Toby Olson & Mary Laird Hamady
Perishable Press Limited
Mount Horeb, Wisconsin
(c) 1976
Extremely small booklet. With awesome and uniquely "typical" cover for this press. 2 drawings in the booklet by Mary Laird Hamady. 4 poems by Toby Olson. Included in the book was this "flyer" for a reading with Clifford Burke. Beautiful item. Not cheap but worth having.
Shelley Puhak
Split Oak Press
2011 Stephen Dunn Poetry Chapbook Competition Winner.
(c)2011
Shelley Puhak won the competition in 2011. She has gone on to a more established literary career as is attested to on her website. Her website also do not list this book. Curiously enough, she it won and everything.
I understand that it was so 14 years ago but winning is winning, isn't it? I mean this wasn't a high school competition. Split Oak Press is a real Press, I have to assume.
I am being a bit snarky - I will admit. I am being snarky because this is a chapbook that is barely 32 pages thin (the publishers did some Jedi Mind Tricks with their layout to even achieve the 32 pages and most galling to me is that they slapped a perfect bound cover on this book which is so narrow that there was no room for the title of the book or the name of the author on the spine. A tiny sliver of nothing. Barely a color blip on the eye blink.
US Government
Washington, DC
(c)1990
This particular copy is stamped DO NOT REMOVE FROM MAIN LIBRARY - US DEPT JUSTICE (which is ironic in our current upheaval)
Handsome staple bound book featuring details and photos of the US Capitol, assembled with text by William Allen. I will be keeping this one, in case the next mob decides to do worse damage than what was done on Jan. 6, 2021.
St. Stephens and St. Agnes Middle School Literary Magazine
Alexandria, VA
(c) 1998
Oversized kids magazine of poetry and drawings. These kids are adults now.
The New York Wits : The Pamphlet Poets
Simon and Schuster
New York, NY
(c)1927
The New York Wits: The Pamphlet Poets published by Simon & Schuster in 1927. It’s a chapbook, a paperback chapbook as chapbook-y as any I have ever heard or written about. They did exist before the 1940s. In the same dimensions and staple-boundness and everything. Wow. So now my “starting point” for poetry chapbooks goes back even 2 decades earlier. I seem to also remember another early one I have written about, not bubbling to the surface right now but it might later.
Note the back cover image and the list of poets involved in the selection of the poems included. I am aware of some of these men, as old men, but here they are much younger and in demand. The logo is even different. The Press was 3 years old when this "pamphlet" came out. Quite the find (am keeping it)
John Kinsella (with Ron Sims)
Fremantle Art Centre Press
Western Australia
(c)1998
John Kinsella is the poet. Ron Sims is the visual artist. Together they collaborated on this book with CD. When I saw this on a bookshelf in a local bookstore all I saw was the tiny spine (the little sliver of nothing) but when I pulled it out and looked at it I instantly recognized the name because I saw him read in person several years ago at Georgetown in DC.
I appreciate to multi-disciplinary elements at play with this project.
Listening to the CD enhances and alters the experience of the book entirely. While there is a great focus throughout the recording of the first two poems in the collection. "Death of a Roo Dog" and "The Visitation", the sound experiment that accompanied changes the reading of the text, adding a complexity that is absent when merely reading words on a page. The complexity enhances the experience even with the repetition and looping effects throughout the 31 minutes of sound.
Brilliant.
The poet (and one time actor) Charles Bernstein posted that Pierre Joris died. I don't usually announce the passing of any poet, publisher, artist, etc. because after a while those posting would outnumber those of the living. But as I have already mentioned him twice in this blog, I can mention him again here.
While he will be missed, his writing will live on.
Ferrum College
Copenhaver Publishers, Inc
(1984)
A student run collection of poems, short fiction and drawings - Ferrum, Virginia. A timepiece. Not familiar with anyone in the book but glad to have seen it.
