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-Philip Whalen
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Presa Magazine
Poetry
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New In 2008
The
Burning Mirror - Kerry Shawn Keys
92
pages
Perfectbound
paperback (ISBN 978-0-9772524-9-7, $14.95)
Avant-garde,
boom-generation poet, translator and international multi-media artist Kerry
Shawn Keys presents a new volume of his surrealistic poetry. His poems
are imagistic, lyrical vehicles that express Keys' personal observations of
the natural world, contrasted to the artificiality of man's world.
“Not only a poet of the mind, but a wisdom poet and allegorist. Keys is a nature poet both in his closeness to and his terrific knowledge of the things of the natural world, and in his deliberate and absurdist anthropomorphization of those things. A Kind of deconstructionist, a scholar, and existentialist...and all of them with great passion - singing...and humming to his own carefree energy.”
-Gerald Stern
“Good word-slinging - rich sense of music, metaphor,
image, melody - color and flavor...”
- Gary Snyder
“The body of Kerry Shawn Keys' true subject in 'The Burning Mirror' is the expanse of the history of the planet and the history of philosophy and poetry; granted to us in notes of the sublime and real shards of a very real world. From fate gambler to devout shapeshifter to archeologist of the word and ethnoclast, the organizing psyche in these poems never loses sight of his main shamanistic and psychosexual thinking body, an organism that is equal parts god killer and worshipper...indeed, 'St. Paul and Venus polished into one body by the sea'.”
- Sam Witt
“...the work seems to exude like sap from a sugar maple or ants from a hill. What an incredible wealth. The sort of poet people dream about when they dream about poets.”
- Robert Bringhurst
Total Immersion - Glenna Luschei
96
pages
Perfectbound paperback (ISBN 978-0-9800081-0-4,
$15.00)
Total
Immersion is a landmark collection of poems by the legendary literary activist,
poet/editor Glenna Luschei. In her mature later poems, Glenna Luschei joyfully
celebrates the organic cycle of life. People & landscapes reflect &
parallel each other in their birth, growth, decline & death, but the poet
opts for a life-affirming, maternal world-view. It takes more than mere life
to discourage her pioneer spirit. Glenna Luschei, Ph.D., has been active in
the small press for 40+ years as a past president of COSMEP (Committee of
Small Magazine Editors & Publishers), the publisher of Solo Café, as a
teacher, as a translator & as a philanthropist to American literature.
“Like Whitman and Dr. Williams before her, Luschei also
praises what is not conventionally beautiful, finding beauty in all of nature’s
creations...”
-Diane Lockward in Galatea Resurrects #4
“The language of these poems is reminiscent of the Zen Buddhist poets, who
journey into the mountains or forests or the river valley and return with
scrolls of verse that sing of what they have seen and learned.”
-Donald Lev in Home Planet News
“Luschei isn’t merely a poet but a subtle impressionistic
prophet whose work immediately begins to change your whole world-view.”
-Hugh Fox
“There is a pristine quality to her verse. Her view
of the natural world is not hindered by messy, weedy words. It’s poetry that
speaks, and says ‘Hey, it’s there...be quiet...look and listen’.”
-Doug Holder in Ibbetson Update
“Like the best of poets and other artists, Glenna Luschei
never grew up. Rather, she grew and goes on growing. Vast is her sense of
wonder and awe. Again and again, her every poem celebrates the ways the world
begins.”
-Al Young
“I found Ms. Luschei’s elliptical style convincing......
One can tell that each word has been laid down with a mortar and pestle and
I delight in that...”
-Kirby Congdon in Small Press Review
Wild Strawberries - Eric Greinke
96
pages
Perfectbound paperback (ISBN 978-0-9800081-1-1,
$15.00)
Wild
Strawberries collects fifty-nine new poems previously published in three dozen
plus literary journals such as Backwards City Review, The California Quarterly,
the Iconoclast, The New York Quarterly and The Pedestal, from 2005 to 2008,
by the critically acclaimed poet Eric Greinke. The book’s central theme is
man’s relationship to time and the natural (and unnatural) world. Greinke’s
poems are imagistic, thought-provoking and evocative. He is a master of shifting
moods and personae. Includes the 180-line major poem For The Living Dead,
which has been nominated by Muses Review as Best Poem of 2007 and also for
a Pushcart Prize. Eric Greinke is a major voice on the small press literary
scene. A must-have for all poetry collections.
“It’s been said that the true mark of art is to make people think. In his latest book, Eric Greinke does just that. Greinke’s poems are surreptitious creatures, seemingly up front at first, then grabbing hold of the reader’s psyche and taking it for a ride.”
-Julie Bonner Stevenson inThe Grand
Rapids Press
“Eric Greinke’s infinite variety has never staled nor
withered. His poems have the surrealistic magic of Magritte or the young Dali.
He is an eclectic poet for all seasons and all times of the day.”
-Leslie H. Whitten Jr.
“Greinke is part of an ancient tradition that melds man, the Universe, the
Divine. Further and further into a kind of melding with the divine which he
finds deep down, under the normal, conscious workings of the waking, ‘formal’
mind. Further and further into the secret centers under the surfaces that
normally surround us.”
