K. C. STAR ANNOUNCES 2014 NOTABLE POETRY BOOKS

The Kansas City Star includes poetry among its priorities in reviewing, a rare opportunity, through the year, to learn of new works by contemporary versifiers. I feel lucky to be able to contribute as a regular reviewer and as a compiler of this list. Nine of the one-hundred 2014 Notable KC Star books are poetry:

Ask Me: 100 Essential Poems by William Stafford (Graywolf), Blood Lyric, by Katie Ford (Graywolf), Book of Hours by Kevin Young (Knopf).  Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine (Graywolf), Faithful and Virtuous Night by Louise Gluck (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), Put This on, Please by William Trowbridge (Red Hen), Wolf Centos by Simone Muench (Sarabande), Woman With a Gambling Mania by Catherine Anderson (Mayapple), Collected Haiku of Yosa Buson translated by W.S. Merwin and Takako Lento (Copper Canyon).

Compilers of this list are: Darryl Levings (KC Star books editor), Steve Paul (former KC Star books editor and editorial staff), Brian Burnes (KC Star columnist), Edward M. Eveld (KC Star); and regular KC Star reviewers: Kevin Canfield, Liz Cook, Jeffrey Ann Goudie, Anne Kniggendorf, Denise Low, Christine Pivovar, Sebastian Stockman and Steve Weinberg. University of Missouri-Kansas City English Department members consulted are: Hadara Bar-Nadav, Christie Hodgen and Whitney Terrell. The list includes fiction, nonfiction, and verse. See the entire listing of 100 Notable Books with commentary:

http://www.kansascity.com/entertainment/books/article4431734.html#storylink=cpy

Jackalope Flash Fiction by Denise Low

JACKALOPE WALKS INTO A COLORADO BILLBOARD by Denise Low

Jaq leans up against the “Ride a Jackalope to Trinidad” billboard and soaks in the warm sun. Wind whistles under the frame, but this is mostly a sheltered spot. She slides into the grass and dozes.

When she rouses, no telling how long she has slept. She looks across the scrubby junipers toward Raton Pass. This is the Santa Fe Trail, and before that it was a game trail, although history books will credit only human species, and then only Europeans.

What rough country. Old volcano cones dot across the horizon like chess pieces on a disorganized checkerboard. Other ridges flow rhythmically into tilted edges of mountains. A few stone wall ruins remain, perhaps Pueblo, and the arch of an abandoned Spanish church. Farther upstream, a Raven circles.

In the valley she notices movement, then sees smooth leaps of two antelopes, their ebony-black pronghorns well defined against pale grass. Good to know the ‘lopes still own part of the homeland.

Back by the highway, a white cross rises above an informal shrine of tinsel roses. Here someone died in a car accident, a reminder of time passing, as much as the extinct volcanoes. A fading photograph of a young man’s face, framed in white wood, stares West into eternity.

Jaq looks behind her at the garish billboard poster. “We Never Sleep!” says a grinning cartoon wolf. “Stay the Night.” The Jackalope next to the Wolf wears a saddle, and it walks down the highway, one foot raised.

Jaq looks back at the subdued greens of the winter foothills. The raven tilts and starts a new spiral against clouds. In a blink, it all could return to primal void. Or not.

Jaq smells the piny mountain scent one last time. She stands up against the saddled Jackalope image, and it is exactly her size. She stretches to fit the silhouette. She raises her foot to mirror the poster and tweaks her left ear to fit. It is when she matches the two-dimensional Jackalope’s grin that she suddenly loses consciousness.

© 2014 Denise Low. First published in Yellow Medicine Review. All rights reserved. Contact kansaspoetry [at] gmail for permissions and queries.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 Below is a link to "Jackalope Walks into an Indian Bar, first published in Cream City Review, nominated for a Pushcart Prize by CCR, 2014.

https://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/cream_city_review/v038/38.1.low.pdf

Louise Gluck Wins 2014 National Book Award

The National Book Award Foundation announces Louise Gluck as the winner of the 2014 prize for poetry, for the book Faithful and Virtuous Night (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). Gluck's lines have spare intensity, fused with narrative momentum. In her 2006 book Averno, she works with the Persephone myth to deconstruct patriarchal confinement in the poem “A Myth of Devotion,” which begins: 

When Hades decided he loved this girl
he built for her a duplicate of earth,
everything the same, down to the meadow,
but with a bed added. . . .        (See http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/myth-devotion )

