REVIEW OF BASIL KING'S LATEST BOOK!

David Caddy offers a wonderful engagement with Basil King's latest book, Basil King: The Spoken Word/ the Painted Hand from Learning to Draw/ A History.  Here's an excerpt:

This warm-hearted collection of wide-ranging essays, one of which was published in Tears in the Fence 60, moves effortlessly between prose and poetry in a freewheeling style. The essays are highly informative drawing upon King’s extensive knowledge of art, artists and their experiences, as well as history, film and autobiographical detail. There is great charm, self-deprecating humour, running throughout the book which has the repeated refrains of ‘Leave home. Meet strangers. And learn to draw’ and ‘Be Rich. Get Rich. Be Rich. Get Rich’. The refrains gain piquancy as one reads on.

Go HERE for entire review.

CELEBRATING OUR 15TH YEAR OF PUBLISHING!

Marsh Hawk Press is thankful to receive a grant from the Daniel & Joanna S. Rose Fund, Inc. in celebration of the press' 15th year of publishing.  Grant proceeds will be used to finance a variety of projects during the year.  Meanwhile, here's an advance look at an ad in Poets & Writers that celebrates Marsh Hawk Press' 15th anniversary:

(click to enlarge)

RECENT REVIEWS OF EILEEN TABIOS' SUN STIGMATA

Eileen R. Tabios' latest Marsh Hawk Press book, SUN STIGMATA, has received more reviews. Here are excerpts and links:

…her poetry is reminiscent of Joseph Conrad who learned English around the age of twenty-nine and then wrote some of the great stories of the English language. I dare say there are few poets who can use the English language as well, as mysteriously, as excitingly as Tabios does in all her books and especially in this one. 

--from Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene

With few exceptions, the titles of the poems in this collection begin with an open bracket as if they are being written in parenthesis. To my mind this is because they seek to offer an elaboration or a rephrasing on something that has gone before. Interestingly, the brackets are never closed. This is the parenthesis that offers a space, a digression, an interlude that Tabios leaves for the reader. It is up to the reader to complete whatever it is that he or she discovers in the poem and then to close that bracket. It is a mechanism that allows the poem to breathe, to resonate in all its nuances, much as a person might stand before a painting and not move away from it until its impact has been experienced in full.  

In the opening section, “My Greece,” Tabios gives hints as to the strategy she will adopt as a writer. She will embrace unpredictability, she will not be constrained by narrative, she will appeal to the emotions, write from the heart as well as the head, and escape chaos through the creation of art. She is attracted by the statue of the Kritios Boy because it breaks with tradition by shifting away from a rigid full-frontal position, the right leg slightly bent, the whole statue immortalized in hesitation. In “Purity” she laments how a square canvas depicts a square and a circular canvas depicts a circle. In contrast to such dull predictability, she wants her writing to flow like “a menstruation—ooze with a viscous intensity unmitigated by geometry.” 

--from Our OwnVoice

EKPHRASIS WORKSHOP IN BARCELONA WITH SHARON DOLIN!

Writing About Art in Barcelona: 10-Day Poetry Workshop with Sharon Dolin at Jiwar:

Barcelona Int'l Residence for Artists, early January and late May

NEXT RESIDENCY: May 31-June 9, 2015

NOW ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS

Barcelona, Spain has a rich artistic and cultural tradition: from Antonio Gaudi’s unique architecture to the artwork of Joan Miro and Antoni Tàpies to Pablo Picasso, as well as having a thriving contemporary art scene. Each day will include a morning workshop at Jiwar with the entire group, followed by a 2-hour lunch break, and a late afternoon outing to a site or museum of artistic or cultural interest, time to explore a very walkable city, as well as time to write. The goal is to write new poetry in response to and in dialogue with the Catalan culture you will be encountering.

Workshop is limited to 8-10 people.

The schedule of outings will be shaped by the interests of the group and, along with such must-sees as Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia and the Picasso Museum, might include a tour of the recently excavated 14th century synagogue and of the Jewish quarter; a private tour of a bomb shelter from the Spanish Civil War; and a possible excursion to the nearby Salvador Dali museum. Possible evening activities: concerts, theatrical performances, and talks with local writers. Students will have the option of going on a cultural visit or spending the day writing. 

