DIY Poetry Publishing Cooperative

The DIY Demos are back

2011-05-31T14:56:00.003-04:00

I moved servers about a month ago but neglected to refresh the location info for the photos in the DIY chapbook demos. I didn't realize people were still using these! (Thanks to everyone who emailed to let me know.)

So, they are now fixed, and are still accessible from the links in the sidebar or...

1. Making your mock book.
2. Layout, part 1. Setting up your layout document.
3. Layout, part 2. Placing your text.
4. Printing & photocopying

These step-by-step demos are all geared toward MSWord users. In Quark or InDesign, the process is essentially the same, except you'd be working with text boxes and "facing pages" in your layout document and possibly working with style sheets to format your text.

I've also gone back and added a "demos" tag so you can find them that way.

Happy chapbooking!

What's up, Chicago?

2009-06-28T11:20:00.002-04:00

A newish collaborative site to answer that burning, eternal question:

Chicago Poetry Calendar Dot Org

The summer lazies...

2009-06-21T10:56:00.005-04:00

...or not really lazies. More like the summer whammies. I've been outta touch, kids, due to a bunch of personal and family biz. Things have calmed down significantly since April/May, and I'm trying to catch up again and stay on top of announcements at the least. But the new content on this here blog has been lacking and may continue to be sparse while I focus on other things (like Bloof).

Which reminds me to say, if you haven't already subscribed to the DIYPPC news feed, you're missing lots! It's a handy way to keep tabs on most of the presses we're tracking here. You can reach it via the dark blue box in the sidebar too, but here's the link.

Stick that in your reader & feel the rush.

May your staplers remain full & jam-free.

The Best of Stain, Volume One

2009-04-11T09:50:00.001-04:00

In the fall of 2008, Janice Brabaw created the music and literary series Stained Glass Confessional in Brooklyn, New York. After nearly forty performers and features in Time Out, New York, the Greenline, the Brooklyn Eagle, AMNY, and the NY Daily News, Janice is proud to announce the release of the chapbook anthology, The Best of Stain, Volume One.

The Best of Stain, Volume One features:

Swapan Basu
Janice Brabaw
Patricia Carragon
Mike Fiorito
Roxanne Hoffman
Valerie Jupe
Laurel Kallen
Nina Karacosta
James Kass
Frank Kelly
Jee Leong Koh
Harry Bentivenga Lichtenstein
NIck Loss-Eaton (Leland Sundries)
Jason Madison
Puma Perl
James Skidmore
Carrie VanDenburg
Darcie VanHamlin
Joe Yoga

Pre-order your copy TODAY. $7 including shipping. This is a limited run so reserve your copy now!

ORDER HERE! PAYPAL ONLY!

Please send check or money orders (made out to Janice Brabaw) to:

Tangled Up In Blue Productions
629 Grand Street
Brooklyn New York 11211

You can also pick up your copy at the BOOK RELEASE PARTY on APRIL 20th at the Stain Bar in Williamsburg @ 766 Grand Street.

This event is also STAINED GLASS CONFESSIONAL 4 which will feature Poets Laurel Kallen, Nina Karacosta, Janice Brabaw, Jessica Reed and musicians Lizzah Lohse, James Skidmore, and Mike Fiorito. Hosted by James Kass!!

Party Starts @ 7 with an open mic, features begin at 8!!

*** Also a special reminder that this MONDAY, April 13th, Stained Glass Confessional Presents

An Echo, A Stain: An evening of poetry at Stain Bar

Hosted by Lawrence E. Soehnel

Featuring Lawrence E. Soehnel, Janice Brabaw, Frank Kelly, Ameliia Terry, and Luis Bernard.

766 Grand Street in Williamsburg. Readings begin at 7:30. Open mic to follow features.

Poets House Showcase

2009-04-04T18:15:00.001-04:00

The only event of its kind, the annual Poets House Showcase is a free exhibit featuring all of the new poetry books and poetry-related texts published in the United States in a single year—with more than 2,000 titles on view (including volumes by individual authors, anthologies, biographies, critical studies, CDs and DVDs) from over 500 commercial, university and independent presses. The Showcase provides writers, readers and publishers with a fascinating vantage point from which to assess publishing and design trends and linguistic, aesthetic and philosophical shifts. Established in 1992 by Executive Director Lee Briccetti, the Showcase reflects Poets House’s mission to make the range of modern poetry available to the public and to stimulate public dialogue on issues of poetry and culture.

Each year, Poets House adds the bibliographic records of all the books exhibited in the Showcase to its free, fully-searchable online database, the Directory of American Poetry Books. With over 20,000 titles, the Directory contains the most comprehensive information about U.S. poetry books and publishers from 1990 through 2008.

The 17th Annual Poets House Showcase
April 4-11, 2009

Opening Reception: Saturday, April 4, 1:00–4:00pm
Exhibit Hours: Saturday, April 4-11, during regular library hours

Catch an eyeful of what's happening in poetry today with this divergent, cacophonous display of all the new poetry and poetry-related books published in the United States in the last year. From micro-press chapbooks to masterworks from major commercial publishers, over 2,000 titles share shelf space for one week.

@ NYPL Jefferson Market Branch
425 Sixth Avenue (at West 10th Street)
For library hours, call (212) 243-4334
Admission free

A CELEBRATION OF THE CHAPBOOK: April 23-25

2009-04-04T07:24:00.002-04:00

From Ana Bozicevic:

Dear Chapbook publisher:

I’m writing you on behalf of The Graduate Center and MFA Programs in Creative Writing of the City University of New York, The Asian American Writers’ Workshop, The Center for Book Arts, and Poetry Society of America to invite you to A Celebration of the Chapbook Festival. The Festival will run from April 23rd-25th in New York City, and feature a two-day Chapbook Fair, the purpose of which will be to showcase innovative new publishers and encourage networking and community-building between publishers, poets and scholars. We would be thrilled and delighted if you could attend.

Here are the details:

1) The Chapbook Fair will take place at the CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, on April 23rd-24th – from 10 AM-6 PM in the The Elebash Recital Hall Lobby of the Graduate Center on Thursday, and from 10 AM-6 PM in Rooms 8301/8304 of the Graduate Center on Friday.

2) You will receive one half of a 6’ table free of charge. Please remember to bring everything you need; the Graduate Center only guarantees you table space and two chairs. You must bring your own table coverings, signage, tools, adhesives, pens, markers, calculators, etc. For e-publishers, you will have wireless access.

3) All publishers will be able to keep the proceeds of their book sales.

Please RSVP via e-mail as soon as possible if you are interested, and note that there is limited space for tables, which will be given out on a first-come, first-serve basis.

For more information about the Festival and a full schedule of events, please see below. We hope you will be able to join us, and look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,

Ana Bozicevic

A CELEBRATION OF THE CHAPBOOK
Thursday April 23rd, 2009 - Saturday April 25th, 2009
A Celebration of the Chapbook festival calls attention to the rich history of the chapbook and highlights its essential place in poetry publishing today as a vehicle for alternative poetry projects and for emerging authors and editors to gain entry into the literary marketplace. The festival will forge a new platform for the study of the chapbook inside and outside the academy and celebrate the importance of chapbooks to America’s cultural heritage and future.

Thursday, April 23
at The Graduate Center, CUNY, 365 Fifth Avenue & 34th St

Chapbook Fair
10:00am-6:00pm, The Elebash Recital Hall Lobby

Brief History of Chapbooks
3:00-4:30pm, The Elebash Recital Hall
With Isaac Gewirtz, Curator of the New York Public Library’s Berg Collection; Eric Lorberer, Editor of Rain Taxi; and Michael Ryan, Director of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library at Columbia University. Moderated by Richard Kaye, Hunter College, CUNY

Chapbooks in the 20th and 21st Centuries
4:30-6:00pm, The Elebash Recital Hall
With Michael Basinski, Assistant Curator of the Poetry/Rare Books Collection of the University Libraries, SUNY at Buffalo; Anne Waldman, Chair and Artistic Director of Naropa University’s Summer Writing Program; and Kevin Young, Emory University. Moderated by Ammiel Alcalay, Queens College, CUNY.

Keynote Reading
6:00pm, The Elebash Recital Hall
Readings by Lytton Smith, Gerald Stern, Judith Vollmer, Kevin Young and others, with an introduction by Kimiko Hahn.

Friday, April 24
at The Graduate Center, CUNY, 365 Fifth Avenue & 34th St

Chapbook Fair
10:00am-6:00pm, Rooms 8301/8304

Chapbook Now: Producing Chapbooks
A Workshop for Poets
10:00-11:30am, Room 8400
With Rachel Levitsky (Belladonna*); Sharon Dolin (The Center for Book Arts); and Ryan Murphy (North Beach Yacht Club). Moderated by Alice Quinn (Poetry Society of America).

Chapbook Now: Producing Chapbooks
A Workshop for Publishers
11:30am-1:00pm, Room 8402
With Jen Benka (Booklyn); Matvei Yankelevich (Ugly Duckling Presse); and Brenda Iijima
(Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs). Moderated by Rob Casper (Poetry Society of America).

To register, call (212) 817-2005 or e-mail abozicevic@gc.cuny.edu – registration is offered on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Friday, April 24
at The Center for Book Arts, 28 West 27th Street, 3rd Floor

Bookmaking for Writers: A Studio Workshop
With Susan Mills and Karen Randall
2:00-5:00pm

Bookmaking for Publishers: A Studio Workshop
With Susan Mills and Karen Randall
2:00-5:00pm

To register, call (212) 481-0295 or e-mail info@centerforbookarts.org – registration is
offered on a first-come, first-serve basis. There's a $20 materials fee for each workshop.

RECEPTION
at The Center for Book Arts, 28 West 27th Street, 3rd Floor
6:00 pm
All are welcome! Visit the exhibitions at The Center for Book Arts: \’fl \:art, text, new media,
Roni Gross: Zitouna at 20, and Spotlight: 2008 Artists-in-Residence.

Saturday, April 25
at The Asian American Writers’ Workshop, 16 West 32nd Street, Suite 10A

Collector’s Show-and-Tell:
The Secret History of Asian American Literature
Patricia Wakida
2:00-3:00pm

Publishing from the Margins
4:30-6:00pm
With Tan Lin; Dawn Lundy Martin (Third Wave Foundation, Black Took Collective); and Bushra Rehman. Moderated by Ken Chen (The Asian American Writers’ Workshop). Followed by a brief reading from the Workshop's Postcard Poetry Project.

RECEPTION
at The Asian American Writers’ Workshop, 16 West 32nd Street, Suite 10A
6:00 pm

Co-sponsored by The Office of Academic Affairs, The Graduate Center and MFA Programs in Creative Writing of the City University of New York, The Asian American Writers’ Workshop, The Center for Book Arts and Poetry Society of America

Participating Publishers
Achiote Press
Belladonna*
Booklyn
Cuneiform Press
Dancing Girl Press
Diagram/New Michigan Press
Flying Guillotine Press
Noemi Press
North Beach Yacht Club
Octopus Books
Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs
Rain Taxi
Sarabande Books
Slapering Hol
Small Fires Press
TinFish Press
Toadlily Press
Ubu Editions
Ugly Duckling Presse
and others

An interview with Michael Schiavo by Lytton Smith...

2009-03-14T10:18:00.005-04:00

...wherein the poets discuss independent bookstores, independent presses, self-publishing, the Espresso Book Machine, and more.

Part 1

Part 2

Order your copy of Schiavo's Mad Song, printed by the Espresso, here. Or stop by Northshire Books, if you're in the area.

Happy New Year from Bloof

2009-01-02T12:33:00.001-05:00

BLOOF BUNDLE SPECIAL: JANUARY 2009

Warsaw Bikini by Sandra Simonds
My Zorba by Danielle Pafunda
For Girls (& Others) by Shanna Compton
Drunk by Noon by Jennifer L. Knox

FREE SHIPPING...plus $5 from each bundle purchase
goes to benefit Poets in Need

That's 4 books for the price of 3, free shipping,
and a charitable cause we can all get behind.
What's not to love? $45.00

If you use Lulu...

2008-11-20T14:44:00.001-05:00

I posted this in the Lulu forums. These charges have gone up since the last book I put out, but cannot be entirely explained by the increase in USPS rates.

Shorter: Poetry books are skinny and light + Lulu's packaging is heavy and mostly empty = Customer pays 37-60% over price of order for cardboard.

I was just testing a newly released book by logging in with a different nonseller ID to see what a customer would be charged.

The shipping + handling on a very lightweight (5 oz.) 80-page poetry book is $5.52 for Media Mail and $7.06-$9.16 for Priority, depending on where I told it to send the book. (Priority is priced by zones.) The price of the book is $15, which means Lulu's shipping + handling adds an additional 37-60% to the total! That's a whopping amount! I couldn't believe it.

There are 2 reasons for this (in my example):

1) In my opinion, Lulu's packaging is excessive. I recently received a single copy of this 80 page book--which weighs 5 oz. on its own--in a large box weighing 14 oz. That means the packaging weighs nearly twice as much as the book! This packaging is the same used for customer orders of 1-2 books. (I know this because I also shop Lulu as a customer).

2) Lulu adds additional handling costs over and above the cost of shipping. Lulu charges $7.06 for Priority shipping + handling of this package. But the postage is only $4.80 as calculated by USPS (using the same addresses/zones).The other $2.26 is for Lulu's handling. For Media Mail, USPS is $2.41, so Lulu is charging $3.11 for handling. Presumably, some of this charge goes to cover shipping materials like boxes and plastic wrap, which brings us back to point #1.

RECOMMENDATION: Lulu should consider reduced packaging for very small/lightweight orders like these! I can't imagine they'd send a single CD in a box this big. The box measures 11.5 x 14 x 1.5 and the book is only 6 x 9 x .185.

The same book could be sent with minimal packaging--a flat cardboard envelope with cardboard sheet and shrink wrap to protect the book, for instance--for even less than that. I mail 5 oz books ordered direct from our website for $1.68 using a sturdy envelope, a DO NOT BEND stamp, and USPS First-Class postage. For Priority orders, I use the FREE flat-rate envelopes provided by the post office and the cost is $4.80 (using the zones in my example).

I understand the need for protective packaging, especially when shipping Media Mail--the carriers don't treat it very nicely. But making Media Mail so expensive defeats the point of it. It's supposed to be discount postage!

Because I buy distribution packages for each of my titles, they are also available via Amazon, B&N, and other online retailers. I checked--and none of these other retailers charge as much as Lulu for shipping and handling. (They *all* use excessive packaging, alas.) For example, Amazon charges customers $3.99 for standard shipping/handling on this book.

A customer's total at Amazon would be $18.99 for standard shipping. At Lulu Marketplace it would be $22.06 for the same item. Where do you think they are going to shop?

I don't know the average size of books published via Lulu, but for thinner/lighter items like this, there badly needs to be an alternative. Most of the books in the Poetry section, and by definition all of the saddle-stapled books and chapbooks, must result in the same inflated charges. Why would a customer want to pay to ship a huge, mostly empty box--particularly in these times of high gas prices and tight wallets? They will go elsewhere, and Lulu sellers (and Lulu itself) will earn less in commissions as a result, even if total sales remain unaffected.

Make some noise if you agree. Lulu been pretty responsive to requests in the past, and maybe they'll consider it. In the meantime, I can't blame my customers for shopping with another retailer and I actually feel *guilty* directing them here just so I can make more.

Preorder special on Warsaw Bikini!

2008-11-02T10:23:00.002-05:00

Sandra Simonds' new book Warsaw Bikini has been finalized and is currently printing. We're pleased to offer a special preorder price of $12 with free shipping to celebrate its release.

Orders should begin shipping on or about November 16, at which time the special offer will expire. (Regular price $15 + shipping).

Get yours at the Bloof store now.

This sale is now over. Thanks for your orders!

Introducing:

2008-10-23T16:58:00.002-04:00

From the editors, Bryan Coffelt & Willie Ziebell:

Rain Fade is interference and degradation of a signal.
Rain Fade is the barrier between words and objects.
Rain Fade is the space between your eye and my eye.
Rain Fade is a new journal of interesting and innovative writing and visual art. We are interested in fiction, non-fiction, poetry, photography, painting, and much more. Send all submissions and inquiries to submissions@rain-fade.com.

Submit to Zero Ducats

2008-09-15T09:28:00.004-04:00

From Scott Alexander Jones:

Zero Ducats, a print journal of fringe poetry comprised of paper entirely dumpstered and pilfered and acquired via freecycle. We will be printing up a few hundred copies on a commandeered letterpress in Boulder, CO this winter. Thus far, we have Linh Dinh, among others, on board, which is exciting:

zeroducats

Please pass the word along to any like-minded poets out there who might be interested in submitting.

Introducing Flarf Beat

2008-09-05T15:36:00.001-04:00

FLARF BEAT!

"Best thought, worst thought"
Vol 1 No 1

Featuring
"A unicorn boner for humanity" by Sharon Mesmer

Your Problems with FLARF

"Mohammad Vs Mesmer"
A review of "Dalek Boner and Steepleflower"
Michael Magee's Latest Apologies
"I Google Myself"

this is it... don't miss your chance to
PARTY WITH THE FLARF POETS!

Get in on the "ground floor" and
write for a free issue:
flarfbeatATgmailDOTcom

Link

Haiku Not Bombs

2008-07-25T12:02:00.003-04:00

The Booklyn Artist Alliance is pleased to announce the publication of Haiku Not Bombs. Haiku Not Bombs is an outgrowth of the haiku year, published by Soft Skull Press in 1998. In 1996, a group of friends made a commitment to write one haiku a day and mail them to each other. At the end of the year, they realized that their collection of simple, critical observations had given them a new way to look at the details of their lives. Original members of the project included Michael Stipe, Grant-Lee Phillips, Tom Gilroy, Jim McKay, Anna Grace and other contributors from diverse artistic backgrounds ranging from pop music and theater to independent film.

In the current incarnation of the haiku year project, several of the project's founding members decided to continue with their haiku practice, inviting new writers to take part in a new collaborative project. The challenge was reduced to writing one haiku poem for every week of the year. The collection of contributors to the current manuscript, include Tom Gilroy, Jim McKay, Grant-Lee Phillips, Denise Siegel, Biskit Roth, Alison Roth, Patrick So, and Shin Yu Pai. The poems in Haiku Not Bombs range from the one-line hokku form and the Filipino hay(na)ku to linked verses (renga) and the loose western style haiku favored by writers like Jack Kerouac and American practitioners of the craft. Some emergent themes include modernity, urban life and the everyday.

About the Authors:

Tom Gilroy lives in New York City where he works in film and theatre. In the last few years he has released the feature film Spring Forward, the books Spring Forward and the haiku year. He currently writes for the political blog The Huffington Post and the comedy revue Wake Up, World, which he created with Lizz Winstead. In the works are the publication of his collected plays and theatre pieces, his new book of haiku Volunteer Geraniums, and principal photography on his new film Bad Muslim.

Jim McKay is a filmmaker, husband, and father. He lives in Brooklyn, USA. His haiku have appeared in the haiku year, Snapshots 12, and Noon.

Shin Yu Pai lives and works in Seattle. She is a poet, photographer, bookmaker, and editor. Her works include Works on Paper, Sightings: Selected Works, The Love Hotel Poems, Unnecessary Roughness, Equivalence, and Ten Thousand Miles of Mountains and Rivers. Visit www.shinyupai.com for more information.

Grant-Lee Phillips is best known as a songwriter and vocalist. The former leader of the seminal '90s group, Grant Lee Buffalo, Phillips continues to garner international acclaim as a solo artist. A resident of Los Angeles, Grant-Lee Phillips enjoys a diverse career which extends to music, acting, film composing, visual art and poetry.

Allison Roth is a graduate student at Cal Poly Pomona, studying the effects of climate change on desert plants. She wrote many of these haiku as a student at Whittier College and as an intern for the National Park Service.