-Hugh Fox in the Iconoclast
“What I enjoy the most about the poetry of Eric Greinke
is that it implies more than it actually states, which belongs to this school
of thought: true poetry is supposed to make the reader THINK.”
-Joseph Verrilli in Drama Garden
“One of the most effective poets on the scene, a master word/idea worker who
deserves the strongest possible lauds.”
- Small Press Review
PO/EMS - Richard Kostelanetz
40
pages
Saddle-stitched ($6.00)
Words within words by the foremost experimental poet of our time.
“Just when you think you're totally soaked in the possibilities in modern art, music, poetry, drama, dance, etc., along comes Richard Kostelanetz and you've got to start all over again.”
-Hugh Fox in Small Press Review
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Alice - Louis E. Bourgeois
40
pages
Saddle-stitched ($6.00)
A new collection of surrealistic prose poems by Louis E. Bourgeois.
“The prose poems of Louis Bourgeois tap into the same darkside source as Baudelaire, Poe, and Kafka, offering us deeply interior glimpses into the epochal mind of a poet who pushes the psychological envelope. This a rare occurence in any generation.”
-Eric Greinke
“The poetic writings of Louis E. Bourgeois offer an
exacting appreciation of personal tragedy and of an infinitely larger world
that embraces 'the indifference of life to all things'. With unwavering
self awareness, the poet defies universal authority, and challenges the reader's
perceptions of passing events. His work is void of spurious hope, yet
taunts us with a lingering sense of individual purpose.”
- Laura Qa in Red Dragon Press
God Is Dead (again) – Kirby Congdon
102 pages
Perfectbound paperback (ISBN: 0-9772524-2-6, $20.00)
12
one-act plays about the meaning of life. With crisp, precise dialogue,
insightful characterization & streamlined plot development, Congdon compels
us to question our collective fears, fantasies & foibles. Throughout
these philosophical voyages, the theme returns to the nature & meaning
of human experience. Individually & collectively, they provoke us
to examine deeper issues.
"Congdon's liquid language captures the tenusousness of our existence, the sheer power of change, but the frail human form is placed, in all its inconsequential perfection, against these primal forces."
-Alyson Matley, Cayo Magazine
“This book is testament to the fact that Congdon should be as well known as a playwright as he is as a poet.”
-Ibbetson Update
Selected Poems & Prose Poems - Kirby Congdon
84 pages
Perfectbound paperback (ISBN: 0-9772524-0-X, $15.00)
The
best of 50 years from an independent press legend, selected by the author.
"Kirby Congdon's poems are a hybrid mix of existential angst & neo-classical tonality. They pose metaphysical & moral questions in ironic spaces, like Mozart played uptempo by a cool jazz combo."
-Eric Greinke
"A poet like Congdon is a man who binds himself to the mast and sails off determined to miss nothing, record everything, even the siren song that leads everyone finally to the reefs of extinguishment."
-Joan Colby, Small Press Review
"Kirby has not been in the mainstream of his time, but he has been very much a part of the avant garde and a creative but independent force as a poet, editor and critic. He deserves and will some day get, the attention that he merits."
-Ray C. Longtin, Professor Emeritus of English, Long Island University
“He (Congdon) is enough of a story painter to invoke Dunsany in his prose pieces and enough of a musician that, no matter where you find yourself in his work, you can hang like a happy spider of a webwork of wordplay and internal rhyme and rhythm.”
-Rattlesnake Review
Blood
Cocoon - Selected Poems of Connie Fox
- Hugh Fox
72 pages
Perfectbound paperback (ISBN: 0-9740868-9-4, $15.00)
In
these poems, Connie Fox explores the ancient theology/philosophy of the Great
Goddess world-view where the Earth itself is literally the Earth Mother &
everything is dominated by a sense of female sexuality/fertility. The
Dream of the Black Topaz Chamber, Oma, & Nachthymnen
highlight this primordial femininity with lush imagery & rich language.
10 170 & Babicka link the past with the present &
provide a glimpse into Connie’s experiences, sensuality, & awareness of
the life-death cycle. This increased awareness of death & aloneness permeates
the imagery in Our Lady Of Laussel & Entre Nous. Fox
identifies & identifies with the history/anthropology/philosophy of female
sexuality & portrays it with courage, sensitivity, & intelligence.
This poetry is a kind of Jungian-Freudian Id-history of Connie’s life &
relationships from childhood to adulthood.
“I have read (The Dream of the Black Topaz Chamber)
a number of times and have been confused by its ofttimes obscurity, amazed
at its complexity, overwhelmed by the breadth of its content, and amazed at
its colloquial simplicity.”
-Laurence F. Hawkins,
Jr. in Dog River Review
“Our Lady of Laussel...a totally different
cup of tea...genuinely powerful imagery...difficult to identify with or even
understand but strangely also very compelling...very readable...”
-Ore
“ ...the writing, (10 170) a 12 section epic
chant for the dead and dying, is a hypnotic confessional flow filled with
wise, true psychobabble and real-life folks...Connie Fox is like an old woman
rattling and knitting, only she uses guts instead of yarn.”
