Thursday, October 30, 2014

AN APPRECIATION OF ROCHELLE RATNER

Roger Mitchell offers a lovely appreciation of Rochelle Ratner in the new issue of OTOLITHS.  Here's an excerpt:

whatever Rochelle was about as a writer had much to do with positioning herself in the world. Fundamentally, the speaker of her poems felt she didn’t belong here or could be here only by the most strenuous efforts of accommodating herself to an inhospitable world, or ignoring it altogether. This sounds like the description of a confessional poet, and while she wrote during the heyday of that kind of poetry, and recognized the necessity, no matter what you wrote, of writing from the self, she avoided the self-flagellations that felt like self-advertisements, common to the poetry of Lowell, Plath, Sexton, Berryman and others. As with any poetry, what her work presents is not, strictly, her life but the life her art and its vision called for. The result, just in bibliographic terms, is a large body of diverse work, only the main portion of which is poetry, the one I’m sure she would have put first among her kinds of work, had she ever had reason to choose among them. For someone who never reached 60, it’s a prolific body of work.

You can read the whole thing HERE.



PAUL PINES' UNNAMEABLE BOOKS READING

Paul Pines and Daniel Shapiro will be reading from respective poetry collections, Fishing on the Pole Star and The Red Handkerchief and Other Poems (both published this year by Dos Madres Press), at Unnameable Books on Saturday, November 1, at 7:00 p.m.  

The address and phone number are:  600 Vanderbilt Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11238; (718) 789-1534.  Here is a link to the listing at Unnameable Books: 

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

MARY MACKEY'S UPCOMING EVENTS

YOU ARE INVITED TO:

Sunday, November 2, 2014, Berkeley, CA: Mary Mackey reads her poetry with Great Weather For Media poets including Jane OmerodTIME: 5:00 pm. PLACE:  The Art House Gallery & Cultural Center, 2905 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley, CA 94705. (A complete list of Great Weather poets to come). Free and open to the public, although donations to the Art House construction project are appreciated.
Pandemonium Press second versionWednesday, November 5, 2014, Oakland, CA: Mary Mackey reads poems about the jungles of the Amazon from her collection Travelers With No Ticket Home in the Pandemonium Press Reading Series “Out of Paradise Into Wilderness.”  Hosted by Leila Rae, publisher/editor Pandemonium Press. TIME:  7:00 pm to 9:00 pm.   PLACE: The Loft at Spice Monkey, 1628 Webster Street, Oakland, CA. Free and open to the public.
CSUS Library GalleryWednesday, November 12, 2014, Sacramento, CA: Mary Mackey reads poems from Travelers With No Ticket Homewith poet Dennis SchmitzTIME: 4:00 pm. PLACE: Library Gallery, California State University Sacramento, 6000 J Street, Sacramento, CA. Free and open to the public.

San Francisco Writers Conference general imageComing February 14-16  2015:  Mary Mackey will be appearing at the San Francisco Writers Conference to discuss her fiction. TIME: (To be announced). PLACE: The Mark Hopkins Hotel, San Francisco. The exact date will be posted as soon as the San Francisco Writers Conference 2015 schedule becomes available.)





Monday, October 20, 2014

EILEEN TABIOS LAUNCHES SUN STIGMATA IN CALIFORNIA


YOU ARE INVITED!

Eileen R. Tabios will launch her newest Marsh Hawk Press book, SUN STIGMATA (Sculpture Poems) in California on Saturday, Nov. 1, 2014.  The event will take place at 2 pm at  The Sitting Room - A Community Library 2025 Curtis Drive, Penngrove, CA.  Click on link for directions and other information.

The event will also be a fundraiser for survivors of the largest storm ever to hit landfall, Typhoon Haiyan; more information at 
http://versestyphoonyolanda.blogspot.com/2014/08/sonoma-california-book-launch.html



There will be readings and discussions as well as a Q&A.  Wine and other delectables also will be provided.



Thursday, October 16, 2014

ARDUITY INTERVIEW OF EILEEN R. TABIOS

Eileen Tabios is interviewed by John Bloomberg-Rissman for ARDUITY. We are grateful to him and editor John Armstrong for the extremely generous space and introduction to the interview.  It’s the first time Eileen feels an interviewer has asked the EXACT right question about her poetry, to wit, “What is hard—arduous—about your poetry?”

Here’s an excerpt:

I love humanity for how it's created its libraries. But if one reads all the books available and extrapolate knowledge from what's not written, surely the conclusion is that nearly all of human history after our hunter-gatherer stage has been consistent in manifesting a suicide pact. 


Full interview HERE.  And the interview also includes Eileen's latest "author photo" which is of her mothering Athena:



MYRMAID PRESS OFFERS E-BOOKS BY ROCHELLE RATNER

[Click on image to enlarge]


PAUL PINES READINGS

An Invitation from Paul Pines:

This has been a busy summer. I've read more in the last six months than in the last six years. I'm also enjoying it more. Here is a list of the remaining dates as the year winds down. Hope to see some familiar faces.
On Sunday, October 19th, I will be reading with six other poets, all of us published by Dos Madres Press, at Suite, 992 Amsterdam Avenue at 109th St. The reading is from 3:00-5:00. 
On Wednesday, October 23rd, I will be reading at the CCNY, 160 Convent Avenue. The reading will take place in the Rifkind Room NAC 6/316 at 4:30. Contact, David Unger, 212-650.7925 
On Saturday, October 25th, I will be reading in Woodstock, NY at the Woodstock Library with Lucyna Prostko and Stuart Bartow. The reading starts at 5:00. 
On Saturday, November 1st, I will be reading at Unnamable Books at 600 Vanderbilt Ave., in Brooklyn with Daniel Shapiro after the release of his fine Dos Madres collection The Red Handkerchief. The reading time is 7:00. For information: (718) 789-1534


Thursday, October 9, 2014

PAUL PINES ON VERSE DAILY!

We are delighted to share that one of Paul Pines' poems from his book Fishing on the Pole Star is featured on VERSE DAILY!  Congratulations, Paul, and here's the poem --


Ear to the Wake
        
we unweave what
we weave

our dreams like Penelope
at her loom

who nightly
takes apart what she

makes by day
to put off suitors

knowing that
what she unmakes

will be woven into
a final tapestry

while Odysseus at sea
on his way

back to reclaim
his kingdom

a star among
stars blown off

course seldom
anchors

anywhere by
choice

Thursday, October 2, 2014

THE MARY MACKEY NEWSLETTER

Marsh Hawk poet Mary Mackey is going to be sending out a brief newsletter four times a year to let people who enjoy reading her novels and poems know what she's up to. Occasionally her newsletter may contain a poem or a sneak peek at a scene from her new novel-in-progress. If you'd like to receive Mary's newsletter, please click on the subscription link below, and then click on the link in the confirmation email that you will receive. Mary is the author of 13 novels including The Year The Horses Came and 7 collections of poetry including Sugar Zone, winner of the 2012 PEN Oakland Award and Travelers With No Ticket Home, poems about the rainforests of the Amazon.
If you don't click on the final confirmation link, you will not be on Mary's newsletter mailing list and will not receive any more emails about it.