Rick "Biskit" Roth has been a human rights activist for more than 20 years, coordinating a dedicated group of Amnesty International volunteers in Somerville, MA. He also serves on the Board of Directors for Students for a Free Tibet. He is owner of Mirror Image, an award-winning T-shirt screenprinting factory, known for its creative designs and innovative printing techniques. He is the proud father of eight children.

Denise Siegel is an alumni of CalArts. Her one-act play, Where the Chips Fall, was produced by Theater Unlimited. Her novel Americhrist won an editor's choice award at the SDSU Writer's Conference and is currently in the quarterfinals for the 14th Annual Writer's Network Screenplay & Fiction Competition. Denise's visual art is currently represented by Gallery 825 in Los Angeles.

Patrick So is a man of science, a lover of the arts, and a student of life. He lives in New York City.

Get your copy from Booklyn here.

More on Small Presses & Amazon

2008-07-25T11:12:00.001-04:00

However, there's a price for entering such a spectacular marketplace; one so steep that it could be argued that all the economic advantage goes to Amazon alone. The standard fee for small presses working through the Advantage programme is a staggering 55% of a book's cover price. In addition, publishers are also responsible for the cost of shipping their books to Amazon warehouses. This puts these publishers in the horrible position of having access to arguably the best book distribution system ever devised, while being charged so much for the privilege that it becomes difficult to impossible for them to make any money.

This 55% charge comes on top of the considerably higher production costs smaller houses face in comparison to larger houses (who also have the power to negotiate lower fees from Amazon). The rice structure of the book printing industry usually rewards high volume jobs, which means that since small publishers on average print far fewer books they are charged much more per book than their larger counterparts. So between these printing and shipping costs and the high fees, it's possible in some cases for small publishers to actually lose money when working through Amazon.

Bootstrap News: Small Press Fair in Lowell, MA

2008-07-19T17:04:00.003-04:00

The word from Derek Fenner and Ryan Gallagher of Bootstrap Productions
:

This year, Lowell will be hosting the first ever annual Massachusetts Poetry Festival from October 10th - 11th. [Get in touch with them at bootstrapproductions[at]gmail[dot]com for the .pdf factsheet.]

The reason we are writing you is to invite you to participate in the small press fair. There will be no fee—we have made sure that the festival factored in the cost of renting an art gallery downtown and covered the cost of tables and chairs. You will keep 100% of what you sell.

Why do we think it will be successful?

The organizers of this festival have remained committed to showing the diversity of the art of poetry. Represented and given equal weight alongside of "established" academic poets from college campuses will be a strong representation from experimental literature, literature in translation, slam / performance poetry, and a diversity of cultures. Though this is impossible to achieve with perfection--the festival has made this a priority. Bootstrap has been asked to have a major role in bringing in "headline readers", plan events, and (which is why we are writing to you) to plan the small press fair and related panel discussions.

The Small Press Fair: When we were first asked to be a part of this festival, we expressed our idea that in order for this to really "work" that we should highlight small press publishing and show its importance to the craft of poetry—without a small press culture, there is no sustainable poetics.

The goal is to reach out and draw in a sizable crowd--one which will hopefully support poetry by buying books. We'd like to think that Lowell could become a Columbus Day destination every year--you come and sell books and hang out in Kerouac's city in the middle of a New England autumn. The city will also be covered with poetry as public art and should be a visual treat.

But this can't happen without some help from you—to add some legitimacy to this event.

If you are interested?

Please contact us as soon as possible. The Book Fair and related panels will take place all day on Saturday, October 11th.

We will also keep you in contact of events as they arise and are booked--and can help with suggestions if you choose to stay in downtown Lowell for one or two of the nights--The Doubletree is a great hotel, very affordable, right at the heart of all the events in downtown--only a stones throw away from Kerouac Park--has nice views of the city, canals, the Merrimack River (immortalized by both Kerouac and Thoreau) and the New Hampshire hills. Drive about an hour in any direction from Lowell and you could end up in Boston, Providence, the beginning of Cape Cod, Salem MA, Gloucester MA, The New Hampshire and Maine Coasts, the Appalachian trail in New Hampshire (great hiking), the Berkshires, Walden Pond--the list goes on....

More… about Lowell & the Mass Poetry Festival:

Lowell already has a strong literary tradition to build from, and since Lowell received status as a Historic National Park over 25 years ago, the city has focused effort and funding to promote itself as a historic and cultural destination. As part of the milieu of a revitalized downtown, the largest and (we would argue) most successful free music and ethnic Folk Festival in the country, as well as the rich cultural history represented with its population—Lowell will begin hosting what we hope will be a successful and energetic Poetry Festival every year.

Members of the planning committee are drawing off of prior experience as well as contacts and institutional organizations that have made Lowell a great place to hold Festivals: i.e. The Lowell Folk Festival, Cultural Organization of Lowell (COOL), The Revolving Museum, and UMass Lowell are just a few of the organizations involved in planning and (just as importantly) in securing funding.

Printing Poetry @ the Arm: July 12 & 19

2008-07-01T11:58:00.005-04:00

I pinged this via the Member News feed the other day,* but in case you missed it there, here's the scoop from Kyle Schlesinger:

PRINTING POETRY: A Workshop for Poets and Visual Artists at The Arm Letterpress Studio

On July 12th and 19th, Dan Morris and I will be teaching a two-day letterpress workshop together at The Arm Letterpress Studio in Brooklyn, NY. You'll learn the basics of typography, composition and have the opportunity to print a broadside that features your own text and image on the Vandercook proof press. Come alone or with a collaborator. No previous experience necessary. All materials provided. More details available here. The Arm is a young, grassroots organization for poets, artists, and aspiring printers located near the G and L trains in Williamsburg.

Awesome, no?

Kyle also notes that "the Arm also has presses available for rent (lowest price in town) should you wish to come in for the day and do your own thing." They also offer one-on-one instruction if you're new to letterpress (or even if you're not--machines are different and usually have unique, shall we say, personalities.)

And peek at their Flickr stream for pics of the presses, the gallery, and past events.

* If you're not subscribed to the DIY Member News Feed or regularly checking the dark blue sidebar to your right, you are missing most of the news on this here blog. Hint hint!

Participate in Boog City’s 5th Annual Small, Small Press Fair

2008-06-27T13:25:00.000-04:00

Exhibit at Boog City’s 5th Annual Small, Small Press Fair
(with Indie Records and Crafts, too)

Sat. Sept. 20, 11:00 a.m.-8:00 p.m.

at day 3 of the 2nd annual
Welcome to Boog City poetry and music festival
(complete fest info below)

Cakeshop
152 Ludlow St.
NYC

$15 for a table

The first 2.5 hours, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m. will feature performances by authors from the tabling presses
(exact amount of time per press TBD when the number of exhibiting presses is set)

Door charge for attendees is $5

email editor@boogcity.com or call 212-842-BOOG (2664)
to reserve your table today

Featuring nonstop performances throughout the day

with readings from

Jen Benka
Todd Colby
Ryan Eckes
Elise Ficarra
Eric Gelsinger
Stephanie Gray
David Hadbawnik
Bill Kushner
Douglas Manson
Kristianne Meal
Sharon Mesmer
Carol Mirakove
Kathryn Pringle
Maureen Thorson
Magdalena Zurawski

and music from

A Brief View of the Hudson
Double Deuce
Heart Parts
Phoebe Kreutz

And much much more. Get in touch with David for more info:

Boog City editor David Kirschenbaum
212-842-BOOG (2664) * editor@boogcity.com

Spudnik Press: Printmaking & book arts in Chicago

2008-06-21T09:39:00.002-04:00

Spudnik Press is a comprehensive cooperative artist studio dedicated to encouraging new talent in fine art printmaking in an alternative art space. Open to all levels of printmakers, Spudnik Press provides common studio space capable of printing traditional as well as photographic litho, relief, and silkscreen prints. Additionally, Spudnik Press fosters a greater public awareness and understanding of prints and art-making in general by offering demonstrations, workshop, critiques, and gallery shows.

No site feed that I can find, so bookmark their site & check back frequently, or join their mailing list here.

And if you're in the area, catch the Poetry & Prints #2 Show, June 27:

An informal reading meets an informal print show
Saturday June 27, 2008 at 7:30 PM

Poetry and Prints #2 will feature the poetry of 3 east coast writers, each of whom is a small press editor/publisher, and all of whose presses remain important satellites of the small press community. Click here for more info about these three writers, Dana Ward, Jess Mynes, and Michael Carr.

Their work will be presented alongside a smattering of work printed at Spudnik Press during the first year of Spudnik Press’ existence.

Ahem.

2008-06-17T23:59:00.003-04:00

(because some things can never be too Internet-hailed. go Ye. fill your hands.)

New! Scrambler Press

2008-06-17T12:11:00.004-04:00

Rarer and More Wonderful
Poetry by Trevor Calvert

Price: $14.00
Shipping: $1.50 (USA)

6" x 9" Paperback book
76 pages

ISBN: 978-0-6152-1398-2

I don't know who/what/why about this press (thanks to Reb for the tip on her blog). But I hope they install a blog or some kind of RSS for news so I can add them to the DIY feed. Anyway, see the Scrambler Press website for ordering info.

Amazon disables Buy Now buttons in the UK

2008-06-16T08:42:00.002-04:00

“Amazon seems each year to go from one publisher to another, making increasing demands in order to achieve richer terms at our expense and sometimes at yours,” Mr. Hutchinson said in the letter. “If this continued, it would not be long before Amazon got virtually all of the revenue that is presently shared between author, publisher, retailer, printer and other parties.”

Read the rest. [Sigh.]

Reb Livingtson at Very Like a Whale

2008-05-01T13:28:00.003-04:00

I already put this in the aggregate feed in the sidebar (to which you've subscribed, no?), but it's so good, I think I'll also cajole you again from here.

Link.

Congratulations to our friends at Ugly Duckling Presse

2008-04-29T08:43:00.002-04:00

Huzzah! Not only did Ugly Duckling's recent release Complete Minimal Poems by Aram Saroyan win the Poetry Society of America's William Carlos William Award judged by Ron Silliman, it's also been reviewed favorably in the New York Times Book Review.

Get your copy here.

Brief word from Lulu

2008-04-01T18:49:00.006-04:00

In that same forum (link in yesterday's post, I'm too busy to go get it for ya and you have to be a Lulu user anyway):

"We would like to assure our users that Lulu continues to have a strong relationship with Amazon..com. As a result, the recent changes Amazon.com has announced should not adversely affect Lulu content listed within Amazon.com in any way.

Regards,
Adam"

Outta here!

UPDATE 4/2 6:00 AM: Publishers Weekly reports Ingram's response to Amazon's policy and open letter here. Most of the article simply summarizes the open letter, but here is the gist of what Ingram is saying:

In his statement, John Ingram said that while “the questions that are being raised about Amazon.com and its Booksurge division don't directly relate to Ingram - either Lightning Source Inc. or Ingram Book Group - it clearly is alarming many of our publisher partners.” According to John Ingram, “publishers are telling us they feel Amazon.com’s actions are not appropriate.” John Ingram’s statement adds that the company has been unable to get a direct response from Amazon about its pod shift.

“We all live in a world where decisions are made about insourcing and outsourcing, and free choice is important,” the statement continues. “At Ingram Book and Lightning Source, we are going to work really hard to continue to be the compelling choice as publishers make their outsourcing decisions. Our breadth of distribution channels including the online retailers remains the same, and Ingram still provides one day turnaround in the fulfillment of orders for books including print on demand titles.”

And Ingram's POD division Lightning Source has apparently issued the following statement to its customers:

Dear Customer,

Lightning Source has been following the recent press coverage and discussions about Amazon.com and BookSurge. We are aware of the concern this is causing the publishing community. The issue centers around Amazon.com tying the availability of your books and terms of sale at Amazon.com to the production of books at the Amazon.com subsidiary BookSurge, specifically requiring you to use BookSurge in order to sell on Amazon.

Like you, we are very concerned about any conduct that would serve to limit a publishers choice in supply chain partners and to negatively impact the cost of your products to consumers. We believe that choice and selection of best of class services are critical to the long term success of publishers and a vibrant book market.

Lightning Source continues to provide the highest quality digital on demand print and distribution services for every one of our customers. All your titles continue to be available to all of our channel partners, including Amazon.com, with immediate availability for shipment within 24 hours.

We are committed to providing you with the best of class quality product and fastest distribution service in the market, and will continually work to develop new channels and new offerings.

Lightning Source will continue to monitor this situation and let you know when we have more information.
Please feel free to call your Lightning Source point of contact, if you have any additional questions.

So...Ingram's saying Amazon can still order from them the way they have been. Lulu (whose books on Amazon are currently supplied by Ingram) is saying there will be no affect on Lulu customers. But unless Amazon modifies its policy to specify certain POD books, not all POD books, all three cannot be companies cannot be correct, and we have what looks like an impasse but is probably just a logical blackhole created by the PR. [speculation] Since Lulu and Ingram seem to either be resisting or compromising with Amazon, I am *guessing* that Amazon will, in effect, modify its policy (perhaps without stating that they are doing so); it would make sense for them to continue to order Lulu, Lightning Source & other non-BookSurge POD titles that are doing well for them. Otherwise they stand to lose revenue and their place as the "we've got everything" retailer. The POD titles that are not selling well for Amazon will continue to be deactivated unless the publishers (micro, small or self-) comply with the BookSurge requirement. This will probably hurt self publishers the most.[/end speculation]

As I sort of vaguely pointed out in the "In practical terms" post, switching to the Amazon Advantage program is being touted by Amazon as an alternative to adding BookSurge for Amazon availability. But the publisher of my first poetry book used that--it was a new press using traditional offset printing and did not qualify for a contract with Ingram, Consortium, or other distributors/wholesalers (which have annual sales/volume requirements a new small press can't meet). The publisher sent 5 books at a time to Amazon, which reordered as necessary. The resulting lag time between reorder and fulfillment meant my book was often "out of stock--more on the way" much of the time. (Which is primarily why I bought a bunch of copies and started selling it myself on my website.) How do out-of-stock books better serve Amazon's customers? Beats me.

In practical terms...

2008-04-01T07:20:00.004-04:00

I thought it might be useful to show how Amazon's new requirements for POD books (see yesterday's post) will affect some small presses, using my own press as an example. (I realize not every reader of this blog gives a hoot about POD and retail distribution, but a lot of us micropresses and individual self-publishers use these services, so bear with me.)

My press uses Lulu.com for convenience and value. I could have the books printed more economically--I'd still be using a digital short-run printer to do it--but Lulu's distribution packages include the purchase of an ISBN, database listings for Books-in-Print (without which nobody knows the book exists), and availability via Ingram to physical and online bookstores, including Amazon. Lulu also offers online store space at Lulu.com (though personally I don't emphasize it, preferring to encourage people to buy directly from my press). In addition, with my Lulu account, I get a dashboard where I can maintain all my book files, and keep up with sales reports broken down by channel. That's one-stop shopping for me. Extremely convenient.

With Lulu, I get bulk discounts on the per-copy cost--the more books I order, the cheaper they are. I pay an additional flat fee per title of $99.95 for the ISBN, listings, and distribution network access. (Until recently in fact, this flat fee was on sale for more than a year at $50.00, so I took advantage of that. Periodically Lulu offers special bulk discount rates on top of their already discounted rates, and I take advantage of those when I can.)

Working with Lulu this way means I can release a book for less than $100 up front. It ends up costing me more than that up front because I order proof copies, author copies, review copies, and some stock to fill direct orders. (That's when I take advantage of the bulk order discounted rates.) Still, compared to buying a full print run from another digital short run printer (forget offset--a press as small as mine would be nuts to try to afford that), I'm paying less out of pocket up front--and eliminating any risk that I will have unsold or returned copies on my hands down the road. I'm also eliminating the potential cost of damaged copies, and saving quite a bit on shipping, since there aren't boxes and boxes of books being trucked from printing facility to warehouse. Once I place this order, the distribution network channels--Lulu's store, Ingram's customers-- take care of the rest. When a bookstore orders from Ingram, I do nothing. I just log in to view my reports on my Lulu dashboard, and each quarter they send me a check. When a customer orders from Amazon, same thing. I make less Ingram these sales than I do on Lulu.com sales, and I make the most on direct sales that I fill myself. Because I emphasize direct sales, I am able to clear quite a bit more than I would do otherwise.

Remember, we're talking relatively more here. This is still book publishing. I can't afford to pay myself a salary yet, but I can reasonably hope to recoup the cost of purchasing my bulk order as well as the cost of mailing supplies and postage associated with publicity mailings, etc. (2 out of 4 of the books I have released have already hit this threshhold, and I may get to pay myself a pittance after all in 2008.) Like many micropresses, I'm pretty happy to break even, thrilled if I earn beyond that. If I'm shrewd about how I promote the books (the spring tour is going to end up costing me only $200 out of pocket for instance, but that's another show!) I can potentially not only break even but generate enough sales to become profitable. (Again, note that I did not say "rich.") That puts me squarely in the DIY realm of doing this because I love it. While it may sound more like a passion or a hobby than a profession, thanks to the distribution reach and presence I'm able to create with Lulu's service, my books are just as available as Random House's (where I used to work). You can even get them outside the US.

Choosing this model allows me, so far at least, to be a staff of one sitting in my home office. And I have a nonpublishing day job. Compare that to the wages of 10 full timers, a couple of part-timers and a gaggle of interns we used to maintain at Soft Skull Press (where I also used to work), plus the expense of renting office space and paying associated utilities, etc., and you can easily see the how value and convenience make this a good option for me. If I were publishing something other than poetry the volume of sales might be too much for this pared-down scenario. If I had to spend much more time actively chasing down payment for orders, processing returns, coordinating with warehouses, etc. I'd not have time for my day job. Which means I couldn't afford to run the press at all.

On an 80 p. poetry book sold directly by the press, I can clear anywhere from $9 to $12 dollars, depending on how much of a discount I got on my bulk order and whether the customer is a bookstore or an individual. (That's how I can afford to do buy-two specials, etc.) I clear $7 on books sold through Lulu's store, which takes a commission in this case. I get $3.50 on books sold through Ingram, which supplies bookstores...and until this new policy goes into effect, Amazon. This amount reflects not only Lulu's commission, but Ingram's distribution commission and the retailer's cut of the cover price.

Additionally, on every book sold, I pay my authors a 7% royalty on the cover price. That's $1.05 on a $15.00 book. That means with my current set-up, the press retains a little less than $2.50 on Amazon and bookstore orders processed by Ingram.

You can see where this is headed, yes? My press currently makes $2.50 per book sold on Amazon. Amazon will (reportedly) be taking %48 of the cover price. Since there will be no additional Lulu or Ingram commissions on these sales, that translates to $7.80 (52% of the cover), minus the author's royalty of $1.05: $6.75. That's more than I make now on Amazon sales, but less than I make in any other way. But that doesn't take into account the $50 set-up fee per title. This is where it gets a little fuzzy and will affect every POD-based press a little differently.

$50 a year per title may not seem like much--except all that gets you is availability at Amazon, the channel where you make the least money. Even if you stand to make a bit more on Amazon sales, if your press doesn't do enough Amazon sales to reach whatever your total set-up cost will be (determined by how many titles you want to put into their system at $50 a pop), you're just paying more and not earning more. What this means for different sized and differently structured presses will vary. A lot of presses use Lightning Source in a manner similar to how I use Lulu. They print their in-house stock with them and then buy a distribution package to make additional sales possible through Ingram to bookstores. If a small press focuses exclusively on Amazon--through their Amazon Advantage program or as a Marketplace seller, for example--this could be an OK deal for them if they can consolidate digital printing with Amazon availability. My press can't give up Ingram--college course adoptions and bookstore sales for readings are too important. (See yesterday's post; these are two big factors that apply particularly to POETRY.)

I think the real sticking point is this: before this new policy, Amazon availability was already a benefit of distribution via Ingram. I was the press, Lulu was the printer, Ingram was the distributor, and Amazon the retailer. Amazon is changing the terms of the relationship. Amazon, unlike retailers and distributors in the rest of the industry, is taking itself out of an integrated network and creating a closed loop. Because they can. And presses have to pay to play.