Gluck weaves the story within her own meditations on the isolating process of a controlling lover. The connection to the mythic level adds power to her narrative, raising the individual complaint to larger questions of human isolation within an enigmatic cosmos. In an interview with Sandra Lin, Gluck says this about Faithful and Virtuous Night:

 “What distinguishes this book, to me, is the absence of struggle, which has been replaced not by resignation, but rather by a kind of strange ecstasy. It may be no other reader will feel this. Old age, particularly before it produces any spectacular deterioration, is very different from the fear of death, which has been my subject, and battleground, since I began writing in my early childhood.” Interview by Sandra Lim      

Louise Glück was born in New York City on April 22, 1943, and grew up on Long Island. She is a writer-in-residence at Yale University. She is the author of fifteen collections of poetry, over almost fifty years. Her book of essays about poetry writing, Proofs and Theories: Essays on Poetry (Ecco Press, 1994), which won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for Nonfiction. Her many awards, besides the 2014 National Book Award for Poetry, include the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Bollingen Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

---

Selected Bibiography: Faithful and Virtuous Night (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014); Poems: 1962-2012 (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2013); A Village Life (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2009); Averno (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2006)
The Seven Ages (Ecco Press, 2001); Vita Nova (Ecco Press, 1999); Meadowlands (Ecco Press, 1996); The First Four Books of Poems (Ecco Press, 1995); The Wild Iris (Ecco Press, 1992); Ararat (Ecco Press, 1990); The Triumph of Achilles (Ecco Press, 1985); Descending Figure (Ecco Press, 1980); The Garden (Antaeus, 1976); The House on Marshland (Ecco Press, 1975); Firstborn (New American Library, 1968)

 

 

 

 

 