-Ken Sutherland in
Mockreviewsz
“If Walt Whitman had been a woman, all of nature would
have been reconfigured to a different time zone and place. That is what Connie
Fox’s poetry makes me believe. And it’s Whitman who this free verse of gorgeous
and engorging poetry reminds me of most. I love this book.”
-Lo Galluccio in The
Cambridge Alewife
“The poems
in Blood Cocoon will amaze in thie complexity and overwhelm in their
content. I suggest this book to those readers who prefer poetry with
a bite, for these writings are soaked with an intensity that will not soon
be forgotten by those who choose to take the journey.”
-Rattlesnake Review
“A
marvelous collection/concoction, this selection from prior books is a must
for ever Connie Fox fan.”
-Small Press Review
Time & Other Poems - Hugh Fox
44 pages
Saddle-stiched paperback ($6.00)
He
(Fox) examines the meaning of his existence continually, & never settles
for easy answers. His personal relationships, his memories, his perceptions
are all fodder for his well-aimed cannon. These poems are intimate &
true. They occupy a space somewhere between autobiographical journalism
& Jungian dreamwork. Fox transfers so much of himself into these
poems, that he defies time & mortality. He takes us through the
halls of myth & art, spanning all of human existence & beyond, into
the cosmos of being itself. Reading these poems creates an emotional
tide effect, satisfying & sweet, boundless & brave as the expanding
universe.
"Reading Hugh Fox's poems is a bit like getting on a bus with a ticket you've no idea to where, you are jostled, take some wild curves, have breath-taking vistas, get to where you'd never expected, sometimes dazed, shaken up, sometimes laughing, never bored, always a little different than when you began."
-Lyn Lifshin
"Like Charles Ives, like Herman Melville, Hugh Fox is an American original, an (almost) divinely inspired crackpot. There is no one else like him writing today."
-Richard Morris
"Fox succeeds in keeping the reader's attention through a day to day existence that is never dull or tedious. There is no self-pity in this journey. Fox is never angry, never pathetic, just seeking answers to questions that really have no answer."
-A.D. Winans
“This collection is a roller coaster ride between life and death, and as Ferlinghetti put it 'a Coney Island of the mind'.”
-Ibbetson Update
“The poet searches for something else eternal beyond...and it is in Time and in the language of Time if it is anywhere.”
-Jared Smith
“The poems included in this collection are as genuine as anything written by Ginsberg. These are poems of human history, which cry out to be heard and read by many.”
-Rattlesnake Review
The
Drunken Boat & Other Poems From The French of Arthur Rimbaud – American
Versions by Eric Greinke
108 pages
Perfectbound paperback (ISBN 978-0-9772524-7-3, $15.95)
Available
for the first time as a full-length, bi-lingual edition, these translations
have received high praise from fellow poets/translators such as Robert Bly
and Leslie H. Whitten, Jr.
The music & imagistic beauty restored at last to France's greatest
poet. A must-have for all students and readers of classic poetry.
“Greinke’s renderings come across with such a remarkably
contemporary feel, that he easily gets away with the occasional use of words
like ‘car’ and ‘suburbia’. This little collection boasts many fine poems.
The Drunken Boat is wild and lovely and perhaps the poet’s most vivid
expression of his desire to find a life of total freedom.”
-Edward J. Hogan in
Aspect
“Greinke has made a contribution to a rather hallowed history of American and French letters in this new collection of 29 translations of Rimbaud's verse. I put his book on my shelf with affection.”
-Kirby Congdon in Iconoclast
“The images are lovely, lush and luxuriant. Rimbaud comes across as an artist in love with love, with art; in love with the romantic notion of the poet trying to free himself from convention. The poems here can only be described as rich: with both metaphor, and music. Greinke has produced an accessible and evocative piece of work ”
-Doug Holder in The Chiron Review
“The poems are brief, yet flower with sparkling beauty, embodying the human yearning for freedom and the poet’s struggle to release himself from convention. A wondrous collection, featuring verses that beg to be read aloud in either tongue.”
-The Midwest Book
Review
“I’m attracted to Greinke’s approach for several reasons.
First, because he’s a poet who’s unapologetically trying to translate poetry
into poetry. A tough proposition requiring shameless intuition and not only
the courage - but the inner need to risk ‘poetic flight.’ The need to work
without a net. Another reason I’m attracted to Greinke’s approach is that
for him, Rimbaud is a labor of love, not a “project.” In his introduction,
he talks about a feeling of déjà vu when first encountering Rimbaud. And describes
what seems an almost compulsive sense of appropriated ownership. An annoyance
at the existing translations. ‘A need to do his own.’ To a non-translator,
these feelings may sound a little over the top. But to any one who translates
poetry - they’re instantly recognizable. Greinke’s only saying what most poetry
translators think, but usually think twice about saying. I’ve often felt a
translator needs to look beyond the words and beneath the text for the roots
of the original poem. What really differentiates Greinke’s version is that
it reads like a poem written in English. And I think this was accomplished
by tapping the roots as well as the words of the original. By “internalizing”
the original and letting the new poem shape itself in the new language. Rather
than forcing the French into English.”
-Art Beck in Rattle
“For music, for the flow, the force of the spirit, Greinke
is the easy winner. Although the auditory music of Rimbaud is impossible to
capture in English, Greinke is true to the inner music, while giving a sense
of the flow of the original. His language is sensuous and wild and feels right.”