My press make the least money at Amazon already, and Amazon doesn't count for the majority of my sales. While my calculations above show that I could clear a better margin per sale with Amazon, running the numbers that way doesn't accurately reflect what I'm getting for <$50 and 48% x number of sales>. For my press, and probably for many others, when I project how many sales I'm likely to do via Amazon, the value of the "service" goes down. If--and as of this morning there's still no word from Lulu--Amazon's new policy affects my press, I will have to decide whether or not to pony up. Even if it's not worth it financially, finances are not my only concern. What will my authors think if they are no longer available on Amazon?

I'm leaving in the morning on the book tour, and won't have much time to think about this (yay!) while I'm away. But when I get back and see how things have shaken out, I'll probably be removing all Amazon links from the press site and encouraging customers to avoid them, even if my books remain available. In my house we've instituted an Amazon ban. I already didn't buy books from them unless I had to, but my husband shopped with them quite a bit, for both book and nonbook things. Not anymore.

There's a petition here. I never really know if those things are effective, but it might make you feel better.

Do not panic...yet.

2008-03-31T08:36:00.019-04:00

Publishers Weekly reports that Amazon is forcing some POD services to either use their printer (BookSurge) or else.

Apparently Amazon is approaching some publishers who sell POD books via Amazon.com to tell them that if they do not make their books available via BookSurge, Amazon's POD arm, they will be deactivated, i.e. have their buy buttons turned off. What this potentially means is that publishers who use POD printers other than BookSurge will have to either 1) replace their current printers with BookSurge (not likely for many, see next paragraph), or 2) add BookSurge as an additional printer in order to remain available via Amazon.com (more likely). (I have *not* seen any reports that Amazon is demanding that publishers use *exclusively* BookSurge. If anyone else has, please point!)

In order to reach bookstores, many publishers use Lightning Source, which is owned by Ingram, the largest book wholesaler in the US. Lulu.com's distribution packages include integration with Ingram/Lightning Source, for example. Using Lightning Source and Ingram makes books available to bookstores beyond Amazon, both physical and online. So I can't imagine current Lightning Source customers dropping Lightning Source totally in favor of BookSurge. Amazon is not the only sales outlet. In fact, most POD publishers emphasize direct sales, because the profits are better. (Reminder: Buy directly from the press whenever possible! Also good options: independent bookstores & SPD.)

I can imagine publishers adding BookSurge as an additional printer to retain their Amazon buy buttons however. Amazon may not be their only sales outlet, but it's important enough that publishers and their authors will not want to lose it. Adding BookSurge as an additional printer will be a pain for preses though, and more expensive. Honestly, the last thing small presses need is another entity taking a cut. Angela Hoy of WritersWeekly.com and several posters in the Lulu forums (linked below) have also suggested that the design specifications for BookSurge are different than for Lightning Source. If that's true, conversion to or addition of BookSurge as a printer would mean redesigning headaches and the hassle and expense of creating and maintaining more than one file. (POD books are typically uploaded as PDF files.)

It's worth noting that Amazon has already made similar moves with ebooks (now that they have Kindle) and will probably do it with digital audio too--they *just* bought Audible. Because I don't work with those formats I know a lot less about the options and haven't really kept up, but Amazon's behemoth size and growing tentacles probably scare the bejeebus out of their competitors. This doesn't *quite* add up to monopoly, however. Amazon may be able to control how POD books sold via Amazon.com are printed, but as long as other retail alternatives exist, they can't insist that BookSurge be any publisher's exclusive printer.

As for how this will affect DIYers who use Lulu--it might not? Lulu has yet to issue any statement, but report that customers can expect one "early this week." (Here is the forum to watch, but please note that much of what is there right now is *speculation* and has not come from Lulu.) Lulu already works with BookSurge, at least for some titles with distro packages. So Lulu may not be affected in the same way as companies like Publish America (whose books have already been deactivated in the Amazon system) that do/will not work with BookSurge. In other words, Lulu seems to already comply or be making plans to comply with Amazon's new requirements.

Why is Amazon doing this? Because from their perspective, not only will mandatory BookSurge printing increase profits, it will, admittedly, be more efficient for them and their customers. Amazon will have to decide whether the ill will generated in the publishing/writing community is worth it. Can they afford to piss off Ingram by poaching Lightning Source business? If they endanger Lightning Source will the trade publishers who use Ingram to distribute their books and Lightning Source to print their POD backlists step in? Amazon surely can't afford to take on the entire trade publishing industry, can they?

But I think some small presses may have to choose between being sold on Amazon.com and being available via Ingram. This is bad news, for independent bookstores (again), small presses, their authors, and BookSurge's POD competitors.

I'll post further developments to the DIY News feed as I see them, but I'll be out of town for the next couple of weeks on the Bloof tour, so you might also wanna keep an eye on the PW front page here. And if you're a DIYer who uses a POD service *other* than Lulu and have more news, please do share.

UPDATE 3:00 PM: Aaron Shepard's Publishing Blog has more

UPDATE 3:45 PM: This article has a little more detail, including what Amazon is offering as alternatives. Basically a pay-to-play option. Considering that a Lulu-based poetry press makes--for example--about $3.50 on $15.00 for an 80 p. poetry book sold through Amazon as it is, this "alternative" is as unfeasible as paying as two sets of printer fees.

UPDATE 3:50 PM: Amazon is listening. Er, reading. Multiple amazon.com visitors have already stopped by to read this post today via blogsearch.google.com (using search terms "Amazon" and "Booksurge"). So if you got something to say, sound off on your blogs. Can't hurt.

UPDATE 7:00 PM: Amazon has posted an open letter. However, all it does is confirm that yes they are requiring POD publishers to use BookSurge in order to remain directly available (i.e. not from Marketplace sellers) on Amazon.com. They mention the Advantage program, but do not go into details about what it will cost. They also do not mention that they will be taking 48%* of the cover price, nor admit that this percentage is on top of the $50 setup fee**, per title. So what I said above is still the case: publishers are being asked to either use 2 different POD channels--one for distribution through Amazon, and one for distribution everywhere else--or forgo one in favor of the other if the double fees are not affordable. They're banking (literally) on the idea that having your (you authors, you presses) books appear at Amazon is more important than having them available in other retail outlets. (And can I just mention that as poets, college course adoptions and college bookstore orders in conjunction with teaching and speaking gigs are muy importante. Guess where they usually get their books? Yep, Ingram.) The usual bookstore cut is 40% of the cover price. Amazon can claim (and they likely will, when/if they get specific) that the additional 8% is analogous to the commission taken by Lulu and other POD services. That might be technically true--I'd need more info about volume discounts, if any, through BookSurge to tell--but it's not going to fool any publishers who suddenly have to pay double fees to get their books distributed in "global" retail channels. Is it? (* **Note: The 48% and $50 figures have been quoted by affected POD publishers in several different forums I've read today; I repeat the figures here confident that they are correct, but without having verified them myself. My press has no direct relationship with Amazon at this time; our books are made available to Amazon via Lightning Source/Ingram by way of a Lulu distro package. No word yet from Lulu--supposedly Amazon's deadline to comply is tomorrow, April 1.)

I know these thoughts are a bit scattered, and I apologize if they are less clearly organized than usual. I'm packing and cleaning and doing laundry to get ready for my trip and it's either post on the fly like this or not at all.

6 books for $40: a pre-pub deal from Faux

2008-03-28T10:26:00.003-04:00

Faux Press publisher Jack Kimball announces a pre-order special on the new crop of chapbooks from Faux Press.

For $40 plus shipping you'll get:
The Pill Book by Jeni Olin
Orizaba: A Voyage with Hart Crane by Stacy Szymaszek
Odes by Alan Davies
Pathologies by Jack Kimball
(Soma)tic Midge by CAConrad
Subsistence Equipment by Brenda Iijima

They're also available separately. More info on each here.

Also available individually from SPD.

On small press poetry publishing

2008-03-23T16:55:00.002-04:00

Johannes Göransson of Action Books answers some of his students' questions on his blog.

Elsewhere: What is your book cover trying to tell us

2008-03-20T09:29:00.016-04:00

Gary Sullivan has spent the last few days looking at poetry book design on his blog Elsewhere, examining some of the cliches and conventions of covers. Something for DIYers to consider, since many of us do the designing ourselves.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

A few related posts on other blogs:

K. Silem Mohammad at Lime Tree

Elisa Gabbert at Pshares

Peter Davis at Hitler's Mustache & again (NB: I love Peter's cover, as well as the book it wraps.)

Clay Banes at Eyeball Hatred

François Luong at Voices in the Utter Dark

I'm sure I've missed some? And check out this cool assembly of small press book covers pulled together by C. E. Putnam (from which the image above is clipped, gracias).

In addition to a bunch of the same things mentioned by these folks--especially the Big Game stuff, Katie Degentesh's The Anger Scale from Combo Books, James Meetze's designs for Tougher Disguises--here are a few covers I think work particularly well:

That's Johannes Göransson's A new quarantine will take my place, from Apostrophe. (NB: Dear Apostrophers, that link to JG's book page is ~~broken!~~ working now.) At their book table at AWP, I immediately gravitated toward this anti-design cover. The bold, flat ground with tiny abstract-looking black graphics is compelling, and interesting because it fails to observe any of the rules. Soon you realize the abstract markings on the front cover are actually the negative spaces which would be enclosed by the letters of the title, if the title were not the same color as the ground, i.e. invisible. The title does appear conventionally on the spine, and in mirror image on the back. You can also see (via that link above) that this second book from Apostrophe bears some visual relation to their first book, Catherine Meng's Tonight's the Night. Both books feature the title in/around the center of the book on a solid ground, with the author's name at the bottom. So there's some coherence, without them being identical. More on this idea below. (Also, the ghosting/repetition of Meng's title has a kind of tremelo or reverb effect that's interesting in light of the book's Neil Young connection, but that's a bonus for people who already know that.)

I'm already revealing a personal preference, no? A bold, flat, graphic style--a little pop, a lot mid-century mod, a palette of primaries or brights, "clean" designs with lots of space. (Well, that's one kind of thing I like.) Another example: I've always really liked the look of Toner by Ron Silliman. Annoyingly, there's not a single jpg of it anywhere on the internet. (WTF?!) It's a flat red-orange ground with TONER in yellow about a third of the way down, a pyramid of yellow dots (like a rack of billiard balls, but just 6 in a 1, 2, 3 formation) and his name in yellow below. The back is flat yellow with red-orange type. (Potes & Poets.)

Update: Ron comments to offer this jpg (thanks!), says he designed this one himself (cool), and explains that what I called billiard balls is the low-toner symbol from some copy machines. (Never seen that myself--the copiers I've wrestled just say it in lame prose. Heh.)

These next two are by Jeff Clark, a.k.a. Quemadura, already mentioned several times in the posts and comment streams above.

(So, yeah, I'm a fan, as I'm sure I've mentioned here or on my main blog before. I think Quemadura designs sometimes overuse italics tho. And Clark has a distinctive style--maybe too distinctive? His designs are recognizably his, sometimes to the point of distracting from the press branding or inherent book identity--the book sometimes feels more like a Jeff Clark product than that of the press or the author. Am I making sense? There's no denying that the books are beautifully done, and individually they are knockouts.)

Anyway, what I like about these John Clare books is first that they work well together as a set (though they are sold separately). The paperback design (I haven't actually seen in person the hardcover shown here) takes the classic "portrait painting of a dead author" convention and infuses it with with contemporary feeling, by using halftone screening and clever cropping. At the spine, the portrait wraps and continues without the screening (so as it appears on the hardcover) after a "violator" bar containing the spine copy. I don't have a shot, but that puts a seductive slice of the poet's face on the spine--most of an eye, his handsome nose and slightly parted lips. Spines are usually so spare--mainly because poetry books are so thin. On the back, a bare hint of hair, facial contour and half an eye peeks in from the edge. Even though the portrait itself is very lovely, the usual treatment of slapping it centered on the cover would have placed this paperback square in boring dead-author territory. This would be hard to repeat, however. Or rather, too easy to repeat.

Which brings me to my next point. I go back and forth on the "series design" idea for much the same reason I sometimes find the Quemadura "house style" a little distracting. The uniformity of the City Lights pocket books, the textured & uncoated Black Sparrow covers, or the New Direction B&W covers work as a branding device for sure--very effective. The templates are hot, but the resulting coherence tends to overemphasize the press identity rather than say anything about the books/authors themselves, to my mind. This is less important with reprints than with first editions--so for the Penguin Classics or Everyman's Library, etc.--this kind of thing seems fine. It also works fine for Vintage (under the direction of Chip Kidd?) on their Black Lizard crime novel series and other stuff like the Philip K. Dick catalog. One of my favorite series: these old-school Penguins, yum.

I can think of at least one instance where the poet & poems come through, being supported rather than muted by a series design. David Trinidad's books from Turtle Point: Hand Over Heart, Answer Song, Plasticville, etc. They share certain elements--poppy colors, stripes, an op-art kind of flatness. Unfortunately I can't find a pic of Hand Over Heart or find my copy in this mess right now--but it's black with a hot pink heart and some stripes if I remember correctly. Even his new book, The Late Show incorporates some stripes, while moving away from the flat graphics to a sketchier, warmer style:

My favorite book designer is Charlie Orr. Of course, he's one of my very best friends and a huge influence on my own design sensibility, so I'm plenty biased! I should post a bunch of Charlie's designs, but it will have to wait for another post. I've dawdled here long enough today.

What are your favorites?

New at Big Game!

2008-03-09T23:38:00.003-04:00

Tiny as ever and back after some time in hibernation: TINYSIDES!

Featuring work by:
Sam Amadon
Carrie Jerrell
Jess Rowan
Erin M. Bertram
Betsy Fagin

Introducing: Maverick Duck Press

2008-03-06T18:08:00.003-05:00

Somehow I totally missed an email from Maverick Duck publisher Kendall A. Bell in the madness before the new feed was installed. (Thanks for the friendly reminder!) Let me make it up to you all by telling you about this press, which has now been added to the sidebar.

The most recent release is Chariots of Flame by J. Michael Wahlgren.

J. Michael Wahlgren's Chariots of Flame is like a ripe berry: there's a lot of juice packed into such a small package. The variety of poems in the chapbook is astonishing. Wahlgren is equally adept at the short poem, as in "Notes," and the longer lines of "Arms." Read in one sitting the collection ebbs and flows smoothly, but you could be forgiven for stopping and chewing some of the meatier poems. "Is it safe to say I lost my way" begins one of those, entitled "August Deluge." But Wahlgren doesn't lose his way. His small collection moves like a speed-drunk road trip. And when he reaches the end with the powerful "Contradiction" you understand that the journey has been a spiritual quest, like all speed-drunk trips. "I write/as a way to behave," Wahlgren says, and I can't remember a more succinct reason for the quest.
--Corey Mesler, author of Some Identity Problems

Also coming soon...Lauren Reynolds' Worshipfully and other poems (March 2008), and an as-yet untitled chap by Caitlin Crowley (April 2008).

Bell also edits the companion online journal Chantarelle's Notebook.

2008-03-04T04:11:00.005-05:00

I'm puzzling over an odd vein of DIY at the sparkly new WordPress version of looktouchblog, where you pay $6/year to read "protected" posts. Jessica Smith on her new policy:

This price was arrived at by considering the blog as a piece of writing similar to a chapbook. Chapbooks cost around $5. Etsy, WordPress and Paypal all charge administrative fees, so there is cost for “materials” (although the materials are, in this case, immaterial) as well as the (more typical) cost of reading a body of work– in this case a very large body of work.

Oh, I'm puzzling.

In terms of an electronic text functioning in place of a physical one, I can see "selling" one's blog, a living e-book of sorts, a new do-it-yourself option for the doers themselves. But, really, a blog for sale? And, more so, the sale of personal posts in addition to creative ones?

I guess I'm curious what other bloggers & poets & DIYers are thinking about this, because I know you're thinking about it too.

2008-03-02T18:25:00.004-05:00

There's a New Bigbridge online and I love Bigbridge.

There's a New Octopus out and I love Octopus.

There's also a Cultural Society Update

Free online barcode generator for DIYers

2008-03-02T12:47:00.002-05:00

Why pay a service to generate your ISBN barcodes when Judah Milgram's online generator will help you out for free?

Not only is the price right, but there's no wait. You get the eps file instantly.

I've used it a few times now and it works perfectly.

Link

NB: You'll still have to apply for ISBN batches first, if you don't use a printing/distro service that sells you individual ones.

A link has also been added to the resources in the sidebar.

What to Wear During an Orange Alert interviews Reb Livingston

2008-02-28T08:59:00.004-05:00

I believe every "serious" poet should, in some way, assist and cultivate other poets. Poetry is a gift economy, nobody is making much/any money off her work. Some make livings teaching or editing at mid-sized to large publishing houses, sometimes poets get paid to speak, most make their living (or the bulk of it) doing something completely unrelated to poetry. Almost nobody is surviving on royalties and poetry book sales. So one must remember that every publication, every invitation to read, every review -- those are all gifts. Do you want to be the asshole who shows up to every Christmas empty-handed and leaves with a bag full of presents? I don't. I pride myself in being a completely different kind of asshole.You don't need much or any money to support other poets. It's easy to request free review copies and once you write a few reviews,review copies show up in your mailbox almost like magic. One doesn't need money to start a reading series in the community. One can spend very little money (or even do it for free) starting an online magazine. And with print-on-demand technology or other DIY means, one can publish a book for a few hundred dollars -- and in regard to POD, that includes an ISBN and distribution (i.e. you're available on Amazon, orderable in bookstores, etc.). One can discuss and promote other poets and books on her blog, speaking at conferences, during her own readings -- there's all kinds of ways to contribute back to the general poetry community. One's greatest gift is her time, energy and passion.

Read the rest.

New from Kitchen Press: Out of Light by Joseph Massey

2008-02-23T06:31:00.003-05:00

Yet another chapbook from Joe Massey, this time with our friends at Kitchen Press. Did that sound like disappointment? Because it wasn't. I just need coffee. But even uncaffeinated, I successfully PayPal-ed my way to a copy. Rock.

Out of Light by Joseph Massey
Published by Kitchen Press
35 pages
Saddle-stitched
$7.00

Cover design by Scott Pierce
Layout by Justin Marks
Fashion consultant: Meridith Rohana

CLICK HERE to order.