Each day’s schedule will include a morning workshop (2 1/2 hours), a break for lunch, and an afternoon outing to at least one local museum or other place of artistic or cultural interest.

Accommodations

Most artists will stay at Jiwar, a heritage house in the Gracia district of Barcelona on a pedestrian street with restaurants, food markets, and a metro stop nearby. Additional artists will have accommodations nearby and will have full use of the public spaces in Jiwar: Two lounge areas, a library and a gallery space as well as a garden and patio area for outdoor writing and workshops. Accommodation does not include meals, aside from one welcome dinner hosted by Jiwar’s Director. The house has a fully equipped kitchen and there are local food markets and inexpensive restaurants nearby. All spaces are equipped with heaters and a/c.

Praise for Spring 2014 Workshop:

“The Writing about Arts in Barcelona Workshop gives writers what they need: community, a chance to write in response to culture, architecture and the arts. Barcelona, and the workshop, just has so much to offer to writers who want to transform themselves and their writing.“—Nicholas Wong, Hong Kong, author of Cities of Sameness

“Sharon Dolin offered an intensive mini-course on ekphrasis and a workshop where we explored new first drafts and notes making their way toward becoming poems. Dolin is an expert teacher and a sensitive workshop leader, and the heart of the residency was this workshop session where we gathered every morning at 10:30 with our laptops and our café con leche concentrating on poetry and surprising ourselves every day.”—Gwen North Reese, New Canaan, CT

For application and additional information please see: http://www.sharondolin.com/barcelona-workshops/

NEW REVIEWS OF EILEEN R. TABIOS' SUN STIGMATA

Eileen Tabios' latest Marsh Hawk Press release, SUN STIGMATA, just received a review by Joey Madia over at New Mystics Reviews (and Book Masons).  Here's an excerpt from the review by someone who's followed Eileen's work since her first U.S.-published and first Marsh Hawk Press book 12 years ago, REPRODUCTIONS OF THE EMPTY FLAGPOLE:

Another thread I have followed through Tabios’ publications has been the dynamic tension between affluence (banking and finance, pearls and furs and gems judged upon their hardness) and Diaspora, orphans, and despair and challenge tied to place. The poems of Sun Stigmata bring these subjects forth with a tangible power. It is up to the reader to find unity in disparity; to be the catalyst in an alchemical transaction (a hieros gamos) that rises beyond Reality into the etheric realms where the nigredo of our art is born(e).

REPRODUCTIONS... is also a root source for SUN STIGMATA.

Joey Madia's entire review is available HERE.

*****

SUN STIGMATA received a second review today.  Tom Beckett posted on L'AMOUR FOU:

When David Bromige was assembling Desire, his selected poems, he made it his project to rewrite every poem.  This angered some of his longtime readers.  I admired the decision.  The previous versions still existed in other collections; but David reimagined them, telescoping past decisions into new ones. Sometimes one is not done with a poem.  Sometimes a poem is not done with you. // Something similar is going on in Sun Stigmata (Sculpture Poems) by Eileen R. Tabios. // ... The roots of Sun Stigmata  are in Reproductions but there is something completely different happening--something spare and lyrical. This new book is as good or better than its predecessor.  

Tom's entire write-up is available HERE.

THREE QUESTIONS SERIES: THE INDEX

Marsh Hawk Press is pleased to offer a focus on its books by asking its authors three questions per book.  Please click on the title link to go to the Three-Question Q&A about the books (dates below are of the interviews, not the books' release dates):

Mary Mackey, Travelers With No Train Ticket Home, Nov. 17, 2014

Michael Rerick, In Ways Impossible to Fold, Nov. 19, 2014

Tom Beckett, Dipstick(Diptych), Nov. 20, 2014

Norman Finkelstein, Inside the Ghost Factory, Nov. 23, 2014

Eileen R. Tabios, I Take Thee, English, For My Beloved, Dec. 3, 2014

Susan Terris, GHOST OF YESTERDAY, New & Selected Poems, Dec. 12, 2014

Martha King, Imperfect Fit, Dec. 19, 2014

Sharon Dolin, Serious Pink, Feb. 3, 2015

Basil King, The Spoken Word / The Painted Hand from Learning to Draw / A History, Feb. 24, 2015

Jon Curley, Hybrid Moments, May 20, 2015








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