Mini Workshop: HOW TO INSCRIBE A BOOK

© 2014 Denise Low. Contact mammothpublications[at]gmail for reprint permission

Over 200,000 books are published each year, give or take a few, and the fine art of inscribing a book is important to more people than ever. E-Bay has raised awareness of collectible values of everything, including autographs. After an author publishes a chapbook (stapled-bound or stitched booklet of 24 or so pages); a literary flyer or “broadside”; or book, fans will want signatures. Here is a great chance to participate in direct interaction with readers. Two parts are: (1) what to say and (2) what to write.
The “Say” Part: Personal Connections
One of my favorite memories of Associated Writers and Writing Programs, which I served as board member and chair, was the annual conference reading by Terry Tempest Williams. Anyone who has read her work understands her family health difficulties—she lost both her mother and brother to cancer. She had bad news about her own health right before the conference. At her reading, she stunned the audience with her brilliance and sincerity, with never a hint of her condition. Afterwards at the book table, over a hundred people wanted inscriptions. She had a personal conversation with each. Many she knew beforehand; some were strangers. This took about two hours, and the room was free, so she had no time limit. People were willing to wait. In this type of interaction, you can build relationships with your readers. However, you may not have a hundred fans and a rent-free room with no deadline. Lots of practical considerations come into play.
Practical Considerations
When does the reading site need to be vacated? Most libraries and bookstores close by 9 p.m. Once I was at a store that closed at 8 p.m., and I missed the entire signing because of this misunderstanding.
Who else is signing books? How much room is there? You may be at a table alone or with a group of twenty. If it is a larger group, you want to be a good literary citizen and share space nicely. When others do not play by the rules, be courteously persistent.
Visual Aids. You may want to bring handouts, a bookstand for a display copy, and other aids, depending.
Sales Assistance. If possible, do not handle sales yourself. Digging around for change takes away from the author-reader moment. If you are in a bookstore, do expect to sign (not inscribe) unsold copies.
Personal Touches and Challenges
Courtesy. Of course a writer is pleased to have attention to the book. Most fans will politely mention their names, spell or write them out, and comment briefly. This is ideal, and courtesy comes easily. People will remember for decades the personal time with an author like Terry Tempest Williams. Or yourself.
Exchange contact information. You may find book fans that you want to visit with more, outside of this brief encounter. Bring copies of your business card. This is helpful for directing people to online personal and sales sites. The blank back is a quick notepad for further information.
Listen. This is a chance to get feedback about the reading, responses to books, new work reception, and other information, directly from readers. Priceless!
Keep the Line Flowing. Readers have obligations to all stakeholders to keep the book signing line flowing smoothly. Do not let one person monopolize your attention. One of my least favorite parts of helping to host AWP conference readings with hundreds in the audience was courteously shoving people out of the way of eminent authors. My duty was to get authors to the book table at the back of the room and make way for the next panel. Long lost relatives, social media acquaintances, former students, and past life soul mates did not want to let go. I borrowed a blocking technique from football.
Patience.  Some audience members pull out their own manuscripts and want critiques on the spot despite a line of fans. Some really have no sensitivity to social cues. Here is where you use your “difficult person” script—thank them, mention your responsibility to other readers, break eye contact, and look at the next person in line. If all else fails, stand up and find the reading host or take a break. Bookstores often have people to help.
The “What” Part: Personal Interaction
Equipment. Invest in a half dozen nice pens in archival, fast-drying black ink or a unique personal color. I have signed some books in blue to relate to the book’s theme (sky, water). Pencil may be a better choice, because lead does not fade nor deteriorate like some acid-based inks. Consider the type of paper to be signed, and if it is a slick finish, find a pen that does not smear. Fast drying ink is especially important on glossy-finish paper. Try out sample signings, including where to sign on the book’s page. Collect your armory of signing utensils and save them for signings only. If you are really famous, keep one on hand for any public excursion.
Calligraphy. Do your best. Practice. Be sober. Slow down when you get sloppy.
Where to sign. The title page is the most common signatory site, unless this is a rare or fine arts book. If the books is an anthology, you turn to your first page and sign. If there is a bookplate, the book owner might ask for a signature. Sometimes loose bookplates are substitutes when books are not available.
Sign or Inscribe? Ask book owners if they want a simple signature or specific dedications to him/her or someone else. Is it a gift that needs birthday or holiday wishes? Have a pad for spelling out unusual names or specific instructions. Sign or Inscribe Redux: Collectibles. Signed copies are easier to sell and have greater collectible value. Inscriptions have a shelf life and lower the value. People die, move, go to used bookstores. One of my worst days was in a local used book store, where I found my own books inscribed to someone who no longer had need of them. (What was worse was finding an early book of mine with corrective comments written in the margins!)
Cross out your name on the title page and replace with your signature, or do not. When we sign letters, the typeset version of a name must be validated with a handwritten signature. Author signatures follow the same custom. Some book collectors object to the crossing out of the printed signature, but it does show a personalization of this particular book. More recently, the custom is to autograph the name above or below the typeset name without crossing it out. Your choice.
So what does an author write? A signed book is when an author simply signs his or her name in a book and perhaps dates it as well. An inscribed book is when an author adds a personal note, usually with a dedication that includes the book buyer’s name (or his/her designee).
·         Sign your names, first and last, unless you are Madonna or Cher. You might want to use you’re a name or initial for signings. Do not use your official legal name if possible (identity theft is possible).
·         Date and place. This adds a nice emphasis to a meeting place. The title of the event is also appropriate.
·         A simple inscription like “Have fun reading,” “Best wishes,” “Nice to meet at __________,” “Your friend.” These are safe, but not special. In large groups, though, they keep the line flowing.
·         Refer to event incidents. This helps to further commemorate an evening, if perhaps the reading took place during an ice storm, honoring of a writer, or unexpected flower delivery.
·         A set individual phrase or notation. Your personal and universal message might be like Elmore Leonard’s “Take it easy,” for all his books. Or you might draw an individual hieroglyph like Kenneth Irby, a five-point star within a circle. David Sedaris personalizes each signature with a sticker.
·         A quotation or theme from the book, like “Best hopes for all your skies,” what I inscribed in the book Touching the Sky. Robert Hass often inscribed his book Human Wishes with “All the best human wishes.”
·         Something about the reader. The true art of inscription is personalizing the comment. Is this a family member, good friend, student, teacher, or other important relationship? Do you share cats, vacations, wine preferences, work? Converse with the book buyer a moment. The more you can quickly compose a reference to that relationship, the better. This reminds me of signing high school yearbooks.
E-Signatures: Authorgraph™ is software that allows authors to sign digitally. Here, according to the website, is how it works:  “(1) Search or browse for your favorite authors or books; Click ‘Request Authorgraph’ (you can include a short message to the author); Receive an email when the author has signed your Authorgraph; View your Authorgraph in your favorite reading apps and devices.”

And here is a final word from Richard Sassaman: “How you sign the book is really the least important part of the interaction; they’re more likely to remember how you dealt with them personally.”