I read Out of Light straight through (rare for a book of poems) when it arrived late yesterday: and again (rarer still) this morning; focusing different facets of the prisms. The echo I felt was a memory of the pleasure of beginning Merrill Gilfillan's Magpie Rising--dispassionate language that shares a passionate view. That I was driven to learn more of the history, geography and politics of Humboldt County is a bonus. With this collection Massey has removed the last traces of clutter and lets emotion dance to nature. --Tom Raworth

Don’t call it a comeback! Because Massey’s been here for years! And he’s close to my age! He was writing to Ginsberg when I was copying Nirvana lyrics down. So the poems are already well-seasoned poetically and experientially. What makes these poems stay with the reader? They don’t quite let you relax. And they don’t simply exhibit skilled craft, tho they are skilled craft. If a poem is a little machine made out of words, like William Carlos Williams said, Massey’s poems are among the most reliable nerve stimulators. Starkly cut images sometimes as scary as the opening cuts in Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And it all has to work on the level of nerves, otherwise we’re just weaving pleasantries together. The emotion is facilitated not through sentiment but in the actual athletic feat of making a poem out of words. And making it so that it sticks to the brain. And there’s paradox, as in the dude’s professed predilection for an after-human world, or what could be misinterpreted as misanthropy, that is always undercut by what is really the raw stuff of human (mammalian) experience. Perception is always the most effective sharpening tool, and the poems in Out of Light expose the reader to true hugeness and intimacy. Poems condensed on the expressway to your skull. --Mike Hauser

For those familiar with Joe Massey’s work, Out of Light should continue to impress with a particular eye, and an equally particular ear, for the sensual or sensate. If it is true that the observer always alters the observed through the very act of measure, then Massey has certainly made an art of such alterations through the singular event of the poem. “No ideas / but in things,” Williams might say, but this no longer suffices. “A thrust of // things— / a world— / words—// crush / against / the margin of you” says Massey, and throughout this collection of exacting poems one is apt to experience a tension between how the poet’s world acts upon him, and how the poet acts upon his world, wherein the consequence of every act is measure itself. In Out of Light, there are no ideas but in such interactivity, an interactivity that bespeaks Joe Massey speaking. For those unfamiliar with his work, you will want to listen. And for those familiar with his work, you will want to listen—again. And again. --Christopher Rizzo

"Your poetry is like a bramble in my anus. And not in a good way." --Anonymous

"how the light/ makes do." All things contend with the weather, improvise a spar, feint around the canopy. And smudged. Smudged light and things are peripheral, overcast. "what/ sun/ a web/ snags." A next sense is sought and held to augment the washed-out other five -- something like a synaesthesia, underneath a bridge. --Buck Downs

In Out of Light, Joseph Massey pries open words with his 24 karat ear to expose a startling landscape where, “tree frogs // alliterate the dark,” where the moon is “mistaken for a cloud.” Massey directs light with a masterly precision in order to break open that gorgeous darkness that is our world— isolation, silence— and then a hummingbird shows up. And then the red bark of a tree, kelp, sea foam. And then the face, your face, “turned back by wind." And you see yourself in the landscape and it is no longer lonely, but as bright as the crystals inside a geode. --Sandra Simonds

E-X-C-H-A-N-G-E-V-A-L-U-E-S: The Second XV Interviews

2008-02-15T08:46:00.004-05:00

I think this was already picked up in the new announcement feed, but this project is worth special mention.

E-X-C-H-A-N-G-E-V-A-L-U-E-S collects in printed form the second round of interviews from Tom Beckett's always fascinating interview blog of the same name. In addition to the interviews, poems, visual poetry, and a play by the interviewees have been included in the printed anthology. Many of the contributors are publishers, as well as poets, and discuss the whys and wherefores of making books.

Interviews with Mark Young, Michael Heller, Bob Grumman, Shanna Compton, Sandy McIntosh, Jim McCrary, Gary Sullivan, A.L. Nielsen, Michael Farrell, CAConrad, Anny Ballardini, Denise Duhamel, Nick Carbó, Jack Kimball, Geoffrey Young & Jordan Stempleman, plus more than 100 pages of text & visual poetry, an essay, & even a play. The interviewers this time around are Tom Beckett, Thomas Fink, Richard Lopez & Geof Huth.

Otoliths is publishing via Lulu, so the book is available here.

The first volume (also terrific!) is available here.

New press: Interbirth Books

2008-02-15T08:39:00.004-05:00

From the editor:

I am pleased to announce the launch of Interbirth Books' website. Interbirth Books is a small press dedicated to producing hand-crafted books of poetry, prose, and visual art. By visiting the website, you can learn more about Interbirth Books and purchase our inaugural title, David Hadbawnik's Ovid in Exile.

Also, beginning in February, Interbirth will be presenting a monthly poem, work of prose, or image from authors and artists whose work I admire. I hope that you will take a moment to enjoy the creative efforts of those authors and artists who will share their work with us.

New mag: Cannot Exist

2008-02-15T08:21:00.003-05:00

Announcing the first issue of CANNOT EXIST
a quarterly magazine of poetry
edited by Andy Gricevich

Published February 1st, 2008

with 50 pages of staggeringly good writing by

Rick Burkhardt
Arielle Guy
Rob Halpern
Roberto Harrison
Lisa Jarnot
Kent Johnson
Laura Sims
Rodrigo Toscano

$4.00

Saddle-stapled with hand-stamped card covers,
with outside cover featuring mind-bending artwork by Benjamin Grosser.

Submissions are open for the second issue.

Visit the website for guidelines, subscriptions
and ordering info.

Resurrection Party: new from Hex Presse

2008-02-15T08:18:00.002-05:00

stamped green (eds)
Originally uploaded by mdetorie

RESURRECTION PARTY

poems by Michalle Gould
chapbook now available from Hex Presse

The first chapbook from Hex Presse!

*Double-bound in 1.) cold-pressed watercolor paper hand stamped on
both sides with archival ink and 2.) vellum
*outer cover has cutouts to reveal inner cover image and press mark.
*numbered edition of 100
*author's edition (#s 1-60) is all black and white
*editor's edition (shown here, #s 61-100) has colored vellum and is
stamped with colored ink inside.
*Printed on 100% recycled paper
*Due to the nature of the handmade binding, each chapbook is entirely unique.
*additional pictures of the chapbook are available here

A new press...

2008-02-15T07:45:00.001-05:00

And they're seeking chapbook manuscripts.

The Dusie Kollektive is live

2008-02-10T16:09:00.000-05:00

I've added Susana Gardner's personal blog to the DIY news feed in the sidebar as well, since it's the best place to pick up announcements about Dusie's issues and books. Logan Ryan Smith's Transmission Press has also been added to the feed.

But I want to call attention to the new issue of Dusie here in a post, too, because it contains an incredible wealth of new poetry--60 electronic chapbooks!

As a participant in this year's Kollektiv chapbook exchange, I've had the pleasure of seeing most of these chaps in their printed forms. I haven't quite gotten to them all--some still await opening-- and some already tempt me to revisit.

Now everyone can enjoy them.

Added to the new feed

2008-02-07T15:00:00.001-05:00

OK, I've finished going through the sidebar presses and added everything I could to the feed:

achiote press
Belladonna Books
BlazeVOX
Blood Pudding Press
bloof books: news
Bootstrap News
Center for Book Arts news
Cracked Slab Books - MySpace Blog
Cuneiform Press
dancing girl press news
dbqplist
Dos Press Chapbook Series
Fewer & Further Press
g o n g
Hex Presse
horse less press
hOt whiskey blog
House Press
Katalanché Press Chapbooks
Kitchen Press Chapbooks
Lame House Press
Meritage Press (via Eileen Tabios's Angelic Poker blog)
MiPOesias Blogisimo
Otoliths Books (via Mark Young's Gamma Ways blog)
Pavement Saw Press
pilot poetry
Pinch Pinch Press
Press Press Press
Rope-a-Dope
Rose Metal Press
shadowbox press
sona web / sona books
Stray Dog Press
SWITCHBACK BOOKS
TRANSMISSION PRESS

If your press is not on this list, it's because I couldn't find a feed for it. If you've got a feed I've missed, email me or post it in the comments box below. Also, if you post announcements some other place than your press site--like on your personal blog--and that has a feed, let me know.

The sidebar window will show the latest 30 updates or you can click READ MORE. You may also subscribe to the full feed here.

Feed vs. Facebook

2008-02-07T11:59:00.000-05:00

It's really bugging me (still, again) that we can't keep up with the constant stream of announcements re: new releases, readings, articles and interviews. So I've been pondering a couple of different ways to automate the process for DIY cooperative presses.

The first thing I considered was making an editor from each press a blog administrator. But I believe there is a numerical limit that we'd exceed. Also, we'd then have to set forth some kind of posting guidelines about formatting, frequency, etc.

The second solution I considered was creating a Facebook group, and leaving that "open" so that anyone could post links, announcements, email the group members, etc. While this is still a very attractive option, the drawback is that it would only be accessible to those with Facebook accounts. Though they're free to set up, I hesitate to ask anyone who is not already a Facebook user to open yet another account. Also, nonusers could not stumble across the group via a Google search--a point of entry that accounts for a good bit of traffic here.

The third possible solution would be to install an aggregate feed, which would gather the latest posts from all member sites for display on this site--in some kind of sidebar box or above the top post. (This would probably replace the Press Press Press window, which doesn't really work the way I wanted it to, and Press Press Press would anyway be included).

Any other suggestions? I think I'll play around with the feed and see what I can do. I would LOVE to see the announcements kept up to date, and that would alleviate our blog-guilt enough to spend more time writing original reviews/articles/interviews and posting relevant links to reviews/articles/interviews found elsewhere.

I've also received a couple of queries about a listserv via which DIY producers could talk shop. Maybe a supplemental Facebook group or Google group would be good for that, but somebody else would need to be available to moderate it!

UPDATE: So I've installed a feed window and am adding member pages to our subscription list--see right. Unfortunately, your site must have a feed in order to be included in this new system. If you're already using Blogger, you should be fine. If not, consider integrating a feed for your news page! (It's fairly simple to integrate Blogger into a site hosted on a private domain. I do this for my own blog & the Bloof blog. Blogger Help offers instructions here. Trust me, you'll love it if you update your news page frequently.)

Just in case you don't already visit daily...

2008-02-07T11:46:00.001-05:00

...stop by Ron Silliman's blog to peruse his answers to a Poetry Foundation questionnaire on the state of the art, which include several astute observations about industrial vs. small-scale, self- and DIY-publishing:

The consequence is that there are more active poets now than ever, but that the total addressable market for any given book of poems is likely to be much smaller. The trade presses have acknowledged this by largely abandoning the publication of poetry altogether, because for most the economics are not there to support the infrastructure required for a major trade publication.

And the role of the self-published book, the commercial object with perhaps the least prestige of all, has been important to poetry in the U.S. from Whitman to the web editions of today. But try to get Ingram to distribute your little chapbook. The book industry is exactly that, and its relationship to poetry is counter-intuitive at best. The days when major publishers brought out poetry as a “loss leader” (or because some poet might turn into a profitable novelist) are almost entirely behind us. The number of trade publishers who even touch poetry are so few, and their collective aesthetics so very narrow, that they have largely relegated themselves to irrelevance.

Lots more good stuff to ponder.

Part 1
Part 2

Essay Press

2008-02-02T11:15:00.000-05:00

READING

Kristin Prevallet, Jenny Boully, & Carla Harryman

Saturday, February 2, 3:00 p.m.

Unnameable Books, Brooklyn

456 Bergen Street, Brooklyn
(Steps from the Bergen St. 2, 3 trains)
718/ 789-1534

Catherine Taylor
Editor
Essay Press
www.essaypress.org

Action Books

2008-02-02T11:09:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year! We at Action Books have two pieces of news to announce: first of all,

1. Four extremely exciting new Action Books are now available (all on sale at www.actionbooks.org).
Many special deals are on our website--please check it out.

2. Brand new Action Books poets Abe Smith and Brent Hendricks will give a reading from their books on Wednesday, Jan 30th in Brooklyn. For details, scroll to bottom of the screen.

The Skinny on the New Books:

Thaumatrope by Brent Hendricks (illustrations by Lisa Hargon-Smith)

"Dear Reader: This wonderful book you hold in your hands (are those your hands?)
holds your fortune." —Gillian Conoley

"Ante up. Brent Hendricks's Thaumatrope works like an ideogram thrown by a cardsharp, a decapitated allegory set in "the golden age of little bars."" —Daniel Tiffany

Port Trakl by Jaime Luis Huenun (translated from Spanish by Daniel Borzutzky)

"In these recent poems—published in 2001 in Chile— Huenún invents a setting influenced by Melville's vivid scenarios, Coleridge's languid morbidity, and George Trakl's silences and darkening seas. Borzutzky's English version is as haunted, brooding, and terrific as the original." — Forrest Gander

Mommy Must Be a Fountain of Feathers by Kim Hyesoon (translated from Korean by Don Mee Choi)

"...by far the most imaginative poet in Korea today" —Bruce Fulton

"Kim's animals, like her implicit human subjects, exist within a "book of pain," victims of violence from without and within. Bodies fail to protect, and there is no protection from bodies themselves […] These dark allegories are beautifully rendered by Don Mee Choi, herself a fine poet." —Susan Schultz

whim man mammon by Abraham Smith

"If Frank Stanford got up from the dead to slam (and slammed to win), what he would say might well resemble the poems in whim man mammon." —Graham Foust

"Mash Gertrude Stein with agrarian folk and you have the unholy matrimony of Abraham Smith's debut, whim man mammon."
—Cathy Park Hong

Details on the Smith/Hendricks Reading:
8 p.m., Jan 30th
Pacific Standard
82 Fourth Avenue (between St. Marks and Bergen Street)
4 Fab Poets: Susan Brennan; Aracelis Girmay author of Teeth, Curbstone Press; Brent Hendricks; and Abraham Smith, author of Whim Man Mammon, Action Books will read at the cozy, Pacific Standard, Brooklyn Microbrew Pub. Beer, wine, snacks, couches, books! Everything a writer needs!! www.pacificstandardbrooklyn.com

Fence Books

2008-02-02T11:06:00.000-05:00

Every day in February is a good day to submit your manuscript to the 2009 Fence
Modern Poets Series.

Please visit http://fence.fenceportal.org/contest/fmps.html to download
guidelines and required entry form.

If you get lost, keep in mind that our new Portal page http://www.fenceportal.org
is the pathway to all things Fence and Fence Books.

Blood Pudding Press

2008-02-02T11:03:00.001-05:00

NEW CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Blood Pudding Press to publish ECTOPLASMIC NECROPOLIS in April 2008.

Submissions are being accepted from January 20th-March 20th 2008.

Blood Pudding Press will be accepting submissions for its next one-off, multi-writer project from January 20th through March 20th 2008. The new magazine will be published in April 2008 and will serve as an evil sister to [GROWLING SOFTLY], which was published in October 2007. The new magazine will be called ECTOPLASMIC NECROPOLIS.

Blood Pudding Press specializes in poetry and artsy little misfit offerings, so preference will indeed be devoted to poetry submissions. However, in addition to poetry, I will also be willing to consider poetic flash fiction, hybrids, collaborations, poetic blog excerpts/journal entries/dream blurbs, short poetic essays, and poetry chapbook reviews.

You may familiarize yourself with Blood Pudding Press sensibilities by reading any of the press’s previously released materials (information is available via the Blood Pudding blog--the materials themselves are available via the Blood Pudding Etsy shop), but here are a few little hints as to what the editor does and does not tend to adore.

WE DON’T WANT YOUR BLAND VANILLA SNACK PACK PUDDING.

WE WANT WEIRDLY BLENDED BLOOD PUDDING UP IN HERE.

THINK OF LIVE BOMBS PLANTED IN INNOCENT CREAM PUFFS.

THINK OF METASTASIZING EVIL TWINS.

No previously published in other print or online magazines, but posted on a personal blog is okay. Simultaneous submissions are fine; just promptly inform if any of your submitted pieces are accepted elsewhere. An extensive cover letter is not necessary, but a brief introduction would be appreciated. If you’re someone who has a tendency to bitch at editors who reject your poems, then please don’t bother submitting to Blood Pudding Press. I will have to reject some quality work because it doesn’t suit my particular sensibilities and that’s the way it is. If you think your material might be a delicious fit for my sensibilities, then please submit 3-5 pieces (not one piece; not six pieces) to JulietX@Bust.com either in the body or as one attachment and include a brief bio note. Feel free to let me know if you have queries. I will be accepting material
from 15-30 different writers—and each accepted contributor will receive one complimentary copy of ECTOPLASMIC NECROPOLIS.

Let the fermentation begin.

***

In other oozing Blood Pudding Press news:

~Planchette, the spooky new poetry chapbook by Juliet Cook, is still available
here: www.BloodPuddingPress.etsy.com

~You may read Hippomancy, a sample poem from this chapbook in the literary magazine blossombones here.

~wing’d, the creaturific new poetry chapbook by Kyle Simonsen is coming from Blood Pudding Press next month! Yum!

BEST OF THE MICROPRESSES @ AWP

2008-01-30T06:36:00.000-05:00

Note: this post may be updated over the next couple of days, as we finish going through our inbox, and hear of other events via flyers (always a DIY favorite, no?) or word of mouth.

In some cases, these events overlap, or are too far apart to reasonably expect to attend consecutively without a teleporter. Two travel tips: 1) always expect it to take longer than it should, and 2) when in doubt, ask a local. Check the MTA site for a map of the subway system. That'll be the most economical and fastest (trust me) way to get around. Buy a $20 Metrocard to share with a pal or two (not an unlimited, which will only swipe once every 20 mins) for the best value. It'd be a shame to limit yourself to Manhattan only. Brooklyn rocks!

AND I've heard at least a dozen micropressers and DIYers say they'll be carrying books/chaps/swag with them in bookbags, since not everybody can get into the conference itself. So keep your eyes peeled & ask 'em to show you their stuff! (I'll be a walking bookstore myself--hawking copies of Bloof's Drunk by Noon, A Gringo Like Me, For Girls (& Others) from my tote--special event price $10 each!--& bestowing limited advance copies of My Zorba on potential reviewers. Danielle Pafunda will also have copies of My Zorba in her bag to show off/give to reviewers.)

WEDNESDAY, January 30

8:00 PM in the East Village (Manhattan)

Jen Hofer & Daniel Machlin
The Poetry Project at St. Marks Church
131 E. 10th St.

Cost: All events are $8, $7 for students and seniors, $5 for members

DIY tip: These poets have books and chapbooks out from Ugly Duckling, Action Books, Dusie, and others, and Dan Machlin is the founding editor of Futurepoem Books. The Project hosts tons of NYC's best poetry readings and is must for historical reasons. Also, it's just down the street from St. Marks Books, a neighborhood favorite since the late '70s. St. Marks has impressive poetry and journal selections, as well as a couple of racks of DIY consignment stuff in the back.

8:00 PM in Park Slope (Brooklyn)

Pacific Standard
82 Fourth Avenue
(between St. Marks and Bergen Street)

4 Fab Poets: Susan Brennan, Aracelis Girmay (Curbstone Press),
Brent Hendricks, & Abraham Smith (Action Books)

DIY tip: Pacific Standard features a terrific selection of microbrews. List here.

THURSDAY, January 31

7:00 PM in Greenpoint (Brooklyn)

Steal This Reading: A Brooklyn Book Burning

w/ C.D. Wright, Eleni Sikelianos, Graham Foust,
Joyelle McSweeney, Joshua Marie Wilkinson,
Julie Doxsee, Max Winter, Adam Clay,
Zachary Schomburg, Morgan Lucas Schuldt,
Lily Brown, Rauan Klassnik, Cindy Savett,
Jon Thompson, Melanie Hubbard
& music by Walter Baker

Doors 7 PM, $6
@ East Coast Aliens
216 Franklin Street
btwn. Green & Huron

DIY tip: Hosted by Black Ocean, Cannibal Books, Free Verse Editions, Kitchen Press, Octopus, Tarpaulin Sky Press & Typo! A guaranteed chance to come home with a bagful of chaps. Plus, there's a party after:

Steal This Reading after party featuring DJ Janaka Stucky
just blocks away from East Cost Aliens

11:30 pm –3:30 am
@ Red Star
37 Greenpoint Ave.
corner of Greenpoint & West

FRIDAY, February 1

7:00 PM in the East Village (Manhattan)

Off-Site Switchback and Friends Reading

Switchback Books, Sarabande Books,
Red Morning Press, & Red Hen Press

Ivy Alvarez, Thomas Heise, Peggy Munson (via DVD!),
Liz Bradfield, Brandi Homan, Sean Norton, Jason Bredle,
Charles Hood, Eva Saulitis, Nickole Brown, Cate Marvin,
Mónica de la Torre, Simone Muench, & Caroline Noble Whitbeck

11th St Bar
510 E. 11st St.
(between Avenues A & B)

8:00 PM in Williamsburg (Brooklyn)

MICROPRESS POETRY PAGEANT
featuring Bloof Books, Coconut Books & No Tell Books

Who will be crowned Miss Micropress 2008? The audience decides.
Satin sashes, ridiculous talents, thought-provoking interviews.
And tiaras! Free book raffle! FREE admission!

