playing with power tools at the alter of venus by r. julius fildes (1993)

playing with power tools at the alter of Venus

r. julius fildes

Screaming Ego Press

(c)1993

A time piece of cyberpunk anarchist future. #10 of 200 printed. Drawing throughout by author as well. Interested bit of unexploded napalm. 

arcana by Ian Samuels (2002)

 Arcana

Ian Samuels

housepress

Calgary, CA

(c)2002

This is a handsome little book. This one is #17 of 60 printed. What I find most fascinating and telling is how an author can "forget" a publication like this when only two years later they publish a bigger book, one entitled The Ubiquitous Big which came out in 2004 on Coach House Books. I am going to add the bio that was offered at that time (see if you can find what's missing) :

"Ian Samuels is a former editor of filling Station magazine and currently works at WordFest: Banff-Calgary International Writers Festival. He is the author of one previous collection of poetry titled Cabra (Red Deer Press, 2000). He lives in his hometown of Calgary, where he is currently working on a mythic history of once-famous blues venue the King Edward Hotel."

Yeah, pretty incredible. 

write a poem about a tomato (??)

 write a poem about a tomato

wrote the seller : "a tomato art zine from ARTspace Chatham. Cute little zine collecting poems, illustrations and more about tomatoes, contributed by Chatham citizens."

wrote me, upon receiving it : 

I have not held a chapbook of such poor quality in a long time. JesusHChrist trees were killed to make this piece of trash. 

The concept could have been - but wasn't. I have to pulp it. It's terrible. Just NO

A Net to Catch My Body in its Weaving by Katie Farris (2021)

 A Net to Catch My Body in its Weaving

Katie Farris

Winner of the 2021 Chad Walsh Chapbook Prize

Beloit Poetry Journal 

Katie Farris is an award winning poet who attracted serious attention with her hybrid-form text boygirls which was released in 2011. 39 pages of pure brilliance. Not "joy" since the subject matter is not cotton candy sweetness but extremely good poetry here. 

Famous Recipes by Famous People (2004)

Famous Recipes by Famous People

Hotel Del-Monte

American Association of Gourmets

(c)2004

This is a reprint of 1936 edition. Nice cover stock. It feels like something. 

Fridge Haikus by Sophia M. Giudici (unknown)

 Fridge Haikus

Sophia M. Giudici

self published

(c) unknown

This hand sewn booklet is the physical representation of the author's time creating haiku and "publishing" them on Instagram. 

However, there is none of that information in the book. I gleaned it from the Net. Not sure what the point of the book is since they were all posted virtually to begin with. The author is more a student of Insta-poets than of haiku. All the piece are surface - lacking depth. As a poet friend of mine said in the 1990s "it's just words". 

Supposedly the haiku are meant to represent her live during the COVID years, which is fine and it's what countless others have also done - albeit not in haiku form, but

A history is not THE history

 I am a big William S Burroughs fan and one of the manifestations of being a fan of his writings is also to note his words and his meanings, as best as one can, and one of the things he wrote, almost in passing, is how ridiculous Western Thinkers and in particular Americans are with their overuse of the word THE as though using THE something or another means the definitive. Burroughs saw this as lazy and near sighted self congratulatory nonsense when it came to a scientific or historical subject. THE meaning "the one and only" whereas, Burroughs argued, A is nearly always more appropriate to use in these scenarios. 

So, I want to say that I am working on A history of poetry chapbooks and would never say I am working on THE history.... because the history of poetry chapbooks is as fluid and dare I say as plastic as the English language itself is. 

This blog - moving forward - is now a template for the book since I have been, unintentionally and semiconsciously, writing it since 2006. 

So many of the posting I have done have been thumbnail mentions instead of in-depth searches but with Carnglass and moving forward and backward simultaneously I will be fleshing out my subjects better so that I have a fuller appreciation of the subjects and so I might gauge what readers might gleam from my research. 