Lisa M. Hase-Jackson is Zangara Poet!

One of the most active poetry blogs right now is Lisa M. Hase-Jackson’s  Zingara Poet. Recent topics include: a review of Rick Mulkey’s new book; regular poetry picks (see her submission guidelines); interview with Santa Fe Poet Laureate Joan Logghe; lots of poems of merit from knowns and unknowns; and even an interview with moi (http://zingarapoet.net/2011/11/29/interview-with-kansas-poet-laureate-denise-low/ ). Something new and unexpected appears regularly in my social media-feed, and I’m always glad to see it, at ZingaraPoet .
Hase-Jackson is herself a challenging, socially conscious commentator who chronicles histories wending through landscapes, as in this poem:
 
Lonely Is

Built low to the ground,

the bungalow’s curtained windows hid
the family’s exodus for years
until dry rot set in and neighbors
noticed what they hadn’t before.

      When ‘xactly was it

     Jake stopped comin’ ‘round?

Standing solid in the crab-grass covered

drive, its frozen engine home to pack-rats,
a ’72 Chevy truck, single key still hidden above
the sun visor, weathers patiently.

Inside   strewn   across   knotty pine   floors

             after   common   thieves  and   strangers
             have vandalized and sifted,
             a photo album lies open

             in its pages  sepia   photos   of fish

                   that      got   away,  
              evenings  at the 4-H fair
              ribbon-winning laying hens
              hen-pecked by  tussled-haired  children
 

nearby   baby clothes   crocheted blankets

              mildew scented bunnies   and bears
              standing   on their   ears

 decaying  volumes   of  Encyclopedia Britannica

                     a children’s bible

 eggshells   and   bird droppings

              beneath  rotting  holes  in the ceiling.

Lonely is the house

           at the end of the lane
overgrown with Hoary cress
and thistle leaning
          in the wind.   

                                (Pilgrimage, Volume 37, Issue 1, 2013)

Lisa Hase-Jackson holds a Master’s Degree in English from Kansas State University and is pursuing an MFA at Converse College in Spartanburg, S.C. She is a poet, teacher, freelance writer, writing coach, and editor of ZingaraPoet.net and 200 New Mexico Poems. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in such literary magazines as Sugar Mule, Kansas City Voices, Pilgrimage, and As/Us Journal. Editor, 200 New Mexico Poems  Twitter,  @ZingaraPoet

CARAZA, GLANCY, AND GOLDBERG featured at the Mammoth 2015 AWP Reading April 11, Book Fair Stage 1, 10:30 a.m.

Save the date! Thanks to Mammoth Publications authors XANATH CARAZA, DIANE GLANCY AND CARYN MIRRIAM-GOLDBERG. They will be featured at Mammoth’s AWP 2015 reading, Minneapolis Conference! April 11, Saturday, in Minneapolis, 10:30 a.m. We will have a great reading from Mammoth authors Xanath Caraza, Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, and Diane Glancy, including the new book Syllables of Wind / Silabas de viento by Xanath Caraza. This is the largest literary book fair in North America. A one-day pass for all Sat. programming is $40, a bargain. See AWP 2015 on FB for details https://www.awpwriter.org/awp_conference/overview

Cheryl Olsen of WE WANTED TO BE WRITERS presents comments and excerpts from Denise Low's MELANGE BLOCK

Excerpt from MELANGE BLOCK by Denise Low on We Wanted To Be Writers Blog --Three poems are "Lost," "Parallax," "Sedimentation: Alligator Juniper." Thank you to WeWanted2BeWriters--and check out all the resources on their website for writers and lovers of writing. And I continue to be grateful for Red Mountain Press (please purchase from them directly if you can, no middleman deduction) and Susan Gardner and Devon Ross, RMP co-publishers.

Jonathan Mayhew Wheelbarrow Poem

Wheelbarrow

 

20,000 wheelbarrows would fit inside your poem

20,000 red wheelbarrows, blue wheelbarrows, green wheelbarrows

 

But would your poem fit in a wheelbarrow?

How many of them would fit inside one green wheelbarrow? 

 

This is a parody of The William Carlos Williams (1883-19630) "The Red Wheelbarrow" poem--see it at http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/red-wheelbarrow  "Wheelbarrow" was written on the occasion of the book launch of Melange Block by Denise Low at the Raven Bookstore, June 26, 2014.

