Chapbook Catalog
NEW
In Summer 2014
The Key Poetry Series Second Sequence
6 New Chapbook Titles!
charmed life
by
Buck Downs
I don't know if Buck Downs leads a charmed life—literally—but there's something exceedingly lucky—felicitous—happy—about the way he lays down these poetic telegrams of twenty-first-century experience in Charmed Life. The reader swoops along on Downs's burst of coy and cunning language, "drifting like old- / fashioned / radio signals" through the perennial—but here freshly revivified—territories of love, sex, music, everyday living. These poems will charm your socks—hell, maybe even your pants—off: "don't change / your mind / for me, // not if / you grind / for me." — Mark Scroggins
$10.95
The Stories We Tell
by
Irene Fick
Irene Fick’s first book has stolen my heart with its clear sweet lines, and lack of artifice. Here’s poetry that doesn’t need to persuade, for its presence in the world emerges from a genuine source with immediate connectivity. The title of the book is straightforward, yet it’s rare to create the right story in the right form with themes laid out in a unified vision. Fick is a writer of observation, but more, of felt life. Once you enter her currents of thought, there’s no going back or stopping. To be able to show hard glimpses of reality with beauty and truth is a gift many poets have not achieved. As for fear, age, dementia, illness and death, Fick turns them over to the angels of language where they belong—and they could not do better. I am permanently touched by this book.
Brackish Water
by
Michael Blaine
Michael Blaine’s aptly named Brackish Water is a compendium of lyric and ekphrastic
poems and haiku that focus primarily on the pleasures and trials of marriage,
family and fatherhood. He confronts shadings and mixes of emotion that most
human beings experience. Very few, however possess his mastery of language and
powers of expression. Water is considered brackish when it is neither entirely
salt nor fresh, but both simultaneously, and in varying proportions. Brackish
water seems the right medium for Blaine’s poems which reflect life’s incongruities
and flux; the forces that pull people, and those they love, apart and together
again. So too, these poems are seldom just one thing. Some are very clear in their meaning and
directness of language, while others are murkier, leaving more to the reader’s
imagination. All of them make compelling reading, and together, they create a
whole more profound than the sum of its parts. -- David P. Kozinski, Author of Loopholes, Winner of the 2009 Dogfish Head Poetry Prize
I like the voice of the teacher evident in this collection, a
teacher aware he is walking with his children (and his readers) to points of
growth which are also points of no return, moments when familiar realities feel
fundamental and life-sustaining, though they also seem to usher each of us off
into our own privacies. -- David McAleavey, Author of Holding
Obsidian and Huge Haiku
In Brackish Water, Michael Blaine navigates
the complicated habitats of desire, marriage, fatherhood, and loss. He reminds
us that “[r]eal isn’t enough”—that something more must be “added to make/the
eye believe.” Blaine’s poems, in effect,
become a kind of tide themselves, carrying the reader from Rehoboth Bay to as
far away as the Gulf of Mexico and Haiti.
And yet, the spare imagery of these finely crafted poems—the silky muck,
the tractor discs, the rock and shale—keeps us firmly rooted in the earth.
Blaine’s remarkable collection affirms our shared consciousness, and in the
end, he shows us it is possible to sift among the wreckage, “to pick up and
rebuild/what [is] salvageable.” -- Amanda
Newell, Author of Fractured Light, Winner
of the 2010 Dogfish Head Poetry Prize,
$10.95
Love, War and Music
by
Franetta McMillian
Franetta McMillian writes in a language both clear
and meditative, tackling subject matter as wide ranging as the title of her
work suggests. She evokes the imagery of everything from popular television
shows to vehement bigotry, and each time provokes the readers to challenge
their perceptions on the matter. This poetry is not preaching, nor is it
pushing boundaries for the sake of it—McMillian engages in a deep exploration
of her various subjects with each line, and that sort of depth can't do
anything but force the audience to think in a new way.
— Joshua D. Isard, Director
MFA Program in Creative
Writing
Arcadia University
Franetta McMillian's poems are deliciously awash
in the (often overlooked) inherent musicality found in the word, and in an
infectious, riveting, and unabashedly singular vision. You cannot help but
follow these rhythmic narrative journeys. You want to know where the poems are
going- what you will see, hear, and feel on the way. You'll also want to
revisit each poem's questions and/or implications. I often found myself
thinking of a line from another poet—Rainer Maria Rilke-- "Love the
questions like locked doors." Ms. McMillian's work is a reminder that
there are still infinite linguistic songs to be sung—what Patti Smith dubbed
"a sea of possibilities." Let this fine volume into your heart.
— Reuben Jackson, Author of
Fingering the Keys, and
Host, Friday Night Jazz Vermont
Public Radio
$9.95
Highway 78
by
Susanne Bostick Allen
From the rich bottom land of Alabama to the
slick highways circumventing Washington D.C. , Suzanne Bostick Allen
takes us on a sojourn of unsentimental power with her skillfully balanced
poetry. The subtext is a woman's identity, probing into corners with
intelligent humor. Allen's calm observations become poetry as the rhythm of
language governs narrative, and we then enter an extended map of a poet's
fine senses.