Hugh Behm-Steinberg, Shanna Compton (judge), Bruce Covey (judge),
Jill Alexander Essbaum, Shafer Hall, Jennifer L. Knox,
Sueyeun Juliette Lee, Reb Livingston (host), Danielle Pafunda,
PF Potvin & Ravi Shankar (judge)

STAIN BAR
766 Grand Street
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
(L TRAIN to Grand Street, 1 block West)
Doors open at 7:30. Show starts at 8:00.

DIY tip: Williamsburg is one of the easiest Brooklyn neighborhoods to reach from Manhattan--just hop on any of the many trains headed for Union Square, then transfer to the Brooklyn-bound L train for a straight shot to Williamsburg. The Stain Bar is a very cool place, owned by novelist Krista Madsen. They've got great beers and wines, plus those big soft pretzels. As a bonus, Maureen Thorson of Big Game Books and Stan Apps of Insert Press are coming along and will probably bring some of their chaps as well. And hey, at least it's not a marathon reading.

8:00 PM in SoHo (Manhattan)

POETRY AT PABLO'S BIRTHDAY GALLERY
526 Canal Street

Daniel Borzutzky, Sandy Florian, Johannes Göransson,
Paul Foster Johnson, Kimberly Lyons, Robert Strong,
Amy Wright & Jake Adam York

DIY tip: A shindig by Apostrophe Books, Action Books, Elixir Press & Instance Press. This venue is new to me, but it's in a cool section of SoHo, a scenic formerly-artists-now-ritzy-retail neighborhood with many bars, restaurants, and art galleries.

SATURDAY, February 2

3:00 PM in Park Slope/Fort Greene (Brooklyn)

Carla Harryman, Kristin Prevallet & Jenny Boully
Unnameable Books
456 Bergen St.
2 or 3 to Bergen Street, or B, Q, D, M or R to Atlantic/Pacific

DIY tip: Unnameable is a super bookstore, run by Adam Tobin. A friendly place with a great selection of new and used books, it's also in a cool area of Brooklyn, on the border between Park Slope and Fort Greene. If you're sick of the bookfair, maybe hit the Brooklyn Museum or Prospect Park before/after, if the weather's decent, or take in a movie at BAM.

6:00 PM in the East Village (Manhattan)

CANNIBAL
Jimmy’s No. 43 Stage
43 East 7th Street
(between 2nd & 3rd Ave)

Phil Cordelli, Jeff Encke, Andrew Hughes, Melanie Hubbard,
Ben Mazer & Bronwen Tate

DIY tip: Matt & Katy Henriksen make Cannibal by hand, and it's always full of good stuff. Hot-off-the-presses copies of Ben Mazer's The Foundations of Poetry Mathematics and Melanie Hubbard's Gilbi Winco Swags will also available.

++++++++++++++++++&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&++++++++++++++++++

MICROPRESS HIGHLIGHTS FROM @ AWP BOOKFAIR

OK, so this is harder than I thought. I'm not finding many table # announcements, but a lot of general "come visit us at the bookfair" exhortations. So folks will definitely be in there, somewhere. Feel free to leave your info in the comment box below and I'll add it as I can.

DIY tip: As the bookfair goes on, usually a good number of the booths and tables are abandoned, and smaller presses often move in, squatter style. So by Saturday you may find many adhoc displays. It's one of the best things about the event, really. It's always a lot of fun to see people congregated at these impromptu tables, while some of the "more established" presses resort to giving away candy to draw attention. (Pics to come, for sure.)

Here are a few I know about:

Kitchen Press #21
Pilot Books/Small Fires Press/Factory Hollow Press # 91
Outside Voices/Flim Forum #??
The So and So Series/Rope-A-Dope Press #285
Red Morning Press #488
Barn Owl Review #406

Next week in the AWP madness...

2008-01-27T16:51:00.001-05:00

...how will you know where to find your favorite DIYers & micropresses? Will they even be at this bloated, horny conference?

Yeah, sure they will. But maybe not always in the bookfair or hotel venues.

Some micropresses did get tables in the bookfair--usually they share spaces, in the best DIY tradition--so definitely swing through there if you've got a badge. Even the unwashed unregistered can get in on Public Saturday. The exhibitor list is here. But many are also hosting offsite parties, readings & other events.

So I'm trying to pull together a little list of the Best of the Micropresses AWP doings. Hopefully I can get that up here in the next day or two. Because with 7000+ registered participants, loads more unregistered participants, 2 hotels, dozens of offsite locations, and at least 2 boroughs, if you're unprepared you'll bound to miss a not-to-be-missed event.

In the meantime, check Jessica Smith's this AWP Facebook event page for some details, and the AWP offsite event schedule for a whole lotta shebanging.

A really great article on some DIYers in DC!

2008-01-27T16:42:00.001-05:00

From the Washington City Paper:

Bots? Yes. God? Probably not. “I have a real love of post-New York School poetry,” says [Maureen] Thorson [of Big Game Books]. “I like things with a sense of humor, especially if it has robots in it. I’m a real sucker for robots and pseudo-post-Eastern European realism and stuff.” Don’t bother with John Ashbery impressions, though. “If I want to read John Ashbery, I can read John Ashbery,” she says. “He already exists. I also shy away from the religious stuff, unless it’s very odd.”

[...] “It’s just me running the press, so I try to let people know there’s not some objective panel of experts,” says Thorson. “Whether you get a book or not is whether or not I like it enough to make five little copies with my own little hands. If I take it, that’s a fun thing for you. If I don’t, I’m just one person, and I’m going to have my own weird quirks and tastes.”

In addition to Reen of Big Game, Michael Gushue of Vrzhu Press, Rod Smith of Edge Books, and Reb Livingston of No Tell Books also tell it like it is, invoke Papa Walt, pass the bullshit test, & explain the many fulfilling reasons why they DIY.

Good stuff! Go, y'all! Link.

Rope-a-Dope Press

2008-01-07T17:51:00.000-05:00

Chad Reynolds' chapbook, Victor in the New World, with illustrations by Robert daVies, is now available for purchase from Rope-a-Dope Press. Just click on the Paypal link below. $12 includes shipping.

Reviewspotting: Gina Myers on Frank Sherlock's Wounds in an Imaginary Nature Show

2007-12-06T18:31:00.000-05:00

"It is hard to leave the biographical out when thinking about Frank Sherlock’s Wounds in an Imaginary Nature Show. The cover image by Amze Emmons shows a hospital bed in the middle of a forest—the setting of the poem where a life is projected onto a sheet “fastened above the body bracketed / by trees,” a grotesque theater of sorts. Written while Sherlock was hospitalized in recovery from meningitis and complications from meningitis, the poem exists in the realm of hallucinations—a world that is slightly off, eerie, and still somehow not that different than our own."

Read the rest.

Night Flag is redolent with that inimitable new-car smell. Mmm. This is their very first chap. Make it yours for $5.

2007-12-05T16:53:00.000-05:00

http://www.h-ngm-n.com

Dear Yes Dear:

Please allow me to say hello to you with my voice! I am EDITOR NATE PRITTS writing with a special proposition only for someone with your name because of how it was uncovered in a secret document. About money! Yes, please read on. I would like to transfer to you, at no charge and for all of your own use, the new issue of H_NGM_N. Please respond to me by clicking this link here in the next word – http://www.h-ngm-n.com - & you will be transported immediately to the secret trove of literature that was left to you by your dearly beloved dead relative you do not know.

What’s more is that there is even more! If you were to considering sending me the sum of $6 US, I would surely then find myself putting in the mail to you a copy of the last will and testament of your dearly beloved dead relative you do not know. The title of this tome is WHO COULD FORGET THE SENSATIONAL FIRST EVENING OF THE NIGHT by Julia Cohen and she is even not dead as I write this! And it is not even a will but really a chapbook of really terrific & ultimately edifying poems!

You could do worse than this and I’m not only kidding about that but also I am telling a quiet kind of truth that makes you want to spend money on things. Things like this! Even if they are free.

h-ngm-n.com

Please act now before the government of England claims all of this money & prize. Please exercise your right and use the finger on your hand to manipulate the computer clicking device and bring yourself to the new issue of H_NGM_N that you need.

Yours most sincerely,

Nate Pritts, Editor in Chief.

So, what's new?

2007-11-30T15:24:00.000-05:00

(There's a lot more to add to this post...possibly this afternoon.)

Carl Annarumo at Triptych Trencher is calling for submissions for a new series of chapbooks to be called "the greying ghost" as well as demo cassettes for their new-fangled-yet-old-school audio series. Details here.

Kitchen Press is serving up Why I Am White by Mathias Svalinas. Enticed by samples such as "I am a white mineral made of sodium chloride. I have been used for thousands of years as a medium of trade or payment as implied in the word 'salary,'" we can't wait to find out, so we just ordered a copy. The Kitchen is open 24 hours here.

Coconut Books, brought to you by the editor of Coconut magazine, a.k.a. Bruce Covey, has just released Reb Livingston's debut collection Your Ten Favorite Words. You probably know Reb from her blog Home-Schooled By a Cackling Jackal, No Tell Motel, or No Tell Books, but if you don't know her poems you're in for a treat. They're verbally supercharged and, well, hot. We can't recommend this one highly enough. Scoot.

And speaking of No Tell, their fall titles have landed. The Bedside Guide to No Tell Motel: Second Floor collects poems exploring the "multifaceted aspects of desire and appeal." Harlot by Jill Alexander Essbaum takes a "parallax view of religion as sex and sex as religion." The poems in Laurel Snyder's The Myth of the Simple Machines follow the adventures of an unnamed girl & resemble "shoebox dioramas on the classroom window ledge." Shy Green Fields by Hugh Behm-Steinberg contains 100 seven-line poems threading in and out of dreams, cities, & other intimate labyrinths. The line forms here. Or visit one of the bookstores listed here.

The latest chapbooks from Katalanche Press--ambience is a novel with a logo by Tan Lin & Z Formation by Michael Slosek--are yours for the asking (plus $7.50 and $2, respectively) at the Katalanche blog, which also offers enticing excerpts. Also available, chapbooks by C.S. Carrier, Monica Fambrough, Alan Davies & others.

Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl's anthology of translations of experimental poetry into Icelandic, 131.839 SLÖG MEÐ BILUM (or, en Englais, 131.839 keystrokes with spaces), renders poems by Charles Bernstein, Jon Paul Fiorentino, Susana Gardner, Oscar Rossi, Kirby Olson, Leevi Lehto, Sharon Mesmer, Jan Hjort, Jesse Ball, Markku Paasonen, Jack Kerouac, Derek Beaulieu, Katie Degentesh, Paul Dutton, Nada Gordon, Paal Bjelke Andersen, Gherardo Bortolotti, Daniel Scott Tysdal, Iain Bamforth, Michael Lentz, Anne Waldman, Teemu Manninen, Mike Topp, Ida Börjel, Amiri Baraka, S. Baldrick, bpNichol, Charles Bukowski, Mairead Byrne, Mark Truscott, John Tranter, Sylvia Legris, Maya Angelou, Bruce Andrews, Haukur Már Helgason, Craig Dworkin, Shanna Compton, Lars Mikael Raattamaa, Vito Acconci, K. Silem Mohammad, Frank Bidart, Rita Dahl, damian lopes, Jelaluddin Rumi, Rachel Levitsky, Tom Leonard, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Ulf Karl Olov Nilsson, Caroline Bergvall, Christian Bök, e. e. cummings, Saul Williams, a. rawlings, Stephen Cain, Jeff Derksen, Linh Dinh, Nico Vassilakis, Martin Glaz Serup, Malte Persson, & Anna Hallberg with all kinds of funny-looking diacritical marks to amaze & befuddle nonspeakers. But don't let your haughty American monolinguism stop you! At least recommend it to your Icelandic friends. The book is available from ntamo's Lulu storefront.

Switchback Books is proud to announce the release of Our Classical Heritage: A Homing Device by Caroline Noble Whitbeck. This debut collection of poems is the winner of the 2006 Gatewood Prize selected by judge Arielle Greenberg: "Our Classical Heritage is a pleasurable and witty work, pinned sharply but delicately to reality through images of cultural detritus and evocations of American childhood...[.]" Available directly from the press or via SPD.

Blood Pudding Press is pleased to announce that [GROWLING SOFTLY] is now available. [GROWLING SOFTLY] is a hand-designed, ribbon-bound poetry magazine, featuring the work of the following highly delectable muckrakers: Melissa Culbertson, Kyle Simonsen, Christine Hamm, Luc Simonic, Misti Rainwater-Lites, Rachel Lisi, Victor D. Infante, Sara Mumolo, Kristy Bowen, Melissa Crowe, Kenneth Pobo, Michalle Gould, Juliet Cook, Nikol Raquel Polidoro, Stephen Morse, John Rocco, Pablo Joaquin Lopez, Mary Alexandra Agner, Todd Heldt, T.A. Noonan, Jill Alexander Essbaum, Matina Stamatakis, Derek Motion, Peg Duthie, Shelley Nation, Elisa Gabbert & Amber Nelson. Get it from the Blood Pudding Etsy shop here.

Anchiote Press has released several new chapbooks since we last checked in, and as usual they're offering twofer specials. Objective Practice by Mia You + Anchiote Seeds 3 = $12. Or Nicholas Manning's Novaless: I-XXVI + Anchiote Seeds 2 = 12. That's solid math, either way. Warm up your PayPal finger & visit their store.

Now available from Tarpaulin Sky Press: Nylund, the Sarcographer by Joyelle McSweeney & Figures for a Darkroom Voice by Noah Eli Gordon & Joshua Marie Wilkinson, with images by Noah Saterstrom. (Yeah, Nylund is a novel, so technically outside the purview of this here blog, but being fans of McSweeney's poetry & poetry criticism we're ordering a copy right now! How can you resist something described as "negative capability on steroids"?) The first printed issue of Tarpaulin Sky the journal is also available, with a hybrid form theme.

Like bugs? Check out the "insecta" issue of qarrtsiluni, guest-edited by Ivy Alvarez & Marly Youmans. They're seeking more buggy poems through December 15. Submission details here.

Taiga, a new poetry journal is seeking submissions for their first issue, scheduled to appear in July 2008. Editors Brooklyn Copeland & Cortney Settle warmly welcome translations, as well as "edgy, refined work with attention to detail." For more details, see their submission guidelines here.

Morgan Lucas Schuldt's first book, Verge, has just been released by Free Verse Editions. Lisa Jarnot says "In the tradition of Jacques Roubaud’s Some Thing Black and Stan Brakhage’s The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes, Morgan Lucas Schuldt’s Verge is a concise and unsettling ride along the boundary between life and death. Through careful lyric gestures and Joycian guttural utterances, Schuldt’s poems linger at the verges of the body and the breath, all along reminding the reader that the language of poetry depends upon our 'meat-leased' fragile corporeal forms." Get your meat-leased selves over to the online store to pick up your copy now.

Lastly, here's a new distribution option for DIYers to check out. Katie Haegel will consider submission of zines & chapbooks of poetry and/or fiction over at the La La Theory. She's already got a bunch of handmade stuff available that you probably won't find anyplace else.

Meritage Press Announcement

2007-11-20T09:17:00.001-05:00

Meritage Press Announcement

TINY BOOKS RELEASES FIFTH TITLE FOR POETRY TO KEEP FEEDING THE WORLD

Meritage Press (MP) is pleased to announce the fifth title in its series of Tiny Books that aligns poetry with fair trade and economic development issues affecting Third World countries.

MP's Tiny Books utilize small books (1 3/4" x 1 3/4") made in Nepal by artisans paid fair wages, as sourced by Baksheesh, a fair trade retailer. Photos of a sample "Tiny Book" are available HERE as well as at Crag Hill's Poetry Scorecard

All profits from book sales will be donated to Heifer International, an organization devoted to reducing world hunger by promoting sustainable sources of food and income. This project reflects MP's belief that "Poetry feeds the world" in non-metaphorical ways. The Tiny Books create demand for fair trade workers' products while also sourcing donations for easing poverty in poorer areas of the world.

We are delighted to announce that MP's fifth Tiny Book is

some hay
By Lars Palm

Lars Palm lives in southern Sweden where he works in health care, writes (mostly smallish) silly poems, translates some Swedish poets, edits a blog zine called skicka (in english) & at times publishes the first broadside series in the country. He's the author of mindfulness (moria, 2006), on stealing lips (The Martian Press, 2006) & is beside the point (Big Game Books Tinyside 34, 2007). Another, death is, is forthcoming from by the skin of me teeth press sometime soon.

MP's other Tiny Books, which also are still available, are

all alone again
by Dan Waber

and

Steps: A Notebook
by Tom Beckett

and
"…And Then The Wind Did Blow..."
Jainakú Poems
by Ernesto Priego

and

Speak which
Hay(na)ku poems
by Jill Jones

Each Tiny Book will cost $10 plus $1.00 shipping/handling in the U.S. (email us first for non-U.S. orders). To purchase the Tiny Books and donate to Heifer International, send a check for $11.00 per book, made out to "Meritage Press" to

Eileen Tabios
Meritage Press
256 North Fork Crystal Springs Rd.
St. Helena, CA 94574
U.S.A.

Please specify which of the five Tiny Books you are ordering.

With Tiny Books, MP also offers a new DIY, or Do-It-Yourself Model of publishing. You've heard of POD or print-on-demand? Well, these books' print runs will be based on HOD or Handwritten-on-Demand. MP's publisher, Eileen Tabios, will handwrite all texts into the Tiny Books' pages and books will be released to meet demand for as long as MP is able to source tiny books -- or until the publisher gets arthritis.

FUNDAISING UPDATE:
In addition to providing livestock, Heifer International also provides trees. As of Nov. 5, 2007, Meritage Press' Tiny Books program has sold enough Tiny Books to finance the donation equivalent of seven sets of tree-gifts. Here's what Heifer has to say about trees:

One of Heifer International’s most important commitments is to care for the earth. We believe development must be sustainable — that projects should be long-term investments in the future of people and the planet.That’s why in addition to livestock, Heifer often provides families with trees. On a steep Tanzanian hillside, Heifer International helped a family learn to plant trees and elephant grass to keep the soil in place. Today, they have flourishing rows of leucaena trees and corn.Through training, families learn how to keep their small plots of land healthy and renew the soil for future generations by planting trees, using natural fertilizer, and limiting grazing.By helping families raise their animals in harmony with nature, you can fight poverty and hunger while ensuring a healthy, productive future for us all.

Then of course there are the chickens, goats, water buffalos, pigs, ducks, honeybees, llamas....all of which can help ease hunger around the world. Meritage Press thanks you in advance for your support and hopes you enjoy Tiny Books -- small enough to become jewelry, but with poems big enough to resonate worldwide.

*****
ABOUT THE TINY BOOK AUTHORS:
Dan Waber is a visual poet, concrete poet, sound poet, performance poet, publisher, editor, playwright and multimedia artist whose work has appeared in all sorts of delicious places, from digital to print, from stage to classroom, from mailboxes to puppet theaters. He is currently working on "and everywhere in between". He makes his online home at logolalia.com. Meritage Press tapped Mr. Waber to inaugurate the series partly for his work in minimalist poetry.

Tom Beckett is the author of Unprotected Texts: Selected Poems 1978~2006 (Meritage Press, 2006), and the curator of E-X-C-H-A-N-G-E-V-A-L-U-E-S: The First XI Interviews (Otoliths, 2007). From 1980-1990, he was the editor/publisher of the now legendary critical journal, The Difficulties. Steps: A Notebook is Tom Beckett's first hay(na)ku poetry collection.

Ernesto Priego was born in Mexico City. He lives in London. He blogs at Never Neutral (http://neverneutral.wordpress.com/) and is the author of the first single-author hay(na)ku poetry collection, Not Even Dogs (http://meritagepress.com/notevendogs.htm). ; The "jainakú" is Mexico's version of the hay(na)ku poetic form.

