"When I was a child I believed in visions. Even as an adult I kept insisting the impossible was acceptable. A tiger was in my grandmother's basement, the one I was fleeing from. In D.R. Wagner's collection, a reader wants to flee into his visions. Find that tiger. It is with the epitome of grace and magic that these poems align themselves with our inner kid, find such realities that only dream worlds can make true. Here darkness can be dazzling! The password is letting it happen. Wagner does this for us." — Ann Menebroker, poet "D.R. Wagner grinds a fine lens that reveals time, in all its bewildering mystery, as an ally, takes the fledged moment into his hands and breathes life into the stillborn. He can melt the barriers between heaven and earth with a turn of his eye, and perhaps, just perhaps, pull a car out of a ditch with a broken comb that he finds behind our left ear." — T. L. Kryss, poetBreaking and Entering Sampler
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ISBN 978-1-929878-42-0 160 PAGES, 6 X 9, Trade Paperback
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ISBN 978-1-929878-42-0 100 pages, 6 X 9, Trade Paperback
In musically charged lyrics, Christine DeSimone takes on the big questions: “Where is the life you want?” and “So how do you do it? Where do you go to begin again?” Her poems travel the globe looking for answers, from a diner in Chatsworth to a Lisbon night that “drops like an exiled heart,” from an “office with no windows,” to the Cliffs of Dover, from Billie Holiday’s deathbed to the “fluorescent gloom” of the Tenderloin. At each stop, DeSimone listens with “dog-whistled acumen / to find what the world is really saying,” rendering all she hears in stark, unflinching detail.— Cheryl Dumesnil, author of In Praise of Falling and Love Song for Baby X
In this, her first full-length collection, Christine DeSimone strikes gold! How Long The Night Is Sampler -
ISBN 978-1-929878-44-4 120 pages, 6 X 9, Trade Paperback
Ann Curran has written a book like no other. With a reporter's eye and a poet's vision, she has created a new genre—a poetry of utter frankness. For grief, see the Kennedy poem. For candor, the poem to Maxine Kumin. For accuracy, her lines on "cagey" Seamus Heaney. Whether the subject is the million dollar sale of a bishop's mansion, the Warhol and Ginsberg myths or the "profound" jottings of Kay Ryan and other superficialists, this is poetry at war with fakery on all fronts, and it's as unignorable as it is rare. —Samuel Hazo, director, International Poetry Forum, professor emeritus, Duquesne University. The “me” of these poems celebrates “connecting.” Ann Curran identifies persons and associations that have places in her drama. The voice can be modest, sardonic, even outrageous. Never just chronicler and seasoned by her years as a reporter, no foolishness and no person goes unnoticed. The writer’s wit, balanced by tenderness, makes the reader look forward to each poem. You want to laugh, cry, applaud. You’ll love her authenticity. —Rosaly DeMaios Roffman, professor emerita, Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
Me First Sampler -
ISBN 978-1-929878-46-8 34 pages; 5.5 X 8.5; chapbook For over 35 years, Taylor Graham has been working with Search & Rescue (SAR) dogs. She has traveled far and wide searching for lost hikers in the wilderness, victims of earthquakes and sadly, dead bodies. Walking the Puppy contains poems written for/about her current dog, Loki. Even though Taylor has retired from active duty, Loki has not...as Taylor puts it, SAR dogs never retire, so they must be continuously trained and exercised. This chapbook was a precursor to a larger collection remembering all of Taylor's dogs and their adventures over the years, entitled What The Wind Says. If you love dogs, you're going to love these books. Walking The Puppy Sample
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190 pages; 6 X 9 sized Trade Paperback ISBN 978-1929878451
“In The Broken Lines, Judith Skillman distills the wisdom gained from her long successful career as a poet into a succinct [number of] pages that are remarkable for their liveliness and enthusiasm as well as for their accessibility. Aspiring poets should find the practical advice she offers not only helpful but inspiring. —Stephen Meats, Poetry Editor, The Midwest Quarterly.” “Another highlight is Judith Skillman’s [chapter] “Revising Your Poetry Manuscript for Theme.” Skillman’s advice and exercises will be helpful to poets wondering how to arrange disparate poems into a coherent manuscript for submission to a first book contest or publisher.” — excerpted from RATTLE Magazine’s review of Women on Poetry The goal of this book is to enable poets at all stages of development to move from their current stage or plateau to the next level in cultivating a unique voice and poetic music. This book encourages the student of poetry to entertain a kind of Zen consciousness, a “Beginner’s Mind”—for that is the only way to continue serenely in the business of writing poems. The work is cognizant of the fact that most often, if you ask a person why they write poetry, the answer will be “Because I have no choice.” This text can be used by a poet on his or her own, or it can become a tool in the classroom. Broken Lines contains chapters on theory and practice. Whether one is a beginning writer, has been writing for years and never taken a class, or has published work in journal and/or book form, Broken Lines includes content to propel the writing life forward. — Judith Skillman, author of Broken Lines
Broken Lines Sampler -
108 pages; 6 X 9 Trade Paper ISBN 978-1-929878-48-2
"Days and nights in Los Angeles, roots tugged out, wrung out, chatrooms, classrooms, malls, toilets, Help Wanted at the 7-Eleven, elusive boys, "urgent hunger," the American 20th century, loneliness and betrayal—these poems have begun to haunt me. Alex Frankel sings in a register almost beyond hearing, the pain is so keen, the writing so fine." — Alicia Ostriker, author of The Book of Seventy
Cover art by Luka Fisher -
160 pages; 6 X 9 Perfect bound, Softcover ISBN 978-1-929878-49-9 For over 35 years Taylor Graham has been a volunteer search-and-rescue (SAR) dog handler. She and her husband have trained their German Shepherds to find missing people - in Alaska, rural Virginia, and California. She's a veteran of the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, the Berkeley-Oakland Hills firestorm, and other disasters, as well as hundreds of searches for lost hunters and hikers, elderly walkaways, victims of drowning, avalanche and homicide. For ten years she edited the National Association for Search and Rescue's SAR Dog ALERT newsletter. With her search dog, she spent two summers as a Forest Service volunteer ranger in the Mokelumne Wilderness. No longer on SAR callout, she still trains her dogs at least weekly; German Shepherds don't understand retirement.