--Grace Cavalieri, Host
"The Poet and the Poem from the Library of
Congress."
Long-time government writer Susanne
Bostick Allen advises that “[r]ed is vital to our mission” and “[b]eige has
practical applications”, but “the sentences are up to no good”. She
chastens bureaucracy with understated humor, then escapes to clear-eyed
remembrance of childhood visits to relatives in rural Alabama. Highway
78 cogently contrasts both ways of life to reveal a life well examined
and honestly reported. -- Howard Gofreed, author of Postcard from Bologna
BLOX: Text Quanta
by
James Michael Robbins
$10.95
(forthcoming)
Our Other Titles
by David R. Slavitt
A Meditation on Clarice Lispector, the Brazilian Novelist
(or maybe a novel)
“David R Slavitt’s post-modern romp through Clarice Lispector’s world of Rio and her last novel, A Hora da estrela, will leave readers smiling at Slavitt’s breadth and wit. He posits that it is Lispector we are reading about, and her sophisticated world of Rio, but Slavitt, like the great Oz, remains behind the curtain pulling the strings, booming through the microphone, reminding us that, in literature not all is what it seems.” — Scott Whitaker (NBCC)
The Homestead Poems
Poetry by Gary Hanna
On the Occasion of the 75th Anniversary of the Founding of the Rehoboth Art League
“Tell me a tale / of days that have been, / but look to the
stars / to get past the hours,” Gary Hannah writes in “Skating on Water.” These
poems look through the lens of history—both personal and collective—by means of
the immediate details of the present. The love for the
exact charms me: the objects, seasons, beaches, towers, screen doors, birds,
crabs, and flowers. It is the unseen, though, that finally holds me, the
backdrop of the lonely human mind, the individual longing, both for the past
and for what we wish and hope to understand and be in the present. These poems
are lovers of life. They are a pleasure to read. –Fleda Brown
The Black Narrows
Poetry by
S. Scott Whitaker
Chapbook Number One in The Key Poetry Series
With scraps of history and a thread of fiction, Scott Whitaker has
stiched together a patchwork-quilt world. These are living poems that
celebrate a long-dead place, drenched with images. These lines are
muscular, masculine, and smell of the rich air on the cusp of land and
water; they taste of clams and raw oysters.
--H.A. Maxson
Ice-Solstice
Poetry by
Kelley Jean White
Chapbook Number Two in The Key Poetry Series
Kelley Jean White’s poetry crackles with electricity. There is science here, math, the bones of the dead, Bach, and the music of despair which is a radio filling a boxcar. White’s poems are tense, strong, full of big, jaunty, precise language that evoke the range of human loss, spiritual, emotional, sexual. Whether she writes about the loss of childhood memories or our mundane world of gasoline prices and nap-weary adults, White brings energy, immediacy and power.
— S. Scott Whitaker
(National Book Critics Circle)
Sediment
and Other Poems
Poetry by Gary Hanna
Chapbook Number Three in The Key Poetry Series
Gary Hannah weaves his crisp ideas in short lines much like the fisherman
casts to the shallow water knowing that’s where the big fish are. Don’t be lulled into the clean structure of
his verse. His poems bring clarity to
complexity. Hannah does not muddle the
waters with these poems. These poems
act to amplify what lies below the surface. This is an accessible collect of insightful poems that tests the
parameters of the reader’s concrete understanding of things. A great read for all.
--Michael Blaine
Sound Effects
Poetry by Nina Bennett
Chapbook Number Four in The Key Poetry Series
If Nina Bennett’s well observed world doesn’t make you take deep breaths you’re only 10% alive. Her contemporary life is tugged by the irresistible forces of loss; and special bonds found in paradoxical places. The undercurrents are memory—the motive is love -- the writing is flawless. — Grace Cavalieri: Host/Producer “The Poet and the Poem from the Library of Congress.”
Taken Away
Poetry by Carolyn Cecil
Chapbook Number Five in The Key Poetry Series
The clarity in Cecil’s work comes
from a spare poetic conceit that surprises us with its power and substance.
She’s a custodian of crystalline moments that provoke as they calm. Her
understanding of human behavior is solid, and she
forwards this to the world, gift wrapped in exactly the right language.
-- Grace Cavalieri: Producer “The Poet and the Poem
from the Library of Congress.”
Where Night Comes From
Poetry by Shea Garvin
Chapbook Number Six in The Key Poetry Series
The neon night deceives us, sinners are saints, and the truth dim and getting dimmer in these poems from Shea Garvin. Internal states, without street signs, circle back to night thoughts, dreams, wanderings doing their dark mind-dance. Poet on the run from nothing travels through the night on foot, on train, on bus, in flight, nocturnal wisdom wrenched from the flickering light finds “dark twists / behind these symbols.”