Jill Jones' latest book, Broken/Open (Salt, 2005), was short-listed for The Age Book of the Year 2005 and the 2006 Kenneth Slessor Poetry Prize. In 1993 she won the Mary Gilmore Award for her first book of poetry, The Mask and the Jagged Star (Hazard Press, 1992). Her third book, The Book of Possibilities (Hale & Iremonger, 1997), was shortlisted for the 1997 National Book Council 'Banjo' Awards and the 1998 Adelaide Festival Awards. Screens, Jets, Heaven: New and Selected Poems (Salt, 2002) won the 2003 Kenneth Slessor Poetry Prize (NSW Premier's Literary Awards). Her work has been translated into Chinese, Dutch, Polish, French, Italian and Spanish.

For more information: MeritagePress@aol.com

RECONFIGURATIONS

2007-11-20T09:11:00.000-05:00

RECONFIGURATIONS: A Journal for Poetics & Poetry / Literature &
Culture has just launched! I hope you will take a look at this new
electronic, peer-reviewed, annual journal for poetics and poetry,
creative and scholarly writing, innovative and traditional concerns
with literary arts and cultural studies:

http://www.reconfigurations.blogspot.com/

New Press Rocks Your Livingroom

2007-10-29T15:48:00.000-04:00

Introducing Pinch Pinch Press!

Meet the editors!

Submit to the print journal!

Rejoice in paper-and-word-and-fastening-implements-of-some-kind madness!

Really, no really really this time

2007-10-23T11:13:00.000-04:00

I've been, um, distracted. To put it mildly.

But now that the first two Bloof books have launched, I really will have more time to spend here.

Oh, you may have missed this post on Jennifer Moxley's The Middle Room, which being a new release from the Subpress Collective ("Self-Publish or Perish") should have been crossposted here as well.

Also new from Subpress, Ben Friedlander's The Missing Occasion of Saying Yes, which I'm taking with me on a road trip to read later this week. So watch for a review of that, plus I'd also like to take a look at the new chapbook by Ange Mlinko (from Ryan Murphy's latest one-off press), some of the new crop from the Dusie Kollektiv, & assorted other goodies.

Master Class with Mary Jo Bang / Poetry

2007-10-09T15:39:00.000-04:00

Master Class with Mary Jo Bang / Poetry

Wayne Koestenbaum wrote that Mary Jo Bang’s new poetry collection, Elegy, "recalls the late work of Ingeborg Bachmann in its febrile, recursive lyricism." Bang was the winner of "The Discovery"/The Nation Award in 1995, and is the author of four other poetry collections.

These intensive advanced workshops meet, in most cases, in conjunction with selected authors' appearances in the Reading Series (Mary Jo Bang reads with Dean Young on November 1). Application procedures are the same as for advanced workshops (see below), with one exception: please send two copies of your manuscript by the deadlines listed below. Please note that the work presented in the manuscript submission will also be the work discussed in the master class.

Manuscript submission is required for this course (see guidelines below).

Submission deadline: Wed, Oct 17, 5pm

First Session: Sat, Nov 3, 2007, 2:00pm-5:00pm

Sessions: 1

Instructor: Mary Jo Bang

Location: 92nd Street Y, Lexington Avenue at 92nd Street

Code: TP3MC01-01

Price: $200.00

To register for this class, please call Y-Charge at 212.415.5500, visit our box office at Lexington at 92nd Street, or click here:

Mary Jo Bang: Master Class

MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:

For advanced writing workshops in poetry, fiction and nonfiction, registration is by permission only. Students are chosen by the instructors on the basis of a manuscript submission. Please follow these guidelines:

The manuscript submission should consist of no more than 15 pages (typed, double-spaced) of fiction or nonfiction, or 6 pages of poetry (as applicable) and should be accompanied by a cover letter (stapled to the manuscript; please do not use paper clips) that includes your name, address, daytime and evening telephone numbers, and the name of the instructor to whose course you are applying.

An application fee of $10 must accompany your submission(s). Only one fee is required per person, regardless of how many applications you submit. Please make checks (drawn on U.S. banks only) or money orders (in U.S. currency only) payable to the 92nd Street Y, and attach them to your cover letter. Do not send cash.

Please do not send bound books or your only copy of a manuscript. Do not send a return envelope, a registration form or any payment with the submission; registration and payment will be arranged when you are accepted. Manuscripts should not be submitted via fax or email. Manuscripts will not be returned.

Applicants who have been accepted into a workshop will be notified by telephone; all others will be notified by mail. Once accepted, students should register promptly.

Schedule changes do occasionally occur.

Free Geekery's top 100 DIY websites

2007-08-18T15:35:00.000-04:00

Free Geekery offers a list of soooooooo many ways to do-it-yourself--no matter what "it" is.

Check it it out here.

This site shows up in the publishing category, so thanks to Free Geekery & all the new visitors. (The step-by-step book demos are in the sidebar at the right, in case you're looking for those.)

Late Summer...but not too late: News & new releases!

2007-08-13T12:58:00.000-04:00

Why yes, this is the aforepromised ginormous post I started before I went on vacation. My apologies for taking so long to complete it. (A few things actually dropped off because they'd already happened or sold out. Whew!) I've got a few more things in the inbox & will try to get those up soon as well. Enjoy!

•••••••••••••
Michelle Detorie of WOMB & Hex Presse has been busy making/planning handmade sets of cleromancy dice, poetry puzzles in specimen bottles, & a fresh new blogroll of more than 300 women poets. Stop by the Womb blog and/or the Hex Presse blog for more info. Hex has also been added to the press section of the sidebar.

•••••••••••••
E. M. Bertram of Shadowbox Press believes all good things come in threes. So for a limited time, you can get 3 books for 3 bucks off. The set includes Fuel In Vacant Lots: Essays On Queer Existence by Jen Alabiso, Woody Loverude, Zachary Jean Chartkoff, Jaffa Aharonov, Kim Schneidman, & E.M. Bertram, Flood by Woody Loverude & constellations gathered along the ecliptic by Craig Santos Perez. To order, email shadowboxpress [at] gmail [dot] com. (Please include "Order" in the subject line.)

•••••••••••••
Jen Tynes of Horseless Press has also been busy. Two new chapbooks are now available: [Summer_insular] by Justin Marks & Fog Quartets by Julie Doxsee.

Each is 5.5 x 8.5, staple bound, with cover art by Conan Kelly, 40 pp. & available for $5 via PayPal or mailorder.

•••••••••••••
INCH #4 IS OUT NOW! The smallest magazine around is back with microfiction from Michael McFee & Cynthia Reeves, & poetry from Jeffery Beam, Sebastian Matthews, & Mischa Willett. Order single issues (only a buck!) here or subscribe here. One, two, and three year subscriptions are available.

Also, check out the two latest offerings from the Bull City Poetry Series, The Smallest Talk by Michael McFee & Licorice by Ellen C. Bush. In addition to buying online from Bull City's secure website and/or Amazon.com, you can purchase Bull City Press books from several locations in North Carolina, including the Regulator (Durham), Quail Ridge Books (Raleigh), McIntyre's Fine Books (Pittsboro), and the Bull's Head Bookstore (Chapel Hill).

•••••••••••••
Tiny books. Big hearts. Eileen Tabios of Meritage Press has been up to some poetical philanthropy. First, she paired up with Baksheesh (a fair trade retailer) and Heifer International, introducing a new series of Tiny Books. The miniature blank books are handmade by artisans in Guatemala & Eileen handwrites the poems inside. Dan Waber & Tom Beckett are the first two authors in the series. (Photo of Tom Beckett's Tiny Book above by Crag Hill.)

Next, she auctioned off a copy of Ivy Alvarez's limited-edition tinyside from Big Game Books, raising more than $300, which purchased 30 mosquito nets from the Nothing But Nets campaign against malaria (the leading killer of children in Africa).

Tiny Books are still for sale--because they're HOD, handwritten on demand. (Now that's DIY.) Each Tiny Book costs $10 plus $1.00 shipping/handling. To purchase the Tiny Books & donate to Heifer International, send a check for $11.00 (each, please specify title(s)) made out to "Meritage Press" to

Eileen Tabios
Meritage Press
256 North Fork Crystal Springs Rd.
St. Helena, CA 94574

Meritage Press has also recently released William Allegrezza's Fragile Replacements & Allen Bramhall's chunky two volume Days Poem (which I've just started reading). Order Meritage books from SPD, Amazon, or Lulu.

•••••••••••••
House Press has many shiny new items avaiable, including Just as Form by Eric Unger, Friend Delighting the Eloquent by Matthew Klane, & some very cool grave rubbings by Barrett Gordon. (Since House Press is a collective, each item has different ordering instructions, so check the links for details.)

•••••••••••••
Josh Hanson's got a newish press, kids. It's called End & Shelf Books. Just released is Stuart Greenhouse's beautiful new chapbook, All Architecture. Just like all End & Shelf productions, All Architecture is available as a **FREE** PDF. While you're downloading, also check out Clay Matthews' Western Returns & The Collaborative Poem by the Hundred Day Party.

•••••••••••••
Justin Marks' Kitchen Press has recently released Run Down the Emphasis by Erin Elizabeth Burke. Get it for $5 in the Kitchen Press bookstore here. Justin's also been posting some reviews & interviews relating to other Kitchen titles on the main blog, so take a peek at those as well.

•••••••••••••
Carrie Hunter's Ypolita Press offers a new bilingual English/German edition of CAConrad's THE FRANK POEMS with translations by Holger, with assistance from Jonas Slonacker and Sigrid Mayer. Available for $5 via PayPal. And Conrad's posted an excerpt here.

•••••••••••••

From Paul Chavez's Vértice 1925 comes the Spam Poetry Anthology, described as "the first book compiling the works of spam poetry authors from around the globe." The book is edited by Morton Hurley, with a foreword by K. Silem Mohammad & cover are by Tony Millionaire. Here's a review from 3AM. 60 poems, 76 pp. of spam you actually want to read? Not a bad deal for a mere $10.

•••••••••••••
Three new books from Mark Young's Otoliths Press are now available: Nick Piombino's by now legendary "visual collage novel" Free Fall, Sheila E. Murphy's first integrated linear & visual collection The Case of the Lost Objective (Case) & Rochelle Ratner's memoir / found text / poetry journal Leads. All are available via Otolith's Lulu.com storefront here.

2007-08-09T17:05:00.000-04:00

I love the concept of this new poetry journal called La Fovea. edited by Frank Giampietro. You can read about how the editing works by clicking here. but it's basically a poetry relay event wherein a nerve editor picks a person to send in poems and then that person picks a person and then that person picks a person and then...(well, you get the idea!) creating a linked chain. Please check it out and read these fabulous poems.

Jumps Journal

2007-07-24T10:21:00.001-04:00

Lookie--Rebecca Hazelton has started a new online poetry journal called Jumps. The first issue includes poems by
Shanna Compton, Andrew Epstein, Frank Giampietro, Lily Hoang, Janet Holmes, David Kirby
Rebecca Lehmann, Reb Livingston, Amber Pearson, Sandra Simonds, Jay Snodgrass, Kristine Snodgrass and Valerie Wetlaufer. Please feel free to send your poems her way for the second issue.

Summer escapism...

2007-07-20T07:49:00.000-04:00

I'm outta here for 10 days, & unfortunately do not have time to finish the ginormous* post of Summer Reading DIY-style I've been putting together.

It may be quiet unless the coeditors gots sumpthin.

& comment moderation is on too. I know that's annoying. But...

Be good. See you July 30.

* Ginormous has been sanctified by Merriam-Webster. At last.

Reb Livingston's Unsexy Suggestions for Starting an Online Journal

2007-07-08T21:51:00.001-04:00

All you need is this link.

PS: I am still behind on announcements, yes. And that's right, I haven't answered your email either. Patience appreciated. Today I had to repartition my hard drive and reinstall my system software. Next, I hunt through thousands of fonts for whichever one corrupted my biz. It's gonna be sorry.

Mike Topp has a new book

2007-07-07T09:47:00.001-04:00

My copy is on the way, but in the meantime, here's what some other folks have to say about Mike Topp's new collection of poems, prose, and lists, Shorts Are Wrong:

"Just when I think Mike Topp's poems are funny, they're wise. Just when I think they're wise, they're bad. Just when I think they're bad, they're great. Mike Topp's book is exactly like the world." — Eileen Myles

"Constantly mistaken for an Italian underwear model, or a beerhall humorist, Mike Topp is, in fact, one of the most gifted Surrealzing writers, and a Taoist immortal." — Sparrow

& Dan Kennedy at Really Small Talk reviews it here.

Shorts Are Wrong
by Mike Topp
ISBN: 9781570271861
Paperback
128 pp.
Published by Unbearable Books

Autographed copies are available from Mike himself--send a check or money order for $12 to Mike Topp, 8 Stuyvesant Oval #8H, New York, NY 10009. Or you can order it online via Autonomedia here.

The definitions of DIY

2007-07-05T10:34:00.001-04:00

Our friend Scott Pierce of Effing Press is right--that the approach to DIY here is a little different or more open than it might be elsewhere. I think we've even talked about that before. Essentially, this blog is interested in poetry books produced by poets themselves (the micropresses featured here are usually one-person outfits, maybe a couple) outside the mainstream publishing houses. Because I think that's where the most exciting poetry is being published. That's lots of territory and healthy activity, and the focus definitely shifts around a bit. I realize the POD stuff isn't of interest to everybody here. That's cool.

Do see the comments to "Resistance Is Futile" below, for his and others' opinions.

My political/philosophical approach is that individual poets should become more involved in the publication of their own work, instead of sitting around waiting for somebody else, particularly the trade industry, to do it for them. I have personally found great satisfaction in making books (by whatever method) & I know it erases some of the usual frustrations and disappointments of being a poet. (Note: I am not disappointed to be a poet! You know what I mean, yes?) I think every poet should try self-publishing at least once or twice--or publish someone else's work--whether it's in a handmade chapbook or a POD edition. I think the experience clears up a lot of misunderstandings about what it means to have a book, and how these objects (on which way too much social/professional importance is placed, really) are made and how they get to readers. I *am* an optimist, and would like nothing better than for poets to focus more on the poems than the struggle to publish them. Doing It Yourself makes that possible.

Not everybody who wants to make poetry books has the same skill sets, and not everybody who wants to read poetry books has the same biases. There are many different ways to publish poetry on a small scale. Even though the POD/digital printing/distribution networks maybe be industries themselves, and as Scott points out do not give a hoot about poetry either, their lack of caring is not a limitation for poetry as it is in the trade publishing industry. (Bonus: POD networks also don't masquerade as cultural institutions.)

I don't see any need for one mode of publishing to be thought of as superior to the other--they're two entirely different things. (I'll be doing two editions of each Bloof book: one digitally printed and one handmade and maybe partially letterpress, for that reason.)

PS: John Tranter (of Jacket) has written to me backchannel about POD binding choices. He's given me permission to post his comments, and I'll do that sometime in the next couple of days.

3 new book arts resources

2007-07-04T09:08:00.000-04:00

The San Francisco Center for the Book offers shows and readings in their galleries and classes in letterpress printing, printmaking, book binding, box making, etc.--you can even make a personal Tarot deck. If you're in the Bay Area, this list of local suppliers and resources may prove handy.

Blue Barnhouse doesn't seem to offer classes, but they will take on custom projects and also offer exhibits in their gallery. Their greeting card collection demonstrates that not all letterpressed stationery need be "classic" or "precious" or even "tasteful," ahem. They've also got an online store, so you can order letterpress goodies even if you're not local. Rocking.

When you're done with those, go poke around Book Arts Web.

Resistance is futile

2007-07-01T12:17:00.001-04:00

Click to enlarge the images. These shots were taken in the same direct lighting, with the same camera, using the same focus and resolution settings. Can you distinguish a digitally printed page from an offset-printed page?

Prompted by a teeny link to the new Espresso Book Machine at Ron Silliman's blog the other day, Curtis Faville & I got to talking about whether or not print-on-demand (strategy) and digital printing (technology) are "cheapening the process" of publishing poetry.

I think Curtis makes many good points (as he often does), but I disagree with him (as I frequently do) that writers and publishers who opt to employ POD strategies and digital printing technologies are taking any less care with their work. In fact, I'd propose the exact opposite! Small, micro, and self-publishers who take the production process in hand exert complete control over the process and particularly in the case of self-publishers, are spending more time and effort on the presentation of their work than employees or authors of a large publishing house. They are taking full responsibility for the presentation of their work. Self publishers are extending the writing act to its furthest conclusion, all the way to the book in the reader's hands. (Control freaks rejoice!) Nothing at all impersonal about that--it's intimate even.

Anyway, both Curtis and I stray (really far) from the ostensible topic of the book machine, but since our remarks may be of interest to readers of this blog, I've cleaned up (oh the comment-stream-hasty-typos! the typos here are *much less hasty,* ahem) and expanded my remarks a bit and am reposting them here, in a slightly different form. (I do this not to joust with Curtis at all, but simply to take the opportunity to, well, pontificate further on a personal obsession.)

Argument: "Print-on-demand technology* will be a boon to those for whom the act of publication and reading is the merest convenience."

Reponse: Many so-called mainstream publishers also use print-on-demand strategies and digital short-run technologies and they have been doing so for at least a decade now.

There are many economic and environmental incentives for publishers--no matter their size--to switch from traditional offset printing and traditional print-run guesstimates to produce their books. A few of these are: 1) Because it's no longer necessary to guess at how to supply an undetermined demand, print-on-demand publishing saves the (sad) waste of returns and remaindered copies having to be pulped (more about this later), 2) it saves lots of shipping and warehousing costs (both economic and environmental), and 3) it usually does not require large outlays of cash upfront for struggling small presses. None of these justifications for going POD in any way compromises the literary merit of the work inside the books.

Additionally, I believe there are several artistic advantages to adopting POD and digital printing methods, because the reduced expense and reduced waste results in a relative freedom from the fairly crippling economic concerns poetry publishers (and poets as a result) have come to face, and because it allows poets to produce their own books free from interference of any kind, should they choose to do so. POD allows publishers who focus on genres other than those that go blockbusters (such as poetry) to take more risks on work that might not otherwise make good business sense. They need not worry *primarily* about whether a book will sell. They can feel confident that making a great book available will not break the bank if it proves not to fly off the shelves in the requisite numbers. For these reasons, it's very good news for poets and their readers that the options are getting better all the time.

Argument (not Curtis's, by the way): Self publishing is crass, illegitimate, vain, or what have you.

Response: I don't think this prejudice has quite the stranglehold it may once have had, and actually don't even know why I brought it up in the thread. Still, it bears repeating (perhaps ad nauseum) that I think the tendency to look down on self-published work is an outdated snobbery, and one that doesn't hold up when looking back at the history of poetry publishing in this country. I imagine most readers of [Ron's] blog (just for example) could name dozens of "famous" poets from their personal pantheons who self-published (or coterie published). That's how American avant-garde poets (and other writers, musicians, filmmakers, etc.) have long made space for themselves. The publishing "industry" will not, and frankly, that makes perfect sense, for some of the businesslike reasons already discussed.

One of the arguments I frequently hear from people objecting to self-publishing is, to paraphrase rather crudely, Editors know better than Writers. To which I always say, oh freaking spare me. This "gatekeeper theory" is generally espoused by those already within the gates, or those who possess an unshakable self-confidence in their own worthiness to reside within those gates at some future date. I applaud their confidence I guess, & being chosen by an editor is really nice--it feels good--but it doesn't mean all work that isn't chosen by an editor is automatically crap. Editors are wonderful, smart, dedicated people, by and large, who love the work they publish. But the reality is that to be an editor at a major publishing house in NY all one really needs is a BA, a willingness to work long hours for crappy wages, and the ability to develop a thick callus over one's artistic ideals. I say that from experience. I quickly learned at my first job something that for some reason isn't so obvious to most writers: Publishing is a Business. Every decision is based on the bottom line, not literary or artistic merit. That's not to say--of course--that some fine literature doesn't get published; economic and literary concerns do frequently overlap! But since that's most often not the case for poetry, according to the publishing industry itself, that's not the kind of gatekeeping poetry needs.

