Freeholder & Other Poems by Jamie Brown (1999)

Freeholder & Other Poems

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. 

Cryptych by Melissa Bell (1994)

Cryptych

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)

Claustrophobia, Surprise! by Evan Williams (2021)

Claustrophobia, Surprise!

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. 

A Virginia Gentleman's Library published in Colonial Williamsburg (post-1952)

 This was produced in Colonial Williamsburg as a keepsake "merch" item, likely sold at the print shop in the Colonial section of Williamsburg. Staple bound. 15 pages, detailing recommendations of what a "gentleman" should have on his bookshelf in his Manor home as proposed by Thomas Jefferson in 1771, just before the American Revolution. 

Quaint Idioms and Expressions of the Pennsylvania Germans by A. Monroe Aurand, Jr (no date given)

Quaint Idioms and Expressions of the Pennsylvania Germans

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.