Carnglass Press = Jim Zimmermann of Newark, NJ

 I am going to play this out detective style here - each of the gentlemen I have communicated with about Carnglass Press have mentioned a linchpin, a spider at the middle of the web, and that person was named Jim Zimmermann who ran the Press from the basement of this house. The mystery is a little less dense but still exists. 

Updating the Carnglass Press mystery

 Indeed I have been blogging about chapbooks since 2006. 

Somewhere along the way I have also been sketching elements within my subject matter for expansion because to paraphrase Rod Stewart every chapbook tells a story. So, I will start with the one I am in currently in an see where the ripples go. 

Carnglass Press was a publishing concern in Newark, NJ at the beginning of the 1970s. Michael Redmond was one of the translators of the two chapbooks that I have. I got the chapbooks from an artist named Harry Bartnick. Bartnick did some cover illustration work for the Press and they paid him in chapbooks, these two. Neither of these gentlemen know each other. 

It seems that the bubbling poetic activities from Greenwich Village had traveled the 12 miles (in this case) to Newark. Michael was at Rutgers/Newark and Harry was working at the Newark library. Apparently there was a guy who was so into printing that he had a printing operation in the basement of his house that that was the hub for all these young dudes to be creatively crazy. Both men believe that Carnglass was a short term project. Neither believed that it produced more than these two books, maybe others they weren't sure of ever having been printed, like the project that Harry's cover art was meant for - A Single Shot to Kill a Bear - reenforcing the reality that not every project does come to fruition. 

Hikes to Waterfalls - in the Shenandoah National Park (2011)

 Hikes to Waterfalls (in Shenandoah National Park)

Shenandoah National Park Association

Text by Joanne Amberson, volunteer

Good Printers (Bridgewater, VA)

revised edition 2011

Little booklet full of directions and distances to the many waterfalls, top to bottom, of the Shenandoah National Park. Maps - the whole thing. Everything one would need to take on the elements and have a great hike to any one of these falls. 

a reminder : my info in case you have chapbooks you are willing to let me write about

 stevenallenmay

2714 Jefferson Dr

Alexandria, VA 22303

Harvest by Demetrios Kassolas (1971)

Harvest

Demetrios Kassolas 

Carnglass Press

Newark, NJ

(c)1971

Continuing the mystery in hopes of it unspooling - one of the translators of both this and the previous book was Michael Redmond. 

I am posting this in a very incomplete manner because I might have found this Michael Redmond person on Facebook. 

UPDATE #1

I did in fact make contact with a Michael Redmond - and it's the right one! Hoping to have a more detailed interaction with him soon. 

UPDATE #2

It is the same gentleman and I will share what I can since our conversation is mostly private. But Michael Redmond was the translator of book chapbooks. 

Poems by Dan Mutascu (1970)

 Poems

Dan Mutascu

Carnglass Press

Newark, NJ

(c)1970

Translated by Mircea Bucurescu and Michael Redmond

I love a good mystery, as any of you who have been following these postings can tell and in this case the seller of this chapbook actually knew more about the chapbook than the Net. In fact, the Net has almost nothing on this small press and the writer is Romanian. This collection itself is a trimmed down version of poems published in a larger edition by The Joycian Court Publishers. 

I wrote to the person who sold me this (along with another chapbook from the same Press) one and he wrote back : 

Hello,

Back in the late 1960s, I had worked with someone at the Newark Public Library who ran (or was in some way connected to) the Carnglass Press in Newark. I was asked to do a cover illustration for another one of their chapbooks, and in return received the 2 that you have.

All the Best,

XXXXX

followed then by : 

Hello,

The information that I included in the post for the 2 poetry chapbooks was all that I could find on the internet. I don't recall the website sources that it came from. There didn't seem to be anything in Wikipedia on them. I think that Carnglass Press was a small-scale, private effort, probably short-lived. A more thorough (and time-consuming!) internet search would likely turn up more information.

Cheers,

XXXXXXX

Now, I have a multiple mystery on my hands. The writer is better known for books that we published later in the 1970s and the Press seems to have disappeared sometime in the 1970s. I will keep researching. It's something I like to so. 

