should definitely come to this reading of six small presses: Birds, LLC; Brave Men Press; Harp & Altar; Immaculate Disciples Press; Mississippi Review Poetry Series; and New Issues Press. Poets include: Julia Cohen, Brian Foley, Elisa Gabbert, Kate Greenstreet, Dan Magers, Justin Marks, Linnea Ogden, Christopher Salerno, Kim Gek Lin Short, Sam Starkweather, Janaka Stucky, and Chris Tonelli.”

MISCELLANEOUS:
This conference happens only once a year and it’s really great to meet the people who read our books. Please do stop by our table, even if you own every title we have, and just say hi. The poetry publishing business is a secluded one and any opportunity we have to put faces to the nameless readers is really fulfilling. See you all there!


~Janaka

Do You Like It Scary?

I have some good news and some good news...

The good news is that Scary, No Scary reached all the way up to #2 on Small Press Distribution's Poetry Best Sellers list for January! This is the highest it's climbed since its release last summer.

The good news is that Scary, No Scary also came in at #16 on the Poetry Foundation's Poetry Best Sellers list for the week of February 14th, jumping from #23 the previous week and after having spent nine weeks in the Top 30. This list is compiled from retail sales of all poetry titles nationwide, so we're up against the big guns in the ivory tower, and we're very fortunate to make it onto this list at all--let alone halfway up it.

Thank you all for your continued support and rabid readership! We sacrifice a lot to make this press happen and it feels good to be loved. You're the best; don't let anyone tell you otherwise!

The Huffington Post loves us and so should you

 

Our newest title, Scary, No Scary by Zachary Zachary Schomburg was chosen by the Huffington Post as one of The Year's 9 Best Books From Small Publishers. The other titles that were chosen are:

Some Things That Meant the World To Me by Joshua Mohr (Two Dollar Radio)
A Jello Horse by Matthew Simmons (Publishing Genius)
Gagaku Meat: The Steve Richmond Story by Mike Daily (biography zine)
Everything Was Fine Until Whatever by Chelsea Martin (Future Tense Books)
The Collected Fanzines by Harmony Korine (Drag City)
Big World by Mary Miller (Hobart)
Ever by Blake Butler (Calamari Press) 
Capacity by Theo Ellsworth (Secret Acres)

Kevin Sampsell obviously knows what he's talking about, so I have already started obtaining every book on his list, and so should you. That's right: I said "should." Someone needs to tell you what to read.

I'm dancing beneath a rainbow over here. Join me!

How Did We Do This? Love: Love, Love.

Small Press Distribution has posted their best-selling poetry titles not only of 2009, but also of the decade (the 00's). Much to our surpise and delight, Black Ocean titles made it onto both lists. We've populated a few "best" lists lately, but the nice things about these lists is that they're not subjective or aesthetically exclusionary; they just mean that people love our books! Which people? You people!

Small Press Distribution's Best Selling Poetry 2009
#4: The Man Suit by Zachary Schomburg
#9: Scary, No Scary by Zachary Schomburg
#35: With Deer by Aase Berg (trans. Johannes Göransson)

Small Press Distribution's Poetry Bestsellers, 2000-2009
#27: The Man Suit by Zachary Schomburg


* * *

I started Black Ocean in 2004, having completed grad school I was feeling aimless about where my creative life was going. I was getting published in magazines, but I wanted to do something more—something beyond my own writing—and I wanted to find a way to disseminate poetry by poets who, at the time, were underappreciated and out-of-print. I actually started Black Ocean because I wanted to reprint the early out-of-print work of two of my favorite poets: Bill Knott (Corpse and Beans, Auto-Necrophilia, Nights of Naomi) and Frank Stanford (Singing Knives, Crib Death, You). Of course, to generate enough clout to even pitch these projects I needed a strong starting stable of writers.

I spent about a year and half brainstorming, getting things in order, putting on live events and acquiring manuscripts. In 2006 Black Ocean launched with four simultaneous releases:

Upon Arrival by Paula Cisewski
Please Stay On The Trail ed. by Matt Hudson
Dear Al-Qaeda by Scott Creney
A Useless Window by Carrie Olivia Adams

I showed up at AWP-Austin that year, not knowing anybody, with one surly anti-social author in tow. Carrie had become Black Ocean’s Poetry Editor by that point, and was already my indispensible Right Hand Woman.  By the end of the conference I had sold enough books to cover all the expenses of the trip, and had made a few friends in the process. That’s also where I saw Zachary Schomburg read, and heard his poems for the first time. I solicited his manuscript from him on the spot.

