Thanks NewPages! We love you guys! Jess

As a final goody from the AWP refuse is a tiny, purple card with a velvet-like texture. Stamped on its surface a dim:

EXTRA

ORDINA

RYREN

DITION

only readable by holding the card angled to the light, but totally legible to the fingers! No words printed on the back! My luckiest find: a Haptic Poem indeed and worthy of a cup of coffee in celebration!

Happy to announce that we’ve begun work on a wonderful collection of plays/performance texts by the U of Southern Louisiana playwright Dayana Stetco. More about this collection soon. Jess

David B. Axelrod has hit his stride as a poet of the old school–meaning one who could have stood with the writers of the Song of Solomon, the Book of Job and the Book of Ecclesiastes (a document that I consult at least once a day). Axelrod’s voice is wise, humane and self-transcending, and it is the voice of a sharp, articulate Everyman caught in the early 21st century between birth and death. Here’s the title poem of this, one of his richest collections, and one–to my chagrin–that ahadada books did not publish:

Something Beautiful

There’s a copper taste to a heavy cough
though more often that describes one’s
blood when a cut says “clean me,”
and, animals we are, we push a bleeding
finger into our mouth. There’s a heaviness
akin to the colonial tale of Giles Corey,
pressed to death for what sin? “More
weight,” he cried, to hasten his own death.
Drag the breath in through clenched teeth,
there’s a tingling in the gums, tightening
of tendons in the neck. They say strangu-
lation heightens sex. Remember the young
girl murdered in Central Park? “Beautiful,”
is that lifelong struggle for our breath–
ten each minute, resting, fifteen thousand
breaths each day, thirty-three million
before we die, unthinking, autonomic,
except this wheeze, which makes each
puff specific as a hip thrust. Yoga
teaches control of breath. Lovers pant.
Runners work to maximize the oxygen
in their blood. This cough, this need
to spit out life. Passionate breath,
sustaining breath, for which we
work, the taste of which we savor.

$20.00. For book orders go to: www.writersunlimited.org/LIPS.htm or www.eatwritecafe.com

I picked these up before my stuttering friend could get to them:

two gorgeous little broadsides from Ping Pong; A Literary Journal of the Henry Miller library/ Highway One/ Big Sur/ CA 93920

Expressio Unius est Exclusio Alterius (The expression of the one is the exclusion of the other)

It’s too late,
because
you’re already reading this poem,
and it’s too late to say
it’s not a poem,
because I just said it was.

You can hate it, or
by extension, me,
but you are reading my poem,
here, right now.
You say, these black characters,
are words, and I say,
it’s a poem.
You begin to believe me.
You begin
to believe.

Maria Garcia Teutsch

(orig. pub’d by Otoliths–wa hoo!)

And another by the same poet:

The Pinata

Cold rain turned my shirt
into papier mache.

I tried to hold it away
from the mound of each breast.

Your warm palms traced their shape,
and you told me I was beautiful.

All wet and streaming,
I believed you.

(orig. pub’d in Two Review–wahoo!)

About 300 of these treasures were stranded in the middle of a desk. I scooped up some and am sending them out via snail when I write to friends.

One of the craziest finds was a little folded A4 sheet called FOUND by Martin Nakell. It’s a meditation on the experimental novel, or rather, on the reading of same. Here’s a sampling:

Now. You are ripe to read. Physically. In your
body. The experimental novel does this to
you with its antitechniques, its guerrilla war-
fare against you it unravels itself through you.
You have become literature, literature has at-
omized. The author has taught you how to
read her/his book.

Content was rather predictable in our post-post-post modernity, but the crazy thing is the publisher: Jahbone Books; A Project of the Institute For the Harmony of Science & Poetics. No address given.

How wonderful!

Jess

Just leafing through Glenn Sheldon’s Bird Scarer and came across this fine poem:

Evasive Summer

My young, drugged neighbors jump
into their above-ground pool after the bars

have given up the driest of ghosts.
It’s the Fall of Troy as puppet-

theater, a lost suitcase found that
holds a scandalous diary, a plush

theater of skin, moonlight and noise.
They flirt, splash and touch each

other’s scars. Is Earth the only
planet where dreams can harm?

Stong lines here from a charming man!

Go to www.cerenabarvapress.com for purchasing information.

We publish catalogs two or three times per year, including our Online Catalog, which is updated more frequently.

This is the Fall/Winter 2008 Ahadada Catalog. It includes selections from Ikuta West House for North American distribution.

We have now updated our Catalog to include some new and forthcoming titles — including our newest titles from Tom Bradly, Eileen Tabios, Jane Joritz-Nakagawa and David Jaffin. More information can be found here.

A new downloadable catalog with all of our new titles is forthcoming.

Here’s the link to the updated PDF of our catalog.

We hope to begin producing audio books soon and would like to start with Tom Bradley’s Even the Dog Won’t Touch Me. (Soon to be listed on this site along with other new ahadada titles.) Jess

It’s a fine book. A bit uneven and somewhat repetitive in style, but good stuff. Jess

From left to right: Jesse Glass, Mark Spitzer, Daniel Sendecki and Robert Thompson.

A view of the AWP bookfair.

Jesse Glass and Daniel Sendecki.

Jesse Glass.

Jesse Glass and Robert Thompson.