The Editors Know Better assumption also begs the question which editors? I believe editors and publishers who are poets themselves are the best editors and publishers for poetry. They must at least be avid readers of poetry--and how many avid readers of poetry do you know that are not also writing poetry? That might sound inbred, but if an editor or publisher is not immersed in the stuff herself, please explain to me how in the world she could know best. If poets make the best editors and publishers of poetry (they do), if publishing is an economically beleaguered business (it is), and poets are more likely to have MFAs than MBAs, do the math: less financial risk for poetry publishers is one of the best things about POD publishing.

Argument: Faster, cheaper production methods and self-publishing flood the field with too many throwaway books.

Response: My feeling is that if POD strategies can relieve some of the purely economic considerations keeping good books from finding readers, I'd much rather sort through a thousand piles of "cheapened" "trivial" POD books to find those stunners than wait for the publishing industry to hand them to me prestamped with their approval. Because terrible poetry isn't scary. It's really simple to protect yourself against a bad book: you just close the cover.

Argument: "[R]ejecting traditional publication because of the the "bottom line" is NOT justifying poor quality and bad writing. Simply because you can literally produce a paperback book for $1.75 (at least for the moment) doesn't say anything whatsoever about its contents; and I would argue that that facility cheapens the process, both because of materials and because of a lack of responsibility."

Response: I agree with the first half of this argument, particularly that the cost of production says nothing about content. I disagree that the facility (as in ease, not as in the physical printing facility, to clarify this out of context) has anything to do with cheapened materials (those are getting better all the time, more about which below), or that the relative ease of producing a book lessens anybody's responsibility. I've already sort of addressed that assumption above, saying that when poets take control of the production of their books they are exercising more responsibility in the presentation of their work, which is factually true.

The Xerox DocuTech 6180 printers and Xerox IGen 3 color process create really impressive pages, and I say that as somebody who is trained in letterpress printing. The text is clear and crisp, and though it is digital, at 300 dpi there's no discernable smushiness or pixelation. [Note, I followed the lead of another commenter and used "IBM Docutech" in the original thread, but wanted to be more specific here. IBM is the manufacturer and Xerox is the brand, 6180 is a model number and IGen3 is a proprietary name for this particular Xerox color press processing. These are the printers used by Lulu.com, Amazon's BookSurge, and other POD printers. They are high-tech, "profressional" machines, no doubt about it.]

Of course, it depends on how the digital files are prepared. Some POD or digitally-printed books don't look so hot because they are designed by folks who have not taken the time to learn about digital production. There's no "easy" way to lay out a digital manuscript and prepare it for printing. I mean, making a decent-looking book is not just a matter of dumping poems into a Microsoft Word document and clicking print. While some POD books may not be well designed, or may be inexpertly laid out, the same can be said of many books produced by other means. In other words, complaints about the design of a POD book ought to be registered with the designer of the ugly book, not blamed on the machines that designer used to make it. In other hands, the same machines are fully capable of producing books of what some people like to call "professional quality."

Generally speaking, POD publishers either hire designers or make the effort to learn the design fundamentals and software required to do it themselves. Self-publishers are successful designers insofar as they have taken the trouble to learn the same skills. Again, this amounts to more effort, more responsibility, and greater care.

POD companies are also introducing new paper stocks--heavier weights, recycled options, bright whites and creams, acid-free choices, etc. They only thing I'm personally still disappointed with is the choice of cover lamination--my service of choice (Lulu.com) does not offer matte covers. Other services (Cafe Press, for instance) does not seem to use lay-flat lamination and those covers can curl in humid conditions. I'm not aware of any POD service that offers uncoated or specialty cover stocks. But it's only a matter of time. The more publishers to use these services, the better they will get. (And that's where capitalism can actually help out. The POD services will supply if publishers demand.)

Argument: "You could even say with justice that ease of access encourages mediocrity."

Response: This argument is related to the one above, and maybe I've already covered it? The idea is that if publishing is DIFFICULT the books will be BETTER. That's just funny. (Please do see Anne Boyer's Poetic Nonaction, on difficult ways to publish poetry!) Getting a first book published is harder than hell and still crappy ones come out all the time. How much harder does it need to be to keep all the Crappy Poetry from reaching us? (See above: don't be alarmed. Just read something else.)

Making new printing technologies accessible to the Rabble is Bad because some of the Rabble Suck? I can't really argue with that. I'm sure some of the rabble do suck. But many of them are probably also brilliant, and we get to find out.

Maybe I should point out that I have worked in publishing for nearly 13 years (OMG), in about every conceivable position from publicist to book designer to editor to publisher? So when I say the traditional print-run model is wasteful, I know what I'm talking about. Yeah publishers based their print runs on their best guesses about demand, but those guesstimates are notoriously off the mark (and FYI, almost never what the publisher says they are--they artificially inflate print-run numbers as a matter of course to "generate buzz"). To say overprinting "doesn't happen often" is inaccurate. Overprinting has been the default practice for decades. It's actually less expensive (bottom line) to print too many than to print too few, from the perspective of the big publishing houses. Printers, binders and trucking companies offer volume discounts. Going back for successive small printings, which would be less wasteful, is more expensive because the volume discounts don't apply, there are more shipping costs, and the printers and binders charge set-up fees for each print run.

Ever seen a dumpster behind a bookstore that sells mass-market paperbacks? They don't even bother to return and pulp those. They strip the covers and throw them in the landfill. By the 1000s...and 1000s. Trade paperbacks and hardcovers are returned (see, more shipping = more waste/environmental impact) then the publisher has to pay to have them pulped (more waste/environmental damage) and recycled (more waste/environmental damage). Those $5 hardcopies on the discount tables at the chain bookstores? Those are so-called remaindered copies, sold in prepicked lots (meaning the bookstore chooses by general subject category rather than choosing individual titles) in a last ditch effort to avoid having to pulp them. They’ve been shipped probably 4-5 times each: from the printer/binder to the publishing house (or its distributor’s warehouse), from the warehouse to the bookstores that placed orders, back from the stores to the warehouse, from the warehouse again in the prepicked lots after markdown. Those things weigh a ton. That’s lotsa Middle Eastern petroleum.

It just seems pointless and uninformed, frankly, to resist a decade-old technology that's already become the Way It Is, particularly when there are many benefits to leaving offset printing and overprinting behind. (Again, I don't just mean Curtis, but resistance at large.) Very soon there will be no discernable physical difference between a book produced digitally and one produced using offset printing plates. We're talking strictly about how the ink reaches the paper here, y'all. Offset printing is almost completely digitized these days anyway--the cylinders are created from digital files eliminating the need for film at all, and those files may or may not be stored on servers at the printing facilities for future reprints. That's just another way of saying POD, people! Offset printing continues to make good sense for high-volume projects where the expense of the set-up is outweighed or justified by the greater number of copies produced, but even in those cases, offset printers have another drawback that digital printers alleviate: once the cylinder plate is created, if there's a typo found or some other change that needs to be made, it's got to be scrapped and a new one must be made. (If an error is found in late stages in digital production, it's much easier/less expensive to fix.) Take a look at the photos at the top of this post. Click each of them to see a full-sized, high-resolution photo. Each page was photographed under the same conditions, in the same lighting, with the same camera using the same settings. The fonts are all classic-style serif book fonts. The paper is of four different types, and you may be able to discern some textural differences there. But check out the type (the center of each image will be most focused)--crisp, clear, no pixelation. Can you spot the digitally printed page?

Did anyone make these same kind of arguments about the advent of movable type? "Movable type and the printing press means instant books can be produced in 1000 hours vs. the usual 10000000 it takes Irish monks to hand-illuminate them. It's cheapening the process!" Grumble, grumble. I think any letterpress printer (bless their hearts and gorgeous work) will tell you that to print complete books by that method you must be kind of insane. They'd also tell you their goals and concerns have very little to do with the market. As it should be. Treating the book as a fetish object is natural for people who love books--why shouldn't they be as beautiful as possible?--but that kind of bibliophilia is AT ODDS with the sort of bibliomania that compels us also to find and read as many good poems as possible. (My solution for this particular schizoid rift is to release books in both the best-looking digitally printed version I am capable of producing as well as a limited-edition handmade version, so people have a choice. Other presses do this too--Tarpaulin Sky, for instance, did Jenny Boully's latest book that way.)

Offset printing was the "new" "cheapened" technology at its introduction too. The suggestion that just because a book is faster or cheaper or easier to print (and bind) its author or publisher took less care with it is pretty ridiculous. The text reads the same--which is the point, let's remember--whether it's offset in a print run of thousands, digitally printed on demand one at a time, or stapled fresh from Kinko's, and whether or not it has any branding stamped on the spine. (My most insistent point is always that the poem is primary but the rest is necessary.)

I don’t know how much this stuff matters to most writers, but the publishing industry has decided that Poetry is not worth bothering with from a business standpoint because they can’t sell enough copies to justify the expense and hassle of producing them. The way I see things, there are (at least) three ways to remedy that situation: 1) circumvent the publishing industry, 2) lower the cost of production, and 3) reduce the hassle of production. POD and services like Lulu.com (my current fave) allow individual poets and poetry publishers to do all three, and take some of the kinks out of the Problem of Distribution too. (A whole nother kettle, about which we've already talked lots before, yes?) (DIY publishing + a website or blog with a PayPal button is another strategy that also accomplishes all three.)

It seems to me poets would do well to embrace ANY technology or publishing method that might free them from the economic concerns that hobble the publication and distribution of their work, whether it’s handmade DIY chaps, blog-posted poems, internet journals, or digitally printed POD books.

* Note: On this blog I try to be careful about conflating POD with digital short-run printing, but the two get a bit mixed up fairly often, including these remarks. Briefly, print-on-demand (POD) is the publishing strategy of producing books only on an as-ordered basis, rather than in bulk. Digital printing is the technology whereby digital files (in the form of PDFs, Quark, InDesign, and other formats) are stored on computer servers accessible by digital printing machines like the Espresso Book Machine or the Xerox DocuTech printers like Lulu and other printing companies use. Though many print-on-demand books are produced using digital technologies, not all digitally printed books are POD and not all POD books are digitally printed. Our coeditor Sandra Simonds, for example, produces a handmade magazine that is essentially POD, in that she makes copies on request, not in a print run of a set bulk number. However, in general usage, "POD" usually refers to books printed one-at-a-time using machines like the IBM Docutech printers, after being digitally retrieved from a storage server. Whew.

Blood Pudding Press: Call for submissions

2007-06-12T07:25:00.001-04:00

The word from Juliet Cook of Blood Pudding Press:

Blood Pudding is now recruiting poetry for a special project--a one-off, limited-edition, hand-designed poetry magazine, which will include poems by approximately fifteen to thirty contributors.

Each contributor will receive a one-of-a-kind copy of the issue—and the issue will be gorgeous in its own warped way. If you think you might wish to have your material represented therein, please peruse the guidelines below.

Submissions will be accepted from now until September 7. The magazine will be published in October. I will be announcing its title closer to that time.

Please submit 3-6 poems either in the body of an email OR as an attached Word Document OR both, however you see fit. The subject line of your email should include the words ‘poetry submission’. The body of the email should include a small bio. Cover letter doodad is optional; please do feel free to introduce yourself to me if so inclined, but also feel free to be brief and just submit the poetry and bio.

Submissions should be sent via email to JulietX [at] Bust [dot] com.

Those who submit will hear back from me by the end of the reading period and sometimes sooner. If it’s September 17 and you have still not heard back from me, then you may most certainly feel free to query.

Simultaneous submissions are perfectly acceptable; just let me know promptly if a piece you submitted to me has been accepted elsewhere. I do not desire material that has been previously published in other literary magazines, but stuff that’s been posted to personal blogs is fine.

I will consider whatever is sent to me, but this will be a smallish publication, so I will have to turn down some quality work. To give you a closer idea of the aesthetic I am seeking for this project, here are some additional notes to absorb.

Special interests:

--poetry by women, sinister cream puffs, alien witches, and stylish misfits

-poetry that is well-crafted and sophisticated in its own peculiar way

-poetry that in some way expresses a monstrous feminine, tainted confectionery, and/or consumption-oriented thematic

-poetry that flirts with the horrific and/or the erotic without being genre-esque

-poetry that is darkly and/or lushly imagistic or atmospheric (textural, tonal, musical, sensual, trance-inducing, maybe even nausea-inducing)

-poetry that is experimental without being nonsensical; poetry that abides by its own logic

-poetry that is fiendishly playful without being just plain silly; I prefer fancy over plain, ornate over plainspoken, figurative over literal, juicy over dry, emotional over intellectual, pomo or post-pomo over mainstream accessible; but mostly, I prefer provocative and scarily edible

-hybrids, collaborations, delectable exceptions, and volatile surprises

I eagerly await your doomishly delicious offerings.

(Please do feel free to repost this and/or link to it on your blog or pass it along to your poet friends. Please also feel free to email me any pertinent questions/comments. Thank you.)

Check out the Blood Pudding Etsy shop, linked in the sidebar.

New from the Pines

2007-06-04T10:59:00.000-04:00

Spring 2007

Vinyl record, in screen-printed sleeve
with By Massive Empathy
a 20-page long poem/album insert $10

By Massive Empathy
with letterpressed cover
without vinyl $6

Get it HERE

Peekable PressPressPress window, now in the sidebar

2007-06-02T13:12:00.000-04:00

I've been trying to figure out a way to make the shared stores visible from the main page here, and I've just hacked an inline frame for PressPressPress as an experiment.

This is a larger version of what you'll see in the sidebar. I'll see if I can come up with a similar trick for the A-store and Lulu shop, but those might be trickier. Maybe pop-up windows will work? Hmm. Learning as we go here, so tips welcome. (Remember part of the goal is that this site be 100% free to host, so solutions I could use on a hosted site aren't eligible.)

PressPressPress is a shared store featuring new releases by several poetry micropresses. Peek & scroll here to see if there's something new since your last visit & click to open PressPressPress in a new full-sized window. (Sorry this inline frame will not work for some older browsers.)

UPDATE: Oops, spoke too soon. This doesn't quite work yet. I need to add code for opening PressPressPress in a new full-sized window. The inline fram works, and will let you PayPal, etc., even. But lemme work on this some more....

Kitchen Press Chapbooks: new now & new later

2007-06-02T10:38:00.000-04:00

Kitchen Press Chapbooks presents Morgan Lucas Schuldt's Otherhow:

My Merely

Am among.
Am mortal whee,

botched from the very start,
among.

Since then am balsa-breathing through.
Am passage-process, pulse-pace, proof-pink.

My ing-ing—iffy at best.
Am all while-ing given to thrall and god-hurry.

Am x-ratedness & meat-joy & what's-his-name
when lust's skully pull un-seems all others in the kite field.

The only leggy accident for miles
looking good in wool is you. Am romantic

deathscepade. Soothe & should.
Wanna and coulda fort-da-ing daily.

Am why-way, tell-why eyes;
shy-say, quell-why sighs.

Sinew and brink, am doing the breathing different.
Stats so-so and worsting.

That sort.

Order at the Kitchen Press Chapbooks store for $5.

& forthcoming from Kitchen Press, look out for Run Down the Emphasis by Erin Elizabeth Burke, Why I Am White by Mathias Svalina, Tentative List by Thomas David Lisk, & Out of Light by Joe Massey.

Stray Dog Press, via Stockholm

2007-06-02T10:30:00.000-04:00

Elizabeth Clark Wessel, an American poet living in Stockholm, Sweden, has recently founded Stray Dog Press. Their first book will be a chapbook of prose poems by the American author S.C. Hahn coming out this fall. (Click the link for more info and a sample page.)

Stray Dog's mission statement:

There is only one mainstream, but there are infinite ways of being outside of it. Our press is dedicated to and interested in the unheard of, the odd, the promising, the gonna-be, and the has-been. We eschew preconceived notions, and instead want to publish the way that we read, without the limitation of genre, subject matter, or language. We prioritize the personal and the international. We want translations, poetry, fiction, art, forgotten histories, collaborations, and cultural studies outside of the academic mold. We want what's current and what's hopelessly out of date. We want to make books that stand on their own, but also enrich each other by being a part of the same project.

Our press is based in Stockholm, Sweden and has two mother tongues. It's a bastard of the American Midwest and the Swedish capital.

They've been added to the sidebar links as well.

Introducing Dos Press!

2007-06-02T10:18:00.000-04:00

My my, things are hot down Texas way. Another Texas-based press sends news:

Dos Press will be publishing handmade chapboos, coedited by C.J. Martin and Julia Drescher.

Each series includes four books published over (roughly) the course of a year. Each book consists of one longer and two shorter chaps from three different authors. The dos-a-dos format: 1 book, 2 spines, 3 authors.

In the first book, set to release in the next few weeks:

Poems, by Hoa Nguyen
Therefore You Are That Other One You Love, by Carter Smith
Incident Light Poem, by Andrea Strudensky

The first book also features cover linocuts designed by Scott Webel and Jen Hirt, co-curators of The Museum of Natural & Artificial Ephemerata in Austin, TX.

Selections from the first book can be read in the first issue of Little Red Leaves. Pics can be viewed from our Flickr site.

The first series includes work from nine other poets in three books.

Poets in the first two series:

Rosa Alcalá (Poems & Translations)
Michelle Detorie
Johannes Göransson (Poems & Translations)
Ashley Smith
Brian Mornar
Tess Coody-Anders
Michael Cross
Julia Drescher
Joshua Marie Wilkinson
Alison Cimino

New from Lame House: Outtakes by Dan Hoy

2007-06-02T10:10:00.000-04:00

Outtakes by Dan Hoy
Lame House #7
Cover Design: Jane Lewis
Cover Art: Franke Vogl
(c) 2007 Dan Hoy

$5.00

Some of these poems have previously appeared or are forthcoming in Agriculture Reader, Coconut, H_NGM_N, and the tiny. Read "Love Before Talkies" in H_NGM_N #6 here.

Buy now using PayPal, or send a check made out to Gina Myers, 95 Verona St. #4, Brooklyn, NY 11231.

--

Also terrific to note: Alli Warren's Cousins is available again, in a new second printing. It and Dustin Williamson's Cab Ass'n are also available through the Lame House site, mail order, or at these stores:

Pegasus Books Downtown
2349 Shattuck Ave.
Berkeley, CA 94704

Woodland Pattern Book Center
720 East Locust Street
Milwaukee, WI 53212

I think I have all the Lame House books so far, and they are definitely collectible. You should start now.

New to the resource links: MetroMania Press

2007-06-02T09:52:00.000-04:00

Based in Texas and operated by Tanya Keyser, MetroMania Press produces handmade chapbooks in fine paper, by authors such as Megan Volpert (aka Dr. Madelyn Hatter) & Collin Kelley. They've been added to the list of publishers in the sidebar. Check out their catalog of poetry titles here.

Collin reports that his chapbook Slow to Burn is close to running out, so pick it up before it's too late!

It's also worth noting that for a fee, T. Keyser offers photography and design consultations for DIYers, and can walk you through the process of producing your first project with a printer. (Click the Art and Design tabs on the MetroMania site for more info.)

Summer reading, DIY style

2007-05-31T09:16:00.000-04:00

New from Dusie Press, Logan Ryan Smith's The Singers! Kevin Killian gushes, "Music and its family of allied arts reigns high in the world Logan Ryan Smith has carved for his Singers. Dance and ritual act as counterforces to the martial law the poem has been written under, in this time of Iraq incursion that touches every aspect of our lives. Smith sends out these poems like bulletins to his heroes, his confreres, his girlfriends, his dead; in the serial form pioneered by Jack Spicer, John Ashbery, Robin Blaser, and Larry Kearney, the tropes rumble like card tricks—Spicer’s forests, diamonds, Giants and knights advance and retreat across a musical chessboard. If there was no one else writing poetry in all of the Bay Area, we would still be 'covered'; with Logan Ryan Smith at bat we’ll see angels in the outfield." Enough said. Order here for $13.00 plus s&h. (6x9, 104 pp., perfect bound.)