-Harry Smith in The
Small Press Review
“Greinke revels in Rimbaud’s humanization/deification
of Nature. Nothing “Out There” in Nature just is, but is always divine and
radiates divinity. Bullfinches, “The Golden Kiss of the Woods,” aren’t just
birds but philosophers. For Rimbaud-Greinke taking a walk through the woods
is an immersion in the Divine.”
-Hugh Fox, Ph.D., from Eric Greinke: An Overview in Iconoclast
SELECTED
POEMS 1972 – 2005 – Eric Greinke
140 pages
Perfectbound paperback (ISBN: 0-9740868-7-8, $20.00)
Selected
Poems 1972 - 2005 is published in response to a resurgence in Eric Greinke’s
reputation & to numerous requests for an up-to-date collection of his
poetry. The book contains 91 of his best poems including 23 poems previously
unpublished in book form. Greinke’s poetry has been repeatedly compared by
critics to that of the watershed French poet Arthur Rimbaud. Ranging from
personal poems to surrealism, from deep imagism to abstract expressionism,
& from tragic to comic, Greinke’s poetry is evocative, multi-layered,
entertaining & engaging. His poetry is informed by the sister arts of
painting & music, & his influences are wide-ranging, from the Beats
to the New York School, from the French Surrealists to the American Immanentists.
His website is www.ericgreinke.com
“Eric Greinke is one of the best and most prolific writers
around today.”
-Joseph Dionne in The
Grand Rapids Press
“His style has always appealed to me: the declarative
statements like mystical aphorisms. Greinke’s work is, for me, like Rimbaud’s
prose poems - surrealistic yet precise and detailed. I have this same kind
of confidence and reaction to both poets - that this is literature.”
-Amaranthus
“I find Eric Greinke’s work particularly fascinating
and inspiring.”
-Peter Thomas in The
Sault Evening News
“Greinke deals with the penetration of the impenetrable,
the struggle of love in a brutally forbidding world.”
-David Greisman in
Abbey
“Greinke has put a lot of thought into context and structure.
His poems are filled with simple images which have a deeper meaning and keep
the reader interested throughout.”
-M.C. Eichman in Wisconsin
Review
“Greinke has magically melted several worlds together.
I’d call it Whitmanic rorschach: a wild high!”
-William Harrold in
Small Press Review
“...poems
that aim like an arrow to the heart of the matter. Objects become moods become
people. Every moment, every person means something - and can linger in the
heart and mind forever.”
-Phil Wagner in Iconoclast
“What Greinke often does is extend the enigmas of the
haiku into the more tangible and, for me, more satisfying expressions of experience.
The haiku intends to leaves us with a sense of suspension, at a doorway, so
to speak, without actually telling us what’s beyond the threshold. The language
is surreal, completely illogical and completely believable.”
-Small Press Review
“Greinke’s work is a refreshing kind of almost childlike,
let-it-fall-the-way-it-falls surrealism. Not Cocteau-ish “worked at” surrealism,
but very relatable-to....he manages to get inside Nature with a certain innocent,
practiced naiveté that is steeped in the collective not un-consciousness but
edge-of-consciousness.”
-Hugh Fox
“Eric
Greinke's infinite variety has never staled nor withered. His poems
have the surrealistic magic of Magritte or the young Dali. They awaken
us with brilliant sunlight on a lake, with a rain of apple blossoms, with
birdwomen on bicycles, with.... My God, what next?”
-Leslie H. Whitten
Jr.
Morpheus
Rising – Ronnie M. Lane
40 pages
Saddle-stitched paperback ($6.00)
He
morphs us into dreamland to face the monsters of the soul.
“Ronnie M. Lane hallucinates about the bizarre, the
absurd and the ugly. His poems are apocalyptic. Lane presents images out of
a Dali gone wild.”
-Herbert L. Carson
in The Grand Rapids Press
“The language is adroit, the references are always provocative...One
senses that Ronnie Lane is straddling different conceptions: the spontaneity
of compulsion in raw reality and the disciplined control of the artist in
capturing it and laying it to rest.”
-Kirby Congdon
Living In Dangerous Times - Linda Lerner
52
pages
Saddle-stiched
paperback ($6.00)
26
new poems from the author of Because You Can't I Will.
“Linda Lerner should be one of the most visible of our poets in this country...she is in a special outsider group of powerful and original American poets largely ignored by Poetry Establishment forces. Her amazing energies zap her poems with high voltage...”
-Robert Peters,
Chiron Review
“Linda Lerner is emerging in America as a major poet
who has taken the long time it takes to accomplish original poetry, which
in an age of populist mediocrity is refreshing.”
- Leo Connellan
“In a sharp sure voice the poet fulfills the promise of the title by showing the psychology, the cultural unease of our anxious and inexplicable era.”
- Phil Wagner in Iconoclast
“Linda Lerner is passionate about poetry's potency in
our increasingly frightening and alienating age. She shoots from the
hip, is politically engaged, and at times very erotic.”
- Doug Holder in Boston Area Small Press And Poetry Scene
In Mirrors - Lyn Lifshin
84 pages
Perfectbound paperback (ISBN: 0-9772524-3-4, $15.00)
A
new book from one of our most important poets. Lifshin gives us her
most reflective work to date.
