Coming soon: Bowery Women from Bowery Books

This fall, Bowery Books will be releasing an anthology that collects the "signature poems" of many of the women poets who have stormed the stage at the Bowery Poetry Club. Bowery Women is edited by Bob Holman and Marjorie Tesser.

What is your signature poem? This question was posed to 76 women poets who have delighted, inspired, and shocked audiences at New York City’s Bowery Poetry Club. And so was born Bowery Women: Poems, an extraordinary anthology including such national treasures as Anne Waldman, Ana Castillo, Sapphire, and Marie Ponsot, Broadway and HBO Def Poetry Jam veterans, international slam winners, plus a crowd of new talents.*

One poet, one poem, one photo. Each poet offers her greatest hit. In some cases, it is the one poem she’s best known for, in others, it is the one most published or most often requested, and in still others, it’s a personal favorite.

The works range from elegant classical poems with chiseled lines to free-flowing “slam” pieces to experimental forms. The poets, too, are diverse: multi-ethnic, teens to octogenarians, academics to drop-outs, urban to rural.

What emerges is an entertaining, highly readable, challenging, and stimulating survey of (mostly) American women poets writing today.

Bowery Women also contains a study guide composed by the poets themselves, which makes the book a perfect choice for classes and reading groups.

The book is the third in the Bowery Books series, published by the nonprofit Bowery Arts & Science, Ltd., with YBK Publishing. Prior releases were Taylor Mead’s A Simple Country Girl, and The Bowery Bartenders’ Big Book of Poems. Bowery Women will be available through any bookstore, through online booksellers, and at the Bowery Poetry Club, or can be ordered directly from the publisher at www.ybkpublishers.com.

The book will go on sale November 10, 2006, which is also the date of the first launch party (7:00 PM at the Club). Another en masse reading & party is set for December 3 at the Club at 2:00 PM.

* Including yrs truly.