For my husband, Hatch, who’s had dogs all his life; and for all the dogs who’ve shared our lives and taught us so much — Taylor Graham "If they don't allow dogs in heaven, then I don't want to go!" — Grandpa Armstrong
Look through a sampling of poems from this book. -
ISBN: 978-1-929878-33-8 Pages:120 Publishing Date: Mar. 2012 Leonard J. Cirino passed away on March 10, 2012 He is greatly missed. Leonard J. Cirino (1943 - 2012) was the author of nineteen chapbooks and seventeen full-length collections of poetry since 1987 from numerous small presses. He lived in Springfield, Oregon, where he retired and worked full-time as a poet. His full-length collection, Chinese Masters, is from March Street Press, 2009. His 100 page collection, Omphalos: Poems 2007 was published in 2010 from Pygmy Forest Press. A 64 page selection, Tenebrion: Poems 2008 is from Cedar Hill Publications, in 2010. His 60 page collection, Triple Header is due from Cervena Barva Press, E. Somerville, MA in 2012. His collection, Homeland, Exile, Longing & Freedom was published by AA Press in 2011.
About the book: In the late 80’s some friends of mine traveled to Europe and left me with several anthology translations from the southern and eastern Europeans and my interest in poetry was restored. I had become very despondent with the quality of US poets since the deaths of Lowell, Berryman, Sexton, Theodore Roethke, and James Wright. Very few US poets spoke to me then and they still do not now. I think this is when I began to find my own voice mixed among the voices of many poets I could relate to – men and women who had been through either the Spanish Civil War or World War 2 – either under Nazi or Communist occupation. I still devote most of my reading, except for magazines, to poets in translation. I’d say that 75-80% of the poetry I read is in translation because I find people from around the world have far more to say than the poets in the US who are either self-described “outlaws” or belong to the privileged or academic classes and I don’t relate to either of them. As one of my poems says, “He was hard at work being unemployed,” and only in the last five years of working did I live above the poverty level. I always had food and shelter and enough street smarts to trade for used books and I didn’t want for much more than that. As far as where my writing is going I just keep on keeping on. I have received no awards or grants, won no contests, yet I am among the most devoted, well read, and hardest working poets in the US or anywhere. I don’t have many illusions about success—especially in today’s literary market—so I will go on in my suburban hermit mode and do the real work. Most likely I will keep on reading translations from all over the world and use the poets I read to “inspire” my own work. As this title says, I have become “The Instrument of Others.” — Leonard J. Cirino "Poets like Cirino, who trust in metaphor as a path to poetic and perhaps spiritual enlightenment, who follow European symbolist models in the attempt to de-familiarize the ordinary and expose its full dimensions, and who approach the world with a generosity of perception rather than an intellectual full-court press are not currently in fashion. The publishing world is only occasionally friendly to them." — William Doreski (from the preface)
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SBN: 978-1-929878-83-3 Pages:138 Publishing Date: Jan. 2012 Brigit Truex has lived in the four quarters of the States since beginning her writing career. In each locale she has also established workshops to help others hone their prose and poetry as well, but her primary focus is on poetry. Her mixed ethnic background (French Canadian-Abenak/Cree and Irish) has been a theme she continues to explore in her work, approaching it from various angles. The historic Wakamatsu Tea and Silk Colony was based in the nearby community of Gold Hill, a scant 10 miles from where she currently lives in the Sierra Nevada foothills of northern California. Its universal story of "stranger in a strange land" resonated with her as the tale evolved and grew from an initial single poem into this detailed book, the result of extensive research and truthful imaginings. The author has been published here and abroad in various literary journals and anthologies including Atlanta Review, Tule Review, Native Literatures, Yellow Medicine Review and others. She is a board member of Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers and Native Writers Circle of the Americas.
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ISBN 978-1-929878-17-8 106 pages, Trade Paperback
I first heard Mike Adams reading selections from Steel Valley on the Jane Crown Show (pod cast) in 2009. I was so enthralled with what I heard that I called in and offered to publish the manuscript! Thus Steel Valley was born. — RD Armstrong John Macker, a respected poet, reviewer and small press publisher (the Desert Shovel Review) wrote this about Steel Valley: "I love poetry that illuminates the soul’s travelogue. You can feel with all senses the steel wheels of Mike Adams’ Pennsylvania steel mill and railroad boyhood pulse in every word; his clear, generous breaths open the heart to the wide expanses of the poet writing down his life. These tough, tender-eyed poems and prose pieces are at once blue collar and bohemian, homages to the drinking and the working life juxtaposed against a long poem about cooking green chili. There are disappearing riprap trails and epic family narratives that haunt and exhilarate. It is hard to find a geography worth its weight in memory that doesn't resonate with the blood and spirit of its inhabitants. Mike, like Ed Abbey before him, left behind the Wobbly Joe bars, mills, hills and scarred valleys of Pennsylvania for the boisterous outback of the comparatively wide, wild open West. Steel Valley is fine writing, epic and intimate." – John macker
Sadly, on Sept. 28, 2013 we lost Mike to Cancer. He was a great man, both as poet and a human being, gentle & wise. He is sorely missed. Read a sample of Steel Valley here.