"No one is more precise, focused, as deftly impressionistic as Lifshin..."
-Hugh Fox
"Lyn Lifshin's mirror poems may be taken individually & as a suite. Few poets can extend a metaphor in so many directions. Lifshin's poetic power is evident in these imagistic variations on the theme of insight."
-Eric Greinke
“There are many crisp images in this collection. If you are a fan of Ms. Lifshin's work, you will enjoy her latest authoring.”
-Rattlesnake Review
Seedpods - Glenna Luschei
40
pages
Saddle-stitched paperback ($6.00)
30
new & selected poems. Luschei achieves universality through timeless
natural imagery. Graceful free verse of subtle musicality.
"Her writing celebrates its elements and seasons, the growing things and creatures, with sharp, evocative colors and a sinewy verse music alert to the poetic cpacities in the sounds of ordinary words as mica and tarmac, soap and oak."
-Tom Clark
"Glenna Luschei's poems are always lively, brave, sometimes biting as lime juice - written by an enchanting mind."
-Robert Bly
"Lushei's two loves - poetry and the things of this earth - come together in her latest collection, Seedpods. Like Whitman and Dr. Williams before her, Lushei also praises what is not conventionally beautiful, finding beauty in all of nature's creations. She interweaves image and memory. Readers, let's stand up for Glenna Lushei."
-galatea resurrects
Limbos For Amplified Harpsichord – Stanley Nelson
144 pages
Perfectbound paperback (ISBN: 0-9772524-8-0, $17.95)
Nelson's
Limbos For Amplified Harpsichord is a musical and metaphorical tour
de force, unique in both style & theme. The author of 16 published
poetry collections, Nelson continues to push the boundaries of poetic form.
"This is a well-written book with obvious well-read references that will appeal to many people. Limbos For Amplified Harpsichord is a throwback to classical poets and if read as such the reader will enjoy and be enthralled by Nelson's writing."
-Irene Koronas in The Boston Area Small Press And Poetry Scene
"In places the word-dance on the page is more radical, but the spatial effects, though they may seem challenging at first glance, always implement the meaning. In the realm of experimental visual form, Nelson is a worthy successor to Apollinaire and Cummings, and he is unique in his major music."
-Harry Smith
Pre-Socratic Points & Other New Poems – Stanley Nelson
84 pages
Perfectbound paperback (ISBN: 0-9772524-4-2, $15.00)
Nelson
explores the range of poetic form. He utilizes a traditional sonnet
format in one section & an open, non-linear format, in which he not only
breaks up words, but seperates syllables & letters, in another.
The poems expand across the page. This book offers a mix of visual &
auditory imagery, creating an alternative universe.
"This is the most radical opening up of poetic form since Walt Whitman's Leaves Of Grass. Stanley Nelson is one of those defining figures, one of those who defines an age, not only for his contemporaries, but for posterity."
-Guy Gauthier
"Stanley Nelson's poems are a poetic bridge between the ancient thunder of Sumerian bulls and the dysfunctional fragmentation of the present world. His encyclopedic mind and ingenious verse make ancient times instantly relevant to the trauma of today."
-Leslie H. Whitten Jr.
“Nelson is a writer whose rapture is deeply imbedded in his craft. This volume is an intense, and at times, a very entertaining read.”
-Rattlesnake Review
“Stanley Nelson may be the best poet you've never heard of. This is a poetry of elementals.”
-Alan Catlin
Inside
The Outside - An Anthology of Avant-Garde American Poets
302 pages
Perfectbound paperback (ISBN: 0-9772524-1-8, $29.95)
This
volume brings together 13 major poets of the American small press scene, each
representing an important branch of the avant-garde as it has developed over
the past forty years. Each of the poets is presented in a large selection,
in most cases chosen by the poets themselves. They range in age from 41 to
81, their poetics range from visual/conceptual poetry to surrealism, from
personal/observation poetry to cut-up & collage poetry. Powerful, touching,
innovative & humorous, these poems illuminate the underground poetry scene
to give the reader a view of the real new American poetry.
Kirby Congdon, Hugh Fox,
Stanley Nelson, Harry Smith,
Richard Kostelanetz, A.D. Winans,
Lyn Lifshin, Eric Greinke, Lynne Savitt,
Doug Holder, John Keene,
Mark Sonnenfeld & Richard Morris
“Inside The Outside dares to break with poetry conventions and attempt eye-catching formats, and some poems delve into serious and mature subject matters concerning human sexuality, violence and modern social problems. A ‘must-read’ for its truly innovative poetry.”
-Midwest Book Review
“The publication of INSIDE THE OUTSIDE is a
timely tribute to the many fine poets who are unaccountably outside the radar
of the large trade houses. This kind of innovative book is evidence to the
literary world that America's poetry is fresh, powerful and above all readable.
Its editors deserve kudos for their taste and industry.”
- Leslie H. Whitten
Jr.
“Inside The Outside is a remarkable undertaking.
I recommend this collection for all collections of contemporary American poetry.”
