Whatcha been up to? Oh, right, I have a list!

Editor Ivy Alvarez sends a few review snippets re: A Slice of Cherry Pie:

"...an intriguing and accomplished collection, not merely a put-together collage or even a mosaic in words, but a compilation complete and riveting." --Patricia Prime, New Hope International Review

"A kick-ass pieceof work. I loved every poem, I devoured the whole thing at once, I want everyone to read this, whether or not they are Twin Peaks Fans." --Jeannine Hall Gailey

"Thepoems range from very tiny to quite extensive, but all evoke the eerie quality of Lynch's series." --Erik Donald France, Erik's Choice

The US version of the chap is still available from my own Half Empty/Half Full, but going fast. We'll do a second print run if interest warrants, but they'll be stapled, not hand sewn. In the UK or Australia? Ivy can help ya get your slice here.

Who knew David Lynch's Twin Peaks series was so ripe for poetical exploration? Blood Pudding Press has released The Laura Poems by Juliet Cook, available now from the press's Etsy shop. (They've also been added to the sidebar links.)

Josh Hanson releases another PDF of poems called Nightwork, with a cool negative-style image on the cover. He's also using a new-to-me free file-sharing service to host the PDF download, so if you're looking for server space gratis, you might wanna check that out too: Box.net.

Alan King's chapbook Transfer is available via his MySpace page. Says Tim Seibles, "Talk about global warming, people should be worrying about Alan King's new chapbook, Transfer. Desire moves through these pages like a heat wave. Reading these poems took me back to those old "house parties" we had back in Philly: brothas and sistas down in the basement dancin', sweatin', sizzlin' for that sweet connection, but steady tryin' to look cool. Seriously, you feel this book like the first really hot day after a long, long winter. There's a lot of poetry in the world, but not
much of it crunks like Transfer."

Fred Schmalz (no T!) of Swerve writes to say #15 has landed, with art & poetry by Addie Juell, Karin Wraley Barbee, James Grinwis, Brenda Coultas & Brian Engel. Mmmmmmm, slipcovers.

The new issue of Otoliths is out, featuring dozens of poems (both visual and text-based), paintings, & more, plus a cover collage by Michael Rothenberg. (Geeky note: I really like the way editor/publisher Mark Young organizes this online journal modifying the Blogger templates & functionality in a very magazine-y way.)

And speaking of Otoliths, the press's book-publishing arm offers up two new books via Lulu.com (and which will soon also be available via SPD & Amazon):

Dredging for Atlantis by Eileen Tabios This book is Eileen's eleventh print poetry collection (swoon!), and "extends a body of work unique for melding ekphrasis with a transcolonial perspective. Here, she introduces her translation of the painterly technique of scumbling to create poems from other poets' words. From other writers' texts, she also extracts sequences of the hay(na)ku, a poetic form she inaugurated on June 12, 2003 to mark the 105th Anniversary of Philippines' Independence Day from Spain."

the allegrezza ficcione by Mark Young is "a speculative novella about journeys--the contemporary journey of Umberto Allegrezza as he seeks to discover the truth about a legendary journey East from Europe made by an ancestor decades before before Marco Polo. Other journeys are intertwined; the journey made before Tripitaka to bring back the Buddhist sutras to China, the relocation of the Library of Alexandria, the continued existence of the followers of Hassan-i-Sabah. First serialized on the author's blog and now available for the first time in its entirety, the allegrezza ficcione blurs the line between fiction and fact.

Both have been added to the DIY Poetry Lulu shared storefront too.

& last but certainly not least, Eileen Tabios has just published the latest edition of her amazing online review journal Galatea Resurrects. As usual, it is overflowing (60+ reviews!) with words on small press, micropress, and DIY books and chapbooks, including Allen Bramhall on Michael Magee and Rodney Koeneke, Andrea Baker on Aaron McCollough, Susana Gardner on Jessica Smith & muuuuuuuuch more. Of particular interest to DIYers who advocate POD printing is Susana Gardner's reivew of The Bedside Guide to No Tell Motel, wherein she proposes an AWP bookfair challenge: "POD or NOT?" Click and be merry.

WHOOPS! One more I'd made a note of in the last couple of weeks but forgot to add. I just ordered it, which reminds me: get yerself a copy of Tony Robinson's Brief Weather & I Guess a Sort of Vision. now available from Pilot Books. Rock.

Tags: Half Empty/Half Full, Lulu, Otoliths, Private Press, shared storefront