Jonathan Mayhew, PhD in Comparative Literature from Stanford in 1988, has taught at the University of Kansas since 1996. He is the author of: Claudio Rodríguez and the Language of Poetic Vision (Bucknell, 1990), The Poetics of Self-Consciousness: Twentieth Century Spanish Poetry (Bucknell, 1994), Apocryphal Lorca: Translation, Parody, Kitsch, (Chicago, 2009), and The Twilight of the Avant-Garde: Spanish Poetry 1980-2000 (Liverpool, 2009). His blog Bemsha Swing comments upon the poetry scene. Mayhew is currently working on a book with the title What Lorca Knew: Fragments of a Late Modernity, and a volume of original poetry, Mayhew’s Mood.

SOUTHERN POET CHARLES WRIGHT IS THE NEW U.S. POET LAUREATE

Photo by Holly Wright

Charles Wright's poetry collections include Country Music, Black Zodiac, Chickamauga, Bye-and-Bye: Selected Later Poems, Sestets, and Caribou. His prizes include the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the National Book Award, the Griffin Poetry Prize, and the 2013 Bollingen Prize for American Poetry. Born in Pickwick Dam, Tennesee in 1935, he currently lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.Highly respected poet Charles Wright is a poet's poet. He attended the Iowa Writers Workshop, was inspired by Ezra Pound and Dante, and has a solid reputation. He is from Tennessee originally, and taught at the University of Virginia until retirement. Craig Morgan Teicher describes the use of time in Wrights work for NPR:
"Time in his poems seems to speed up and slow down alternately, to expand and contract, wavelike. The line dividing the personal from the public is as thin and permeable as the one that divides the present from the past, as in these lines from "Poem Almost Wholly in My Own Manner" from 1997's Black Zodiac:

In Moorhead, Mississippi,
         my mother sheltered her life out
In Leland, a few miles down US 82,
             unfretted and unaware,
Layered between history and a three-line lament
About to be brought forth
          on the wrong side of the tracks
All over the state and the Deep South.
We all know what happened next,
              blues and jazz and rhythm-and-blues
Then rock-and-roll, then sex-and-drugs-and-rock-and-roll, lick by lick
Blowing the lanterns out—and everything else—along the levees ..."

See more at http://www.npr.org/2014/06/13/321586882/charles-wright-the-contemplative-poet-laureate


Late Selected Poems by Charles Wright

The New York Times reports how James Billington, the librarian of Congress, selected Wright:

"... as he read through the work of a dozen or so finalists, he kept coming back to Mr. Wright’s haunting poems, many of them gathered in a Dante-esque cycle of three trilogies known informally as “The Appalachian Book of the Dead.” His “combination of literary elegance and genuine humility — it’s just the rare alchemy of a great poet,” Dr. Billington said." The poet started out by reading Faulkner, not poets: "In high school, he devoured all the books of William Faulkner —  his mother had once dated one of Faulkner’s brothers — and as a student at Davidson College in North Carolina, he tried to write fiction, only to discover that he was, as he later put it, the rare Southerner who couldn’t tell a story." Wright could, however, write a poem. See more at

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/12/books/charles-wright-named-americas-poet-laureate.html?ref=arts&utm_source=Week+of+June+23%3A+Members+in+the+News&utm_campaign=June+16%2F23%2C+2014%3A+Critical+Notes+Roundup&utm_medium=email&_r=0

 

The Poetry Editor and Poetry: Poetry Review: Mélange Block by Denise Low

The Poetry Editor and Poetry: Poetry Review: Mélange Block by Denise Low: Published by Red Mountain Press, the new poetry book Mélange Block introduced me to the work of poet Denise Low, whose 20 books of award-w...

Donald Levering Considers What the Wealthy Subtract from Earth's Balance

Donald Levering leads an examined life. He considers all networks among beings, economies, languages, genders. By accident of birth, he grew up in one of the wealthiest countries, although not from wealth. He writes from an informed viewpoint, and his voice is essential. He does not dodge the tough questions.

In Levering's work, we enter the lives of desperate exiles, including war victims. His "War Taxes" begins
"We are herded into the junior high school gym,
ordered to roll up our sleeves
to donate blood to the giant
who is leaking oil...."
Levering understands that all of us suffer together, not separated by geography or circumstance. He can laugh, as he describes the flight of the man who leads whooping cranes along a "lost migration route." The reduced condition of the few dozen remaining whooping cranes, however, is not forgotten. Always, his writing is vivid, unforgettable. I've been reading his work since the 1980s. He keeps getting sharper, more focused. This is a great book with a huge lens. You will see more clearly after reading it. Order his book from Red Mountain Press to provide the most profit for the independent press Red Mountain.