-Rattlesnake Review
“Presa
Press has just published a new anthology of avant-garde Amercian poets called
Inside The Outside. It costs $29.95, and it's worth much more.”
-Michael Andre
“...let's
hope a venue with a lot of room and rapacious intellectuals (like The
New York Review of Books?) will really sink their beaks into this
book....It will find its audience and fan base - perhaps even find occasional
employment as a text or reference...The book is meant to be a major statement
- and I seriously hope it can fly above and beyond the usual small press ghetto
boundaries.”
-Iconoclast
“Poets,
librarians, collectors, teachers, take note. This book is a prime source.
It represents the diversity, power, and anguish of avant-garde American
poetry from the 60s onward. Generations to come will use it to learn
how writing was lived before the mundane media-centric days of virtual reality.”
-Small Press Review
the
deployment of love in pineapple twilight – Lynne Savitt
48 pages
Saddle-stitched paperback ($6.00)
36
perceptive new poems of feminine strength & sensuality. Her most mature
work to date.
“No one writes lust and life and our secrets, fantasy
and actual, like this. If you are breathing, Lynne Savitt’s poems are a must.”
-Leo Connellan, poet
laureate of Connecticut
“Ambulance sirens ring through her words with the same
burning intensity for life, cholesterol rich with 'welts of butter light'
and others that burst with violence and fragility, as after a car accident
when 'night cracked open like egg shell'.”
-Linda Lerner
“Honesty, lusty, cold nipples in the neon moon...Lynne
Savitt is the Janis Joplin of poetry. I read everything she puts out..immediately.”
-Charles Plymell
“These poems are heart-breaking, funny, introspective,
angry, and masterfully-crafted. These are the kinds of poems that make me
want to write better.”
-Dan Crocker
“Lynne Savitt’s poetry is like a machine gun. It discharges
images in a rapid-fire succession that targets the reader. The poetry, for
the most part, is not narrative, but a roller coaster of words sparked by
her visceral experiences in the world. Savitt brings a lusty, vibrant, and
honest woman’s voice to the collection.”
-Ibbetson Update
“Savitt’s feminine strength comes through her sensuous
& explicit use of imagery & her tough but loving persona. Her poems
pull the reader into a world where she balances events & relationships
to stay emotionally centered, like a human gyroscope.”
-Eric Greinke
“While the titles of her books can titillate, promise,
and provoke, the poems inside deliver so much more.”
-Home Planet News
“Once you
are exposed to the poetry of Lynne Savitt, there is no turning back, for her
words dig deep and are not soon forgotten. Get this book.”
-Rattlesnake Review
Up North - Harry Smith & Eric Greinke
40
pages
Saddle-stitched paperback ($6.00)
The
30 short poems in Up North evoke "that Northern feeling"
& the universal mystery of time & space.
"These aren't touristy recollections of trips up north, but get way, way inside the essential esprit of wilderness. You start reading and suddenly you're there. Both Smith and Greinke are poet veterans, and Up North represents both of them at thie mature best."
-Hugh Fox
“These two poets welcome the inspiration, respite and solace the hinterlands seem to offer. If you ain't out of the woods yet, you will be well served by these two trail-blazing poets.”
-Ibbetson Update
Poems – Ben Tibbs
40 pages
Saddle-stitched paperback ($6.00)
Playful,
surrealistic poetry-toys from a small press legend.
“I appreciated the poems for new images, new sounds,
new wits, the reality & illusion, play on words, secret sorrows, melodies,
serenades all good, substantial & yet poetic - they float your phrases
& cling to memory as all good vintage does.”
-Anaïs Nin
“I like Ben Tibbs’ poems, for themselves, & for
the glimpses they give of the poet’s nature, his affectionate but sometimes
mocking eye, his quick & youthful intelligence, & his almost indecent
pleasure in the dipsidooing of the American Language.”
-John Woods
“One might imagine Tibbs having arrived at a conclusion
similar to Magritte's, viz., a juxtaposition of two or more non-corresponding
objects can be rich in 'meaning' or 'symbol' as that of two or more objects
functionally correlative in our perceptual consciousness.”
-Jeffrey Woodward in
Margins
“What is interesting here in Ben Tibbs’ work is the
use of the language in a humorous way without the loss of mystery and respect
for it all. I get the feeling of looking into a poet’s brain with a sense
of humor, but also, as the final words have (I paraphrase) ‘with a pen that
dips into the dark and writes lightly, ever so lightly.”
-Small Press Review
“Ben has
a clean original voice. Each poem is replete with nimble imagery and
jokester lines.”
-Beatlick News
“Here are
poems of mock and pleasure written with an affectionate eye and youthful intelligence
filled with beautiful sound, image and wit.”
-Rattlesnake Review
Delirium - Selected Poems - Lloyd Van Brunt
48
pages
Saddle-stitched paperback ($6.00)
The
best of Lloyd Van Brunt, selected by the author at age 70.
"Lloyd Van Brunt writes good and elegant poetry about such everyday subjects as a wife awakening in bed, or a meal cooking on the stove. His metaphors are never predictable, which is to say our minds go a little further than we would have expected, and discover the exhilaration of poetry itself in his poems. In poems such as 'How to Cope with Loneliness,' Van Brunt is at his best, giving us all he's been doing, and promising even better poems to come."
