Author Archive
Rigoberto González
The Final Wednesday Shout Out
Well, this is it, the last entry in a movimiento here on Harriet, in which I featured every Wednesday (25 Wednesdays to be exact) books that excited me, intrigued me, renewed my faith in poetry. The honor of the send-off goes to poet Alessandra Lynch, for her second collection of poems selected by James Richardson to be part of the Lena-Miles Wever Todd Poetry Series.
Rigoberto González
Achiote Press & Palabra Magazine
I say this without the least bit of exaggeration: keep your eye on these two literary ventures because they’re going to impress you with the journeys they have embarked on and with the heights they’ll inevitably reach.
Rigoberto González
The University of Arizona Poetry Center
Those who have enjoyed Poets House’s old venue on Spring Street (I have yet to make it to the new location down by Battery Park—but I’ll get there!) understand the overwhelming energy that comes from being surrounded by books and books of poetry. At any bookstore (except at Open Books, of course) poetry gets a slim reception, almost as an afterthought, with little attention to range, certainly none to content. Poetry is tucked away like the ugly cousin to the more glamorous Fiction category. At Poets House, poetry haters need not enter. This is our space, our comfort zone, where verse—from the weak to the brilliant, from the esoteric to the populist—can claim a slot on the bookcase without apology or explanation. It is poetry. I’m thrilled that such sites are also thriving elsewhere, as in outside of New York City, like the Poetry Center down in Tucson, Arizona.
Rigoberto González
Wednesday Shout Out
It’s tempting to invoke the phrase “Oedipus complex” in discussing this book by debut poet James Allen Hall; Mother (with a capital M), mythic figure, source of many glorious beginnings (and a few tragic endings), and indeed the defining lens to the worlds of the imagination and reality, is an unavoidable muse, an inescapable word uttered as an expression of wonder, a declamation of fear, and as the point of reference for things beautiful and dreadful. But Hall’s Mother moves beyond the son’s eye and takes shape as an independent body with agency and history outside male desire. She exists, with and without him:
Rigoberto González
Ugly Duckling Presse
(The “e” at the end, the UDP website explains, comes from Kafka- or K-Presse, a small German publishing house.)
First of all, isn’t this like the best name for a press? This art & publishing collective was founded in 1993 by “a couple of college kids who wanted to put together a zine, without really knowing what that is.” Fifteen years later, this humble do-it-yourself-Xeroxed-project-beginning matured into a reputable and cutting-edge enterprise that publishes poetry by undiscovered voices, lost works, translations and artist’s books. It also produces chapbooks, broadsides, a magazine and a newspaper. And each and every publication contains a “handmade element” that “calls attention to the labor and history of bookmaking.” This is indeed a refreshing approach that answers to the mass market product (and sometimes uninspired content) coming out of the large New York houses.
Rigoberto González
OPEN BOOKS: A POEM EMPORIUM
Here’s an unusual double-duty entry: both a special Thank You to my favorite poetry bookstore Open Books in Seattle, where I stand around and gab for hours about all-things poetic while browsing the fabulous shelves (over 9,000 titles and counting!—indeed the poetry reader’s paradise), and a special Friday Shout Out to its co-proprietor, poet J.W. Marshall—John, to you and me—whose debut book of poems, winner of the 2007 FIELD Poetry Prize, was just released. Poetry poetry everywhere, indeed.
Rigoberto González
raúlrsalinas (1934-2008)
Elder statesman, Xicanindio leader, poet of the people, giver of hope to the
oppressed and the incarcerated, Raúl Salinas passed away last night in Austin, Tejaztlán.
Rigoberto González
Wednesday Shout Out
Arktoi Books is an exciting new imprint of Red Hen Press. The brainchild of beloved poet Eloise Klein Healey this series, which publishes both prose and poetry, highlights the very best writing by lesbian authors. Officially launching this year, the first title is by the poet Elizabeth Bradfield.
Rigoberto González
Slapering Hol Press
It means “Sleepy Hollow” in Old Dutch. Yes, that Sleepy Hollow, as in the place Mr. Washington Irving put on the literary map, though for the past twenty years, the Hudson Valley Writers’ Center has been working hard to build on that legacy. The vision of poet and founder Margo Stever has indeed blossomed into an extraordinary place for the arts. Only a train ride away from Grand Central in Manhattan, the center is itself the (currently under construction) Philipse Manor railroad station. One of the HVWC’s defining projects is this small press imprint that publishes the work of emerging poets. A number of the authors in this series, like Dina Ben-Lev, Rachel Loden, David Tucker and Sean Nevin, have gone on to publish full-length books. Most likely the same journey awaits the recent chapbook competition winner Stephanie Lenox.
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Thom Donovan
Bhanu Kapil
Fred Moten
Craig Santos Perez
Sina Queyras
Sotère Torregian
STAFF WRITERS
Cathy Halley
Michael Marcinkowski
Travis Nichols
Fred Sasaki
Don Share
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IN THIS ISSUE: March 2010
A selection of new work from Dorothea Grossman; new poems by Lavinia Greenlaw, David Yezzi, A.E. Stallings, Gerald Stern, and Dan Gerber; translations of Carlo Betocchi, and Mahmoud Darwish; an Editorial on Ruth Lilly; an exchange between Ilya Kaminsky and Adam Kirsch; an essay by Chen Li; and a review by Daisy Fried.
CHICAGO EVENTS
Poetry Off the Shelf: David Baker
Fri, March 26th, 6:00 PM
Open Books
213 West Institute Place
Free admission
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