Jamie Brown
Argonne Hotel Press
Washington, DC
(c)1999
Something I will give this press, their chapbooks are quite distinctive because they are all exactly the same. The covers I mean. Exactly the same. And they captured a cross-section of Washington DC's poetry community.
Now, whether or not Mr. Baker decided on Hotel or House for the name of his imprint, it's good work here. Well worth the reading.
Melissa Bell
Black Buzzard Press
Fall Church, VA
(c) 1994
Okay, this is the 13th chapbook in the series from a press I never heard of that was located about 12 miles from where I live and I have never seen any chapbook by this press, can't find a single reference anywhere and unless the illustrator Jeffrey Thompson or the editor Bradley Strahan are still around and want to have a chat, I am flummoxed about this press. Actually, no
I wrote a piece about this Press in 2013 for a chapbook by a different poet and the location of the press was Austin, Texas. That chapbook was published in 2007.
Between the two, I like this one better. The poetry is a little better but I really like the feel and look of it more.
AND I just found a blog that a B.R.S. had for the Press when it was in Texas. Why did I write "when it was"? Because the last blog entry was in 2008. B.R.S. have to be the initials for Bradley R. Strahan.
All that said, I am definitely curious about their origins which I suspect took place in Northern VA sometime prior to 1994.
And further I found bio info on B.R.S. that he taught at Georgetown for 12 years, which definitely places him in the DC area (which Falls Church is part of)
Evan Williams
HAD chapbook #1
(Hobart After Dark)
(c) 2021
41 pages staple bound first item brought out by this entity. Hybrid poetry/short fiction (prose poetry) collection. Very good. Well made.
by A. Monroe Auband, Jr
(revised edition)
self published
Lancaster, PA
Subtitled "A Delightful Bit of Entertainment"
Half my family came from Amish/Mennonite legion in Pennsylvania. They didn't speak like this to "entertain" non-Pennsylvania Dutch speakers. It was their dialect and their culture. All the same, it is a cute booklet.
My great-grandmother was born in the mid-1800s and spoke no English at all. She was still alive and bedridden when I was a young boy and I would listen to Mother and Daughter (my grandmother) speak "Dutch" to each other.
In a way, then, this booklet speaks to my own history.
Majda Gama
Two Sylvias Press
Kingston, WA
(c)2023
Winner of Two Sylvias Chapbook Prize
It is refreshing to read work by poets who come to and through the English language from cultures and experiences beyond white Anglo-Saxon protestant backgrounds. Be that Native American, and frankly any "minority" voice BECAUSE how these other "voices" capture their experiences while also witnessing ours is cleansing.
Yes, cleansing. Far too many American poets write in a manner similar to how this country was portrayed in the Mel Gibson film The Patriot in which there were no black slaves and no Native tribes in a film where both groups IN HISTORY combined to outnumber European-born colonists and British troops at the time of the Revolutionary War. In the same way, when Robert Frost writes of being in the woods, those woods are empty canvases - they are devoid of whom inhabited them prior to Frost's birth. Prior to most "American writers'" births. And while the majority of poets in this country attempt to capture their experiences, their environments, their surroundings; they do so through their white person lens. And we, as a nation, are about to become a Minority Majority nation (despite the efforts of the MAGA and Trump and their White Nationalist ilk) so seeing things strictly through a "white lens" does not do our collective experience as Americans justice.
Ms. Gama, while neither beating a drum nor hammering a nail, presents experiences beyond - outside - and other with grace and calm expression. And her language is beautiful.
Gwendolyn Zimmerman
FootHills Publishing
Kanona, NY
(c) 2018
I don't recall the exact time of the catastrophic fire that destroyed the building, and therefore the operation, of FootHills Publishing but I know it happened and that was a sad moment not only for Michael Czarnecki (the publisher) but for everyone associated with that small press.
I got to meet with Michael a number of years ago when he ventured into the Berks County, PA poetry community due to publishing Craig Czury, who at the time was an important link between the fledgling Berks Bards poetry organization and the Berks Arts Council. [I know, sorry, structural minutiae dealing not directly with the poetry here or the poetess but she mentioned both men on the back cover, so....]
I have heard that Michael has phoenix'd out of his disaster and have given FootHills new life.
This collection is lovely, btw.
Smaller than a broadside
tinier than anything I actually had to pay to get, in truth. But signed, it is, and by both men. One who might be wearing swim trunks, I would hope.
A single poem. Not a bad poem but hardly worth the effort in my estimation. But I didn't, they guys did and that is all I wish to say about that. Oh - it's Kirby Congdon (poet) and Ralph must have been the "artist" involved.
Roy Zarucchi
Albion, CA
(c)1990
I got this one because I had never heard of this poet before and doing some research prior to the arrival of the book gave me some insight. But, wait, Pygmy Forest Press...... that is Leonard Cirino's press. Oh, he passed in 2012. I did not know that. He and I had a feisty exchange of views concerning the Beat Generation. He blamed the Beats for his life (choices) as I remember it. And yet I am hearing traces of Kerouac in a few of the poems in this collection by Roy Zarucchi. His phraseology in a few of the poems are right out of the Kerouac language universe.
This collection is NOT a Beat generation infused chapbook, but it does hint at it. It's a cross section of the writings by this gentleman, a man who had a remarkable and interesting life. I learn of his background from the obit shown below:
Roy Zarucchi Obituary
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M - ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - Retired U.S. Air Force Maj. Roy Zarucchi passed away suddenly June 29, 2011, at his home. He was born June 9, 1939, in Oakland, Calif.
Roy retired after 20 years in the Air Force and taught college. During his distinguished career he was an Air Force commando, served in the Vietnam War and spent five years at the Pentagon. He graduated from St. Mary's College, Berkeley, Calif., and received a master's degree at Central Michigan University. In addition to being a skilled potter, he was a published poet. He and Carolyn were essayists with Maine Public Radio and joint published authors. Roy and Cal operated Nightshade Press and edited Potato Eyes Literary Arts Journal for 12 years. They left Albuquerque, N.M., to return to coastal Maine, but were pulled back to the climate and friendships they had made in New Mexico. His hobbies included swimming, gardening, throwing pots and European travel.
Michael Fallon
Self published
(c)2022
This is a very fine collection of poetry created during and entirely about the COVID 19 "plague" we are still recovering from today.