-Norman Mailer
"What is remarkable, though....is his use of language which, in a word, must be termed brilliant. Often one is not aware that Van Brunt has probed the deepest pits of tribulation, not necessarily his own, until one is brought up sharp by a strategic placement of a noun or verb or phrase, and the word play that fascinated one becomes a dance."
-David Ignatow, The New York Times Book Review
The
Rebel- Poems By Charles Baudelaire – American Versions by Leslie H. Whitten
Jr.
48 pages
Saddle-stitched paperback ($7.00)
Baudelaire's
poetry has peeled away out pretensions & then laid bare the genesis &
the meaning of our rawest emotions.
“You will find here a poet-translator who steers between
the dangers of expansive ego and slavish transcription. Whitten has
not just cpatured the recurrent symbols and images that express Baudelaire's
deep thematics, but he has found the reare and fragile metric and lyric devices
to orchestrate and give muance to the extraordinarily varied Fleurs."
-Maurice A. O'Meara,
Ph.D., Poet Laureate of France
“Whitten's book, with Baudelaire's references to...the
seamy side of life will shock you, as Baudelaire must have intended.
If you have the stomach for it, I recommend it. It's all here, just
as Baudelaire wrote it."
-The Piedmont Literary
Review, of Whitten's translations, Sad Madrigals
“These
splendid translations, all true to the original meter and rhyming - creative
- pure - refined - lead us to the authentic, somberly erotic Baudelaire."
-Sophy Burnham, best-selling
author of A Book of Angels
“Intense, sometimes darkly comic and always wise, these
are the best of Baudelaire for the reader in English."
-Roderick MacLeish,
novelist, broadcast commentator & critic
“Mr. Whitten's efforts are true to the feel and spirit of the poems - and is, in fact, quite fluid, graceful, and capable of making one forget indeed that these are translations.”
-Iconoclast
This
Land Is Not My Land – A.D. Winans
*2006 PEN Josephine Miles Literary Achievement Award Winner*
48 pages
Saddle-stitched paperback ($6.00)
Poems
of elegant simplicity & honesty by one of our best poets.
“A. D. Winans’ poems about soldiering in Panama show
that the Vietnam War was not the first time America wrought evil upon an innocent
third-world nation, nor will it be the last. These poems will sear you with
their honesty about the cruelty, greed and rapaciousness at the heart of the
American soul. It is a testimony, paid for with blood and nightmare memories,
of the everlasting rot in the American Dream. Much praise to Winans for the
courage of his vision, and for the achievement of a humane conscience, a true
American compassion in his hard but necessary words.”
-Gerald Nicosia
“A. D. Winans is practically an incarnation of San Francisco.
Originally from there, still there, he captures the city like no one else
ever has. Stylistically and philosophically he’s a continuation of Beat Truth,
telling it the way it is. No theory, just the smack of everyday (mainly street)
reality.”
-Hugh Fox
“Winans’ work has an elegant simplicity & clarity.
His poems are heartfelt expressions of a wise observer, powerfully honest
& uncompromised by literary fashion. One of our best poets.”
-Eric Greinke
“A. D. Winans has written a searing first-hand account
of an imperialistic war waged by the USA, the greatest superpower on earth,
against a tiny defenseless Latin-American nation. Though these are not ‘political’
poems we can’t avoid the implication. They are slices of reality honestly
and sensitively reported. Without rhetoric or exaggeration, in these short
narrative poems Winans depicts scenes of ordinary poor people sacrificed to
the forces of corporate greed and power. Winans deserves a large audience
and wide acclaim for his achievement.”
-Harold Norse
“Throughout this collection Winans’ bitch-slaps the
reader with his in-your-face, stripped-down prose. Not many poets can get
away with this bare-bones approach, but Winans is the master of the genre.”
-Doug Holder in Ibbetson
Update
“This is a small, concise book , but like a burning
match, your mind has to handle it with care and caution. The words scorch
the page. The book is a piece of history we would rather had burned itself
out. But important literature that contributes to our culture does not do
that: Mr. Winans had made his contribution.”
-Home Planet News
“Winans'
book is not for the 'tea-sippers' whose taste in poetry is best reserved for
some garden outing. No, the poems in This Land Is Not My Land
hit hard and swift and are uncompromising in vision.”
-Rattlesnake Review
The Other Side Of Broadway: Selected Poems 1965 - 2005 - A.D. Winans
132
pages
Perfectbound paperback (ISBN 978-0-9772524-5-9,
$12.00)
71
poems selected by the author, at the age of 70. His poems are heartfelt
expressions of a wise observer, powerfully honest and uncompromised by literary
fashion.
“Here is a word-slinger, A.D. Winans, a poet of clarity, an artful man who makes it all seem easy. He remains a captive within his home port, San Francisco, a voice nailed onto the soil of his native land, writing as he speaks.”
-Neeli Cherkovski
“A.D. Winans is a man in search of his soul. He
has great heart and compassion for people and his native city, San Francisco.
I like his uncompromising spirit. He pulls no punches.”
- Jack Micheline
“He seems to me, quite simply, a natural writer of extraordinary talent. By this, I mean that everything I read by him fills me with pleasure because of a beautifully natural and easy use of language.”