It's a staple bound chapbook. The drawing on the cover might be of the author. Or a random guy on a train, or in a coffee shop, who knows? (I don't) The person I dealt with got this - and the other - book from the publisher in exchange for cover illustration work. And had a connection to the Newark library in the late 1960s. 

That's my starting point - 

4X4 Winner of the 2013 Furniture Press Chapbook Competition

Furniture Press 2013 Chapbook Competition

1/200 (I have the first of the lot!)

Furniture Press 

Towson/Baltimore/Earth

Okay - I added "earth"

This is a packet of the 4 winners of the contest, apparently. 

They were : 

1X4 - The Caves of Ice by Joseph Cooper. 18 pages plus preface - at the end of the text.

2X4 - Clever Little Gang by Nicole Steinberg. 18 pages

3X4 - Your Stupid Fortune Gives Me Stupid Hope: A Horoscope by Caroline Crew & Chris Emslie

          Unpaginated.

4X4 - : Part One :  by Lisa Tallin. Unpaginated. 
 

Whalehead & Bring Me Duck by Suzanne Tate (1987 & 1986)

 

Two historical topical and locational books by the same author about the same part of the country. Nicely done. B&W photos. Local historical references galore. 

Rush Mats by Hiroya Takagai translated by Eric Selland (1999)

 Rush Mats 

Hiroya Takagai

translated by Eric Selland

Duration Press 

(c) 1999

Interestingly, as I approach the end of the huge poetry chapbook and ephemera dump I received a number of years ago from a generous soul in Iowa, I find one that completely appeals to me. 

Translated from the Japanese by Eric Selland, this thin collection has spacial distance that attracts me - long pauses in white space. And Mr. Selland has translated Mr. Takagai before. He had a book published by the University of Hawaii entitled Then the Whole was Flooded with Light: Hiroya Takagai Translated (2000) which was the year after this brief collection came out. It is possible and likely that some of the pieces here were also in the bigger book published the following year. 

Perfect Stranger by Earl McMurray (1998)

Perfect Stranger

Earl McMurray

Winner of the Ledge 1997 Annual Poetry Chapbook Contest

The Ledge Press

Glendale, NY

(c)1998

Inherited from a book lot dump I received years ago now. Not 1998 "ago" but - it's a contest winner but it doesn't tickle my poetry bone. Acknowledgment only. 

Of Their Ornate Eyes of Crystalline Sand by Coral Bracho (1999)

 Of Their Ornate Eyes of Crystalline Sand

Coral Bracho

Translated from the Spanish of Forrest Gander

Duration 11

(c) 1999

Part of the series. Great poetry. 

I happened across the series and these chapbooks, I believe, by someone in Iowa unloading a store of chapbooks they had accumulated over the years before they retired from their position at the literary hub there. 

One of the fascinating things about this series is that the translator had the opportunity to talk about the author they were translating, giving personal histories and perceptions to readers who were as likely as not NOT familiar with the poet whose work was the focus of the chapbook itself. 

Quiet Knives by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller (2003)

 Quiet Knives

Sharon Lee & Steve Miller

Adventures in the Liaden Universe #9

SRM Publisher, Ltd. 

Unity, Maine

(c) 2003

No - it's not THAT Steve Miller. 

It's a 62 page staple bound fantasy adventure book written by these two writers featuring two characters, etc; etc; etc.

Apparently they have been extremely successful writing together and this was a sampler more than a completed project. 

We Were Ugly So We Made Beautiful Things by David Barringer (2003)

 We Were Ugly So We Made Beautiful Things

David Barringer

Word Riot 

(c) 2003

Okay, Word Riot folded in 2016. The website link gets you to Hotels in Holland now. This book has an errata note in the introduction basically telling you to disregard the rest of the introduction and if you want to read the actual introduction by the writer Steve Almond, you can click onto - but you can't as I just explained because it doesn't - but hey, about those Hotels in Holland!

This is a collection of short stories. At 66 pages though, it's not a chapbook except that it was staple-bound so it is. (If you are getting the sense that I am circling the airplane, it's because I am circling the airplane) (( and we are all going down, together))