Donald Levering Biography: Born in Kansas City, Donald Warren Levering was educated at Baker University (B. A.), The University of Kansas, Lewis and Clark College, and Bowling Green State University. At Bowling Green, he was a Devine Memorial Fellow in Poetry before receiving a M. F. A. in Creative Writing. He has worked as a groundskeeper in Oregon, teacher in the Diné (Navajo) Nation, and human services administrator in New Mexico. He was the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship Grant in poetry, winner of the Quest for Peace Writing Contest in rhetoric, and an Academy of American Poets Featured Poet in the Online Forum.  In 2012, he was a prizewinner in the Atlanta Review International Poetry Competition and took third place in the Hackney Award, as well as placing as a finalist for the Jane Kenyon Award. A species conservation volunteer and human rights activist, he is the father of a son and daughter and lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico with the artist Jane Shoenfeld.Donald's most recent collections are The Number of Names, Sunstone Press (2012) and Sweeping the Skylight, Finishing Line Press (2012) and Algonquins Planted Salmon, Red Mountain Press (2012). His latest book is The Water Leveling With Us, Red Mountain Press (2014). For more perspectives on his new book, see reviews at these links.  

http://vacpoetry.org/journal/the-water-leveling-with-us/ 

http://www.sundresspublications.com/stirring/archives/v16/e2/levering.htm

© 2014. All posts copyright Denise Low. Excerpts of 50 words or fewer may be excerpted if accompanied with the link back to the original post on Denise Low Postings.

 
 

 

MAMMOTH PUBLICATIONS REPORTS ITS NEWS: New Books, Reading Success, Author News

MAMMOTH WRITING NEWS, MAY, 2014

* NEW WEBSITE: www.mammothpublicatoins.net Mammoth was due for an update, and the new site has better navigation and organization. Please visit and comment. 

*MAMMOTH PUBLICATIONS on FACEBOOK. Please type our name into your Facebook search bar, and hit “Like.” Then you will get regular updates through Facebook.

*MAMMOTH READING APRIL 29, 2014, KU STUDENT UNION Jayhawk Ink Bookstore at KU was the site of a Mammoth author reunion and reading. Denise Low opened the event and described how E. Donald Two-Rivers’s book Powwow, Fatcats, and Other Indian Tales was the first Mammoth book in 2003. This was in association with Woodley Memorial Press, where Low was a board member at the time. Then Mammoth became independent, and LANGSTON HUGHES IN LAWRENCE, co-authored by Low and Tom Weso, was the next project. Tom Weso read from the Langston Hughes book and also his new food memoir.
 Barry Barnes, author of WE SLEEP IN A BURNING HOUSE, recited poems from his book and announced his participation in the International Cajun and Zydeco Festival in the Netherlands, the next day, with the Ernest James Zydeco Band. His photos on Facebook are amazing. Elizabeth Schultz read from WHITE-SKIN DEER: HOOPA STORIES, based on 1950s stories told to her by Hoopa elders.
Stephen Meats arrived from Pittsburg State University and read from DARK DOVE DESCENDING, his 2013 poetry and fiction book. Mammoth has just reissued a new edition of his book LOOKING FOR THE PALE EAGLE.

Global Green proprietors Julie Unruh and Oliver Hall showed their books, VEGETABLE GARDEN and GETTYSBURG ADDRESS, respectively, and read from them. Global Green is one of several groups that Mammoth cooperates with by counsel and other publication support. Thanks to them for a generous donation.

 Xánath Caraza finished the event with readings from her first book, CONJURO. Caraza’s awards include Number one Author of the 2013 Top Ten “New” Latino Authors to Watch (and Read) by LatinoStories.com. The International Latino Book Awards 2013 recognized CONJURO for Second Place: Best First Book Written in Spanish; Award Winning Finalist, Multicultural Fiction; and Honorable mention, Best First Book Written in Spanish, Mariposa Award. She has published two more books, What the Tide Brings In (Mouthfeel Press) and Noche de Colibríes: Ekphrastic Poems (2014) if from Pandora Lobo Estepario Press. Mammoth will publish another book of poetry in 2015. Mammoth is honored to be her first book publisher. Lisa Eitner of Jayhawk Ink facilitated the project and provided publicity. This is the second event for Mammoth sponsored by the KU bookstore, and we appreciate the support.