- Colin Wilson
“And while the poet is no longer young, no longer spry, or the man he once may have been, he offers an assessment of his life in the final poem of this excellent collection, an epitaph of a kind, both brutal but to the point.”
- Alan Catlin in The Pedestal Magazine
“The poems in this book are succinct and each line pulls you into the next and it is a pleasure to read for the drama and the descriptive use of the language.”
- Kirby Congdon in Small Press Review
Classic
Social Commentary Series
Self-Reliance – Ralph Waldo Emerson
44 pages
Saddle-stitched paperback ($6.00)
Self-Reliance
by Ralph Waldo Emerson contains the essence of transcendental philosophy.
Emerson reflects upon human potential & encourages us to listen to the
voice within. He explores & illuminates the concepts of idealism, individualism
& spiritualism. His belief in determining one’s values from personal insights
rather than conforming to societal judgements remains pertinent today. Emerson
has inspired classical writers from Thoreau, Whitman & Nietzsche to contemporary
authors such as D. H. Lawrence, William Carlos Williams & Ernest Hemingway.
Civil Disobedience – Henry David Thoreau
44 pages
Saddle-stitched paperback ($6.00)
Civil
Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau
has been one of the most historically significant & influential essays
ever written. Since its initial publication in 1849 it has inspired resistance
movements from the Danish WWII underground in the 1940's to the South African
anti-apartheid movement at the end of the 20th century. Seminal leaders from
Mahatma Gandhi to Martin Luther King have found encouragement & enlightenment
in Thoreau’s words.
The
Art Of Natural Fishing - Eric Greinke
96 pages
Perfectbound paperback (ISBN: 0-9772524-6-9, $15.95)
The
Art Of Natural Fishing is an instant classic that connects how we fish
to how we live, a good read for fishermen and non-fishermen alike.
“Greinke's The Art Of Natural Fishing on the surface
seems to be a book about fishing, but it's really a book on Zen sanity
Greinke is related to Thoreau and Emerson, the New England Transcendentalists,
alright...but goes back to a kind of intuitive, non-media modern-world-discarded
confrontation of Inner Man with the inner nature of Nature itself.”
-Hugh Fox, Iconoclast
Sea Dog - A Coast Guard Memoir - Eric
Greinke
180 pages
Perfectbound paperback (ISBN: 0-9740868-5-1, $20.00)
Written
in the form of a memoir, Eric Greinke’s humorous service novel Sea Dog
does for the United States Coast Guard what No Time For Sergeants
& M*A*S*H did for the Army & Mr. Roberts for the
Navy. Based on the author’s real experiences as a member of a search &
rescue team on the Great Lakes in the late 1960's, Sea Dog puts a
different face on those times. Written with a wry, ironic humor, this a coming-of-age
story that parallels the maturation of American society during that period.
The story takes place during the glory days of manned lighthouses & boat
rescues, before automation of the lights & Coast Guard reliance on air
power. Numerous realistic Coast Guard rescues are described in detail. The
salty characters are deftly drawn, including Yogi, the sea dog, one of the
most unique canine characters in literature. Sea Dog is a funny,
personal look at the everyday heroes who risk their lives in the United States
Coast Guard.
“A well written portrayal of the 'Sweet Water Sand Peeps'
of the Coast Guard during that era (late 1960's).”
-Jack Eckert, LCDR,
USCG (retired) in www.jacksjoint.com
Sea Dog “shows
the humorous, human side of life in the Coast Guard.”
-Gena Kaiser in The
Grand Haven Tribune
Ordering
Information
Available to the trade through wholesalers. (Baker & Taylor, The
Book House, Eastern Book Company, & Midwest Library Service)
Available in Europe through Gazelle Book Service Ltd., White Cross Mills, Hightown, Lancaster, LA1 4XS, United Kingdom or www.gazellebooks.co.uk
Alice
Louis E. Bourgeois
Saddle-stitched paperback,
40 pgs., $6.00
God
Is Dead (again) - One Act Plays
Kirby Congdon
ISBN: 0-9772524-2-6, perfectbound
paperback, 120 pgs., $20.00
Selected
Poems & Prose Poems
Kirby Congdon
ISBN: 0-9772524-0-X, perfectbound paperback, 84 pgs., $15.00
Blood
Cocoon - Selected Poems of Connie Fox
Hugh Fox
ISBN: 0-9740868-9-4, perfectbound
paperback, 72 pgs., $15.00
Time
& Other Poems
Hugh Fox
Saddle-stitched paperback, 44 pgs., $6.00
The
Drunken Boat & Other Poems
From The French of Arthur Rimbaud
American Versions by Eric Greinke
ISBN: 978-0-9772524-7-3,
perfectbound paperback, 108 pgs., $15.95
Selected
Poems 1972 - 2005
Eric Greinke
ISBN: 0-9740868-7-8, perfectbound paperback, 140 pgs., $20.00
Wild
Strawberries
Eric Greinke
ISBN: 978-9800081-1-1, perfectbound paperback, 96 pgs., $15.00
The Burning Mirror
Kerry Shawn Keys
ISBN: 978-0-9772524-9-7, perfectbound paperback, 92 pgs., $14.95