In 2007 we put out one book: The Man Suit. Carrie and Zach and I felt really good about its content and by the time we arrived at AWP, with the book hot off the press, there was substantial buzz for it. We sold out of it at the conference, and the rest of our catalog experienced a lot of attention as well. Later that year, we were floored when the New York Public Library announced that they had chosen it for their list of 25 Books To Remember from 2007 (sharing this list with Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Denis Johnson’s Tree of Smoke, and only two other poets: Margaret Atwood and Robert Hass). By this time the book had already almost sold out of the first print run, so we sped a second printing up on the schedule.

In 2008, still riding the wave of The Man Suit’s success (and still paying off significant debt) we put out one more title: Rauan Klassnik’s Holy Land. Thanks to Ron’s enthusiasm and tireless tour schedule, Holy Land met with a significant amount of acclaim and derision; the perfect cocktail for a classic in the making. That year we also held our first Open Reading period, from which we discovered the work of newcomer Joe Hall, as well as the first poetry manuscript from novelist Joshua Harmon. That year we also acquired Johannes Göransson’s translation of With Deer, by the radical surrealist poet Aase Berg.

We kicked off 2009 by putting out With Deer and Harmon’s Scape concurrently at AWP. Aesthetically they are very different, but they share an intensely original approach to language and Black Ocean readers seem to have glommed on to both titles with equal interest. Also at AWP this year we learned that one of our first authors, Paula Cisewski, had her second book chosen by Franz Wright for the Nightboat Poetry Prize. In August we released Schomburg’s second opus, Scary, No Scary, printing a special limited edition of 200 in our first ever hardcover. In the Spring of 2010 we’ll be publishing Joe Hall’s debut, Pigafetta Is My Wife, as well as Julie Doxsee’s second collection of poems, Objects for a Fog Death. Additionally, we’ll be announcing our selections from the 2009 Open Reading series in a matter of days.

Sprinkled throughout all of this we’ve had two issues of our literary magazine, Handsome, come together, as well as numerous live events featuring visual artists, performers, film screenings and musicians. Six of our titles have enjoyed many course adoptions, and loads of reviewers have shared their love for our books with their readers online and in print. We also launched a totally new website somewhere a while back, and paid off the small business loan that got us started!

Since my original dream to start Black Ocean, Bill Knott has chosen to release his works in PDF form online and Lost Roads has taken a renewed interest in reprinting Stanford’s work. While those seminal goals have not been realized, I feel immensely fortunate and grateful to have achieved so much else in the past five years. I couldn’t have accomplished all this without the passion of our devoted staff, the faith and talent of our authors and contributors, and most importantly the generosity and support of audiences around the world.

Thanks to everyone for such a joyous half-decade. Your love is the fuel!

Love, Janaka

Praise Yah Praise Yeah!

Dear Raucous Revelers of the Poetry Kind,

In celebration of the Zoroastrian-come-Christian birth date for Our Lord and Savior, as well as the Miracle of Hanukkah and the 2009 date for Ashura, Black Ocean will be including a free copy of Rauan Klassnik’s Holy Land with every order off our website, placed between 12am, December 7th, and 12am, January 1st.


What do you need to do to take advantage of this offer? Just go to our online catalog and BUY ANY BOOK AND WE’LL AUTOMATICALLY INCLUDE A FREE COPY OF HOLY LAND. As always, shipping is completely free within the United States. Please note that if you want orders to arrive in time for Christmas you should probably place them no later than December 15th.

You might call this deal crazy. We call it benevolent.

Poetry Win

Today was a great day.

I got a copy in the mail of the latest issue of American Poet (the journal of the Academy of American Poets), that has a small write-up on With Deer in their "Books Noted" section. Excerpt:

"The levels of metaphor here and throughout the book keep the mind working to connect the blood of the world and the groteque quality of feelings."

They also mentioned some other books I've enjoyed recently:

Tuned Droves by Eric Baus (Octopus Books)
Versed by Rae Armantrout (Wesleyan University Press)
Take It by Joshua Beckman (Wave Books)
The King by Rebecca Wolff (W.W. Norton)

Also found out today that our books are featured over at the Chicago Publishers Gallery, located in the Chicago Cultural Center. And that, is super cool.

Lastly, got the PDF proof of my next poem in North American Review. It's strange because that poem was written a while ago, and so different from the new ones that just came out in my chapbook with Brave Men Press. Nonetheless I am glad it's going into print because I feel it's a seminal narrative piece from my years as an undertaker. They were one of the first people to publish me after I finished grad school, so it's kind of fun to have a poem coming out again with them again years later.

Anyway, all this is to say that I'm reminded (during a personally difficult time) of how fortunate I am for the support and interest this little press has received. I'm immensely grateful that all the hard work we put into publishing these books is appreciated and cared for by other people. I'm also grateful for the attention that my own poems get. It means something to mean something to someone else.

You all are so great.