*MAMMOTH ASSOCIATE’S PROGRAM Mammoth has been able to advise several community groups and individuals involved with publishing. Mammoth associates include Global Green Publications, Parcel literary journal, A Kansas Bestiary and its authors, and more.  Look for “Published in association with Mammoth Publications” for this cooperative venture. Congratulations to Global Green Productions for their books VEGETABLE GARDEN, GETTYSBURG ADDRESS, and MLK. JR., MEMORIAL, words by Martin Luther King, Sculpture by Lei Yixin, and Photography by Oliver Hall. The book has been nominated for a Coretta Scott King Book Award. Global Green presented Mammoth Publications with the first copy of the book. We sincerely thank them.
MAMMOTH ANGELS APPEAR! If you have ever wondered what wooly mammoth angels looks like, they are not giant pachyderms with large wings. They are more subtle and appear in human form to us mortals. Two such angels have asked for our catalogue list and then bought every single book. That income has helped us pay for the next book set-up costs. We are not a non-profit, which helps us keep our independence. We appreciate the support of angels and all ordinary folk who buy our books, review them on media, give us encouragement, and otherwise act as angels.
NEW MAMMOTH BOOKS  Robert Day’s TALK TO STRANGERS AND STOP ON BY: Essays on William Stafford and Other Folk of the American High Plains, with an Introduction by Scott Bontz, was published just in time for the Washburn University William Stafford conference, March 30, 2014. Thank you to The Land Institute for a grant to help fund this publication. http://mammothpublications.net/writers-a-to-l/robert-p-day-we-should-have-come-by-water/
Stephen Meats has updated his 1994 collection of poetry LOOKING FOR THE PALE EAGLE and added interviews, revision notes, and a “Letter to a Young Poet.” http://mammothpublications.net/writers-m-to-z/meats-stephen-prose-and-poetry/
Caleb Puckett is the newest Mammoth author, and I hope to meet him one day soon! His FATE LINES / DESIRE LINES is poetry moving among histories and digital media. His experimental poetry satisfies the mind and makes emotional connections. http://mammothpublications.net/writers-m-to-z/puckett-caleb-fate-lines-desire-lines/
NEWS FROM MAMMOTH AUTHORS   Elizabeth Schultz has a new book of poetry, The SAUNTERING EYE, from FutureCycle Press. Join her and Mammoth friends when she reads from it at the Raven Bookstore May 22, Thursday, 7 pm.  Denise Low has a new book of poetry, her first since the award-winning Ghost Stories of the New West (Woodley 2010). MÉLANGE BLOCK (Red Mountain Press), blends Low’s ancestries with history and landscape to create aggregate-like poems. http://redmountainpress.us/melange-block-by-denise-low/ Readings are Santa Fe, June 15, 2:30 pm, op cit bookstore; June 25, Lawrence, Raven bookstore, 7 pm.  Xánath Caraza started a new international poetry project called “US Latino Poets en español.” This online poetry column is published monthly and is a collaboration between the Smithsonian Latino Virtual Museum and Periódico de Poesía. She will be traveling summer 2014 and presenting readings in Spain, Portugal, and El Salvador.  Stephen Meats is working with another Mammoth author, William Sheldon, in preparing a book of interviews with Kansas writers. Mammoth will publish the book in 2015.  Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg is working on three forthcoming books: Poem on the Range: A Poet Laureate's Love Song to Kansas (Coal City Press), Caryn's memoir about the political and geographic journey of her poet laureate years, will be out this summer; Chasing Weather: Tornadoes, Tempests, and Thunderous Skies in Word and Image (Ice Cube Press), her collaboration with weather photographer and storm chaser Stephen Locke, is being released in September; and Transformative Language Arts in Action, the anthology she's co-editing with Ruth Farmer, will be out toward the end of 2014.  Lana Wirt Myers reports she is retiring from her job with the Harvey County Historical Society spring of 2014. She has plans for another book. Her Mammoth book PRAIRIE RHYTHMS: THE LIFE AND POETRY OF MAY WILLIAMS WARD received a Kansas Notable Book recognition from the state library and Kansas Center for the book. 

MAMMOTH AUTHORS AND ALLIES, PLEASE LET US KNOW YOUR NEWS, AND WE’LL POST IT IN OUR NEXT NEWSLETTER.