And speaking of Dusie, the Dusie Kollective chaps have started arriving. Participating poets (of which I am one this year) are making handmade copies of their chaps to swap among themselves, and PDF/electronic versions to be posted in the forthcoming summer issue of Dusie. So far, they've all been impressive, and there are several new-to-me poets in the group. I'm looking forward to receiving the rest. And gee, I should really finish mine and start stapling! Anyway, keep your eyes here for the PDF armory show. I believe it'll be posted in late June.

As of yesterday, Maureen Thorson's Big Game Books has unleashed another set of tiny yet powerful poetry in the form known as tinysides. "Tinysides 31-35: Games We Play to Win: The seventh installment of the tinysides series shows the value of luck and persistence. Our authors play their games to win. First up, and with aces in the hole, Jenna Cardinale brings us tales of infinitive advantage, and the pleasure of reversals. Next up to bat, Jordan Stempleman celebrates the strength of muscle and the unnerving statistical powers of monkeys, shipwrecks and healing. Ivy Alvarez follows coyly behind, with a basketful of solutions to life's most intractable problem -- itself. Lars Palm knows that even in the midst of life, there are Spanish pop songs, and the fun of phonemes. Finally, Michael Comstock brings up the rear, and wants you to know why he likes you. He really does. Really. As usual, Tinysides are the cheapest form of poem around. A buck a pop, or all five for a mere $4.50. (S&H runs you about $1.00)." These little goodies go fast, so don't delay. Order here.

Looky there: Amy King was recently elected Poet Laureate...of the Blogosphere. Even more importantly, she's got a new book out, which I haven't yet picked up. Let this note serve as my reminder and yours too. Says Linh Dinh, "These poems are meditative, subtle and deeply human, but beneath their cool, often gorgeous surfaces are darker currents, 'holes firing lyrics, free range.' Amy King 'pimps the abyss,' and she's not joking. Better kiss your 'trucker state' goodbye." Well all right. ISBN:1-934289-33-7, 7 x1o, 87 pp., perfect bound. $16. Available from Blaze-VOX here.

This one's been out a while, but somehow I missed it until yesterday, despite its author being a coeditor here, ahem! Sandra Simonds' The Humble Travelogues of Mr. Ian Worthington, Written from Land & Sea can be obtained from Mark Lamoureux's Cy Gist Press for $6 here. (16 pp. Saddle-stapled.)

Bill Allegrezza of Cracked Slab Books announces the release of The City Visible: Chicago Poetry for the New Century. "It's an anthology of some of the best innovative poetry being written currently in Chicago. Peter Gizzi says of it, 'When Carl Sandburg asked in his Chicago Poems, close to a hundred years ago, for 'a voice to speak to me in the day end, / A hand to touch me in the dark room / Breaking the long loneliness,' little did he know his city would be so fully and livingly answered and so honored. Chicago is again transformed by poetry. Here in these myriad acts of imagination, the poets of The City Visible give to it again, in Shakespeare's terms, 'local habitation and a name.'" ISBN: 0-9786440-1-8. Perfect bound. 254 pp. Edited by W. Allegrezza & R. Bianchi. $22.95. Order directly from the press, or look for it at Amazon & SPD (coming soon).

The first issue of Andrew Lundwall's new e-zine, Seconds, is now online, featuring work by poets Mathias Svalina, Eileen Tabios, Scott Keeney, Alexander Jorgensen, Sheila Murphy, Tomaž Šalamun, and Andrew Demcak.

Also, I've added Wintered Press, edited by Rachel Moritz and Sun Yung Shin in Minneapolis, to the sidebar links. Check out the blog for here for their catalog and mailorder info.

Last and least, I forgot to (duh) mention here the article I wrote for the Poetry Foundation website on how blogs have changed poetry publishing. Peruse it here.

[I still have a few more things to add to this, believe it or not. Check back this afternoon!]

Allen Bramhall's Days Poem: Vols. 1 & 2 now available from Meritage Press!

2007-05-31T09:02:00.000-04:00

So summer is here and you're looking for something substantial to kerplunk down in a lawn chair with, right? Here's just the thing.

Days Poem, Vol. 1 & 2 by Allen Bramhall

Says the author, "Begun casually, the writing of Days Poem quickly grew into a daily necessity to write, even to plug onward. In this way, it resembles a journal or novel, tho it claims neither genre as its own. It started with an idea of writing large and embracing extent. It settled (and unsettled) itself within the compelling philosophical argument that it is what it is. The thrill of relentlessness and perseverance pushed it until, you know, it came to an end. As the writer of these pages, I wanted to play with hobos, and bears, and Tarzan & Jane, and Walden Pond, and all the words in between. I wanted a little amazement in every day."

Allen Bramhall was born by the banks of the Concord River in 1952 and has lived in Massachusetts ever since. He was educated at Franconia College and Lesley University, and in nonacademic places as well. Simple Theory (Potes & Poets Press) was his first book. He maintains a blog called Tributary, and a life with Beth and Erin.

DAYS POEM, VOL 1.
ISBN: 978-0-9709-1798-0
6" x 9", perfect binding
510 pp.

DAYS POEM, VOL 2.
ISBN: 978-0-9709-1799-7
6" x 9", perfect binding
442 pp.

Those links above will take you to Meritage Press's Lulu store. Or the books are also available directly from the press. Details here.

I've been waiting for this MAJOR EVENT, and my copies are on the way. Report to come, but why wait?

UPDATE: To celebrate the release of Days Poem, Meritage Press is pleased to offer the following SPECIAL OFFER:

To order a single volume, a 20% discount and free shipping/handling (about a $3.00 value) for a single-volume price of $22.40

To order both volumes, a 25% discount and free shipping handling for a 2-volume price of $42.00

This offer will be good through June 30, 2007...and is expected to be the least expensive rate for purchasing the book(s). Please send checks made out to "Meritage Press" and mail to

Eileen Tabios
Meritage Press
256 North Fork Crystal Springs Rd.
St. Helena, CA 94574

2007-05-30T13:01:00.000-04:00

Just FIVE of the above (or best offer) will buy you a copy of

ABRAHAM LINCOLN
issue the first
spring/summer 2007
editors: K. SILEM MOHAMMAD & ANNE BOYER

This new journal of poetry--42 JUICY PAGES of poetry--is printed on the cheapest paper and clumsily stapled for your reading pleasure. In terms of materials and editorial labor, it's worth about 37 cents. But the value of the poetry it contains CANNOT BE CALCULATED IN MONETARY UNITS. Still, if you can't afford $5.00 to buy this exciting new record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds, WE UNDERSTAND. Just send what you think is fair. How many magazines offer you a deal like that? NOT VERY DAMN MANY, THAT'S HOW MANY.

featuring work by

Brandon Downing
Gary Sullivan
CA Conrad
Alli Warren
Matt McCloud
Rodney Koeneke
Sharon Mesmer
Nada Gordon
Sandra Simonds
Shanna Compton
Michael Magee
Lanny Quarles
Bill Luoma
Rachel Dakarian
Drew Gardner
Katie Degentesh

full-color cover by LRSN

SUBSCRIPTIONS are the best way to go:

single issue: $5 (or best offer)
one year: $8
five years: $25
seventeen years: $968

Send checks, payable to K. Silem Mohammad, to:

Abraham Lincoln
c/o 840 Park St.
Ashland, OR 97520

OR

pay Anne Boyer (anneboyer at gmail dot com) via PayPal.

2007-05-27T09:02:00.000-04:00

New Chapbook from Christine Hamm:

Christine Hamm’s chapbook, “Children Having Trouble with Meat” shows an admirable ability to balance metaphorical intensity while keeping focus on a clearly stated theme. The poems display a sensibility to food, and eating, and the existential implications of both, in a way which is both a contemporary commentary on eating disorders, and a delicate allusion to myths of eating and being.

Order it Here

2007-05-27T08:30:00.000-04:00

You can buy THE SINGERS by Logan Ryan Smith HERE

This is what Kevin Killian has to say about it:

“It’s time to gather rest under duress.” Music and its family of allied arts reigns high in the world Logan Ryan Smith has carved for his Singers. Dance and ritual act as counterforces to the martial law the poem has been written under, in this time of Iraq incursion that touches every aspect of our lives. Smith sends out these poems like bulletins to his heroes, his confreres, his girlfriends, his dead; in the serial form pioneered by Jack Spicer, John Ashbery, Robin Blaser, and Larry Kearney, the tropes rumble like card tricks—Spicer’s forests, diamonds, Giants and knights advance and retreat across a musical chessboard. If there was no one else writing poetry in all of the Bay Area, we would still be “covered”; with Logan Ryan Smith at bat we’ll see angels in the outfield."

2007-05-25T14:09:00.000-04:00

This just in from Shin Yu Pai:

Dear Friends,

Convivio Bookworks has just published my new book Works on Paper. Works on Paper was printed letterpress on a Vandercook 4 Proof Press in an edition of 125 copies. The poems are printed on kozo paper, with sections bound in Moriki endsheets. Boards were wrapped in Kumoi paper, brushed with persimmon dye, and printed with beeswax. The concertina structure is of Fabriano Roma, and the types are Perpetua. This book was designed, printed, and bound by John Cutrone and Seth Thompson.

This book is priced at $95 and is available directly from the artists at Convivio Bookworks. Visit www.conviviobookworks.com. Or contact Shin Yu Pai for a signed copy.

2007-05-25T10:35:00.000-04:00

This in from Didi Menendez:

Café' Café' is a mipoetic community located HERE Poems posted in the group forum are considered for publication in MiPO~Print. Our motto is "we share our poems, not our wives".
Buy the best of the best Here!

Getting some help around here...

2007-05-24T18:30:00.000-04:00

Sandra Simonds & Jess Rowan have just signed on as coeditors for this here blog. They'll be posting news, announcements, reviews, links, photos, book arts projects & sundry other poetical micromakings.

Maybe together we'll manage to keep up better, eh? And write/solicit some original reviews? Let's hear a big hell, yeah.

Contact info for the new eds is now in the sidebar. They may also be soliciting reviewers & review copies directly.

Introducing Bloof Books

2007-05-12T10:20:00.000-04:00

(Click the bee to visit the website.)

Two books due out this fall: Jennifer L. Knox's second book, Drunk by Noon (see store page for more info) & my own For Girls (details to come). & in the spring, Danielle Pafunda's My Zorba.

"Don't Call It a Vanity Press"

2007-05-12T10:14:00.000-04:00

Time Magazine's got an article up on digital printing services like Blurb and Lulu. [via Jilly Dybka]

Self-publishing, the only real success story in an otherwise depressed industry, is booming, thanks to the Internet, digital cameras and more sophisticated digital printing. It's also gaining respect. No longer dismissed as vanity presses, DIY publishing is discovering a niche market of customers seeking high-quality books for limited distribution.

Read the rest.

Librarians of the Ephemeral

2007-05-09T11:24:00.000-04:00

There's a neat article [via Ron Silliman's linkfarm today] in the Boston Globe about how certain savvy librarians (many of whom are zinesters or former zinesters themselves) are managing the collection of zines, chapbooks, & DIY etceteras, some going so far as to establish proper Zine Collections:

[Jennifer] Freedman [at Barnard College] is part of a generation that grew up with zines during their heyday in the 1990s. Now she is part of an emerging community of professionally trained librarians who are trying to make zines a part of the modern academic library system. It is a community, Freedman says, that faces a difficult question: How do libraries -- institutions that by nature require a strict, stately style of micromanagement -- assimilate these self-published and occasionally category-defying dispatches from the cultural hinterlands?

"I think because we're all making it up, everyone is trying something and we'll see what the best practice is," Freedman explains. "Zinesters are not thinking about libraries when they write them" -- rarely do they contain copyright statements, dates of publication, or even reliable contact information.

Read the rest.

Then if you're near Barnard, check out their collection in person & report back, will ya? There are also similar collections at Duke University, the New York Public Library (um, news to me!), the Salt Lake City Public Library, and "about 20 colleges and universities."

What we need is a list.

Dropped in the river like a sack of blind kittens, eh?

2007-05-09T11:11:00.000-04:00

The most striking aspect of the showcase was the innumerable small and tiny presses that have risen to the challenge of publishing poetry in today’s marketplace, where commercial houses have dropped the genre like a sack full of blind kittens into a river. Presses like Factory School and Wave Books have recently emerged to join the ranks of Copper Canyon, Graywolf, and Hanging Loose as independent publishers exclusively devoted to putting out several volumes of new poetry a year. In addition, a hundred or so chapbook presses have sprung from the union of desktop publishing and DIY culture, producing often-beautiful pamphlet-sized books featuring the work of both emerging and established poets. Seeing so many books hand-stitched or letter-pressed, with silk-screened cover art, was a reminder of the effort and the pride that goes into this art[....]

From the May issue of the Brooklyn Rail, (though danged if I can tell who wrote it). Click the quotation to read the rest.

Congrats to Lorna Dee Cervantes & Ocho!

2007-05-06T17:35:00.000-04:00

. . . & congrats to editor/publisher Didi Menendez too, on Lorna's just-announced Pushcart Prize, received for "Shelling the Pecans," which appeared in Ocho #6.

More on the Pushcart Prize anthology may be found here.

Here's a little reminder that Ocho is the print/PDF companion to MiPoesias, available through MiPo's Lulu store.

Scott Pierce's new letterpress & chapbook

2007-05-06T12:58:00.000-04:00

If you're into letterpress printing, you might stop by Scott's blog if you haven't peeked lately. He recently acquired his very own letterpress (SWOON) and has been blogging about his projects, including forthcoming Effing stuff, some broadsides, and a very cool idea for "coaster sides."

With photos, naturally. Check it.

He's also got a new chapbook out from Small Fires Press (Tuscaloosa, AL--hello! Adding you to the press links!). Called Some Bridges Migrate, it can be yours for a mere ten spot. Details.

Scenes from the Body by Robyn Art: new from Dancing Girl Press

2007-05-06T12:50:00.000-04:00

Scenes from the Body
text/photographs by Robyn Art
dancing girl press, 2007
$7.00 (includes S&H)

Robyn Art is the author of The Stunt Double in Winter, forthcoming from Dusie Press in October 2007. She is also the author of the chapbooks Degrees of Being There (Boneworld Press 2003), Vestigial Portions of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Dancing Girl Press September 2006), and The Last Time I Saw Bonnie Blue (ensemblejourine.com, May 2007).

An excerpt:

It was a kind of falling-toward,
A stained, magnificent bloodbath
Wherein we were split in two,
And then there were two,
It was fits of anhilatory bliss
And the sutures that wouldn’t hold,
The nearly unbearable tenderness
As we trudged along the block:
Bovine, besotted,
Slogging through the steady
Flow of suits and midsize canines,
The monophonic swan song of which
We’d always dreamed: holding someone
As she dreams and the dream
Becomes you holding her,
The spit-up, onesies,
Mass influx of rattles,
The old gray mare that ain’t
What she used to be:
We wanted to take
One last look back but soon
It was clear there was
No way back……….

Visit the Dancing Girl Press site to order.

Introducing Anchiote Press

2007-05-06T12:30:00.000-04:00

Poet-blogger Craig Perez of Blind Elephant has founded a new chapbook press called Anchiote. Here's the scoop:

Achiote Press releases their spring 2007 chapbooks: the immaculate autopsy by Todd Melicker & achiote seeds a chap-journal featuring Barbara Jane Reyes, Rich Villar, and Rebecca Mabanglo Mayor.

$12 gets you both chapbooks. But if you email Craig (csperez06 [at] gmail [dot]] com) he will most likely give you a discount, with ordering info.

See the Anchiote Press blog for more info. It's also been added to the presses in the sidebar.

News of two news from Transmission Press . . .

2007-05-06T12:20:00.000-04:00

The word from editor/publisher Logan Ryan Smith:

TRANSMISSION PRESS, my chapbook press, which is still under a year old, has recently released its 5th chappy, ORGY IN THE BEEF CLOSET, by Michael Koshkin. Shortly before this release, Sabrina Calle's THE GILLES POEM - WINTER 2006 COLLECTION was also released [& is still available].

Please go the website (transmissionpress.blogspot.com) for more info. Each book is $3.50 thru PayPal or by sending a check made out to me, Logan Ryan Smith, and sending it to:

Logan Ryan Smith
711 Leavenworth St., #35
San Francisco, CA 94109

And, of course, trades are always welcome. Also, if you're simply that broke but feel like you can't go another day knowing the distance between you and your favorite TRANSMISSION chap only grows, then let me know and I'll send ya one for free. Be sure to spread the news in the street and on your subway cars that Logan Ryan Smith is one generous mofo. Also that I'm pretty. Thanks.

Hugs and stuff,
Logan

You know what to do.

A new issue of Tarpaulin Sky

2007-05-06T12:05:00.000-04:00

From the editor Christian Peet, this announcement:

Tarpaulin Sky
Sping/Summer 2007
Text-Image / Ekphrastic Issue
Guest-edited by Rebecca Brown

Kitty has claws, that’s why kitty can’t get in the closet. Kitty won’t use them, if she doesn’t have to. Who’s seen my green eye shadow? Backstage, getting ready for the play. What’s interesting about the house on Kingswood is the TV room is for the grownups, the back bedroom is for us kids. These are all the dolls your mother played with, when she was a little girl. One even looks just like her, you think.
--Douglas A. Martin, My Grandmother's Closet

This special issue features new work created in response to images by Nancy Kiefer by Chris Abani, Rebecca Brown, Lucy Corin, Camille Dungy, Brian Evenson, Amy Halloran, Joanna Howard, Laird Hunt, Douglas A. Martin, Frances McCue, Suzanne Oliver, Selah Saterstrom, & John Yau.

Table of contents

E-X-C-H-A-N-G-E-V-A-L-U-E-S now available in printed, portable format (i.e. a book)

2007-05-06T12:02:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite interview websites has just been transformed into a tangible object by Mark Young's Otoliths Books.

E-X-C-H-A-N-G-E-V-A-L-U-E-S :
The First XI Interviews
Tom Beckett, curator
ISBN: 978-0-9775604-9-3
Otoliths, 2007
Paperback, 252 pp.
$16.95 + p&h

In response to popular demand, Otoliths is releasing one of the books from its next round of offerings early, E-X-C-H-A-N-G-E-V-A-L-U-E-S: The First XI Interviews.

Tom Beckett's E-X-C-H-A-N-G-E-V-A-L-U-E-S website has become, since its inception in 2005, an important source of information on contemporary poetry and poetics. This book brings together the first eleven interviews from the ongoing series, augmented by bionotes and almost one hundred pages of self-selected examples of the interviewees' work.

The interviewees (some of whom later reappear as interviewers) are Crag Hill, Thomas Fink, Nick Piombino, Sheila E. Murphy, Eileen Tabios, Jukka-Pekka Kervinen, K. Silem Mohammad, Geof Huth, Barbara Jane Reyes, Paolo Javier, Stephen Paul Miller and Jean Vengua. Most of the interviews were conducted by Tom Beckett, and Ron Silliman and Mark Young also appear as interviewers.

GET IT HERE.

Also forthcoming from Otoliths Books later this month: Nick Piombino's "visual collage novel" Free Fall, Rochelle Ratner's poetic journal/memoir Leads & Sheila E. Murphy's first integrated collection of text & visual poetry, The Case of the Lost Objective (Case). All will be available via the Otoliths site and Lulu bookstore.

Preorder the Outside Voices anthology or Brenda Ijima's Eco Quarry Bellweather

2007-04-28T14:24:00.000-04:00

Jessica Smith's Outside Voices press is now offering preoder PayPal buttons for both the anthology of youngish poets (title TBD) and Brenda Iijima's forthcoming Eco Quarry Bellweather.

The anthology will be available in January 2008, and will showcase the work of more than 250 poets under 40, working in experimental or avant-garde veins, including sound and visual poetries.

Both the antholgy & Eco Quarry Bellweather are available at special discounts, with free shipping, during this limited-time offer.

See the Outside Voices website for details.