—Bernard Jankowski
Sakura
a cycle of haiku
by Jamie Brown
Sakura (Cherry Blossoms) reflects on the
cycle of love from its first buds to full blossom to autumnal afterglow. Though each of love’s moments may be as
evanescent as a cherry blossom, lifelong love, like a cherry tree, blooms many
times. Sakura is a pleasure to read and reflect
upon. —Howard Gofreed
The Softened Ground
Tina Raye Dayton received
her Master of Fine Arts in Writing from Sarah Lawrence College. Her poems
have appeared in a number of journals including Potomac Review, The
Delmarva Review, The Broadkill Review, Amaranth, and So
to Speak. Tina is a native of Salisbury, Maryland and works as a reading
therapist in her private tutoring practice. She shares her home and heart with
her mathematician husband and beautiful little girl. This is her first
chapbook.
“Dayton's voice quietly fills
the page, offers up familiar landscapes such as frozen fields, a dark
neighborhood, or a kitchen table, and uses them to express the loss of a loved
one, the connection between people and the natural spaces we inhabit, and the
occasional violence we uncover in our ordinary lives.”
—Scott Whitaker, National Book Critics Circle
Salmagundi
Sherry Gage Chappelle’s long-running
roles have included
English major, mother, grand-mother,
teacher, professor, native
New Englander, student and
singer. She loves puns,
Tchaikovsky,
Cole Porter,
Shakers, Salem
witches, Kid’s Lit,
New Hampshire lakes, Maine
Coon cats, yoga, ten year olds
and too many writers to list. Poetry
gets her up in the morning,
but away from her desk she also
is the dramaturge for the Clear
Space Theater Company, the
long running facilitator of the
Browseabout Book Club, and a soprano in several local ensembles. Forces
that have kept her pen in her hand include the supportive Delaware poetry
community, the Delaware Division of the Arts, and her husband, Bruce.
"If anyone ever doubts the power of the word
to leave the page and inflame passions, and
to introduce a rich tapestry of images,
Sherry Gage Chappelle’s Salmagundi prove
it possible."
— a. mclean
"Salmagundi plays with language, feasts on
words without sacrificing control or composition;
what all writers hope for, a concert of
words and images."
— Scott Whitaker (NBCC)
Constructing Fiction
Constructing
Fiction is a gift to the young or would-be
writers of short stories and novels. In plain, no-nonsense prose, Jamie Brown
takes the reader for a walk through the world of fiction writing—avoiding the
alleys and dead-end streets that so often lure new writers with promises of
shortcuts. Here is advice that all writers—those young in the work, and old
hands—can actually use.
— H. A. Maxson
Constructing Fiction is
a must for green writers looking to cut their teeth with short fiction,
especially for those who over-think their prose, their process. From notes on
character names to telling the author to trust the subconscious and “to get out
of the way,” Brown, like Frank O'Hara, dares the writer to go “on your nerve.”
— Scott Whitaker (NBCC)
Fractured Light
AMANDA NEWELL teaches English at Gunston Day School in Centreville, Maryland and has previously been a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Paris, Creteil, France. Her work is published or forthcoming in Bellevue Literary Review, Tar River Poetry, Poet Lore, The Delmarva Review, and Little Patuxent Review. A contributor at the 2010 the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference at Middlebury College, she lives on the Eastern Shore with her husband Jonathan and their two boys, Jake and Ben.
“Fractured Light offers intimate, fearful, and sometimes cautious moments, captured by the eye of the poet who is like a bird circling the field where deer carcasses lay and blood trails into the darkness of the forest. The eye misses nothing, the valient hunter, the anxious mother, the family waiting for the hunting party to come home. Newell's work offers surprises, and delights with ear and eye."
-- Scott Whitaker (NBCC)
Loopholes
DAVID P. KOZINSKI’s poems have appeared in more than 20 literary publications in print and online and have earned him numerous national and regional awards. He has read his work at venues in Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey and was the guest poet on Berks County (Pa.) Television's Poets' Pause program in June 2009. His poems have earned him nominations for the prestigious Pushcart Prize by both the Schuylkill Valley Journal and Mad Poets Review. Kozinski was one of ten poets selected by internationally-renowned poet Robert Bly for his work-shop sponsored by the American Poetry Review. His brother, internationally-acclaimed composer and conductor Stefan Kozinski, created a song cycle from five of his poems which debuted in Dessau, Germany in 2008. Kozinski has also read his poetry in conjunction with exhibitions of his visual art. In 2006, he unveiled 30 years’ worth of his abstract art at the Manayunk Art Center in Philadelphia and has since regularly staged exhibitions in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware. Kozinski's artwork now hangs in private collections in eight states. In 2007 he received the Dr. Eugene J. Szatkowski Achievement Award for his poetry and visual art. Kozinski lives in Wilmington, Del. with his wife, actress and journalist Patti Allis Mengers.
Visit our other imprint site, The Broadkill River Press, for full-length books of poetry and fiction!
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