on poetry

“I often use outside material as part of my creative process: my M.O. is to begin with language or bits of information (story or ‘fact’) and see where it leads me. For these science-inspired poems I am most often led back to the human being where my own obsessions emerge — and often circle around the exploration of sexuality and yes, the monstrous.”
Kimiko Hahn
(b. July 5, 1955)

. . . . .
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books!

Well, The Rumpus beat us to the headline “What to Read When You’ve Made it Halfway Through 2022” but they didn’t include all of the book recommendations, so here you go:

• Compulsive Reader – June 2022 reviews
• Financial Times – Best summer books of 2022: Poetry
• Publishers Weekly – Fall 2022 Announcements: Poetry
• Read Poetry – Poetry Releases to Shop Now
• The Rumpus – What to Read When You’ve Made it Halfway Through 2022
• Washington Independent Review of Books – On Poetry: June 2022
• World Literature Today – Verse

Happy reading! And if you have a poetry favorite, new or old, leave a comment for the benefit of other readers.

poetry work

We don’t often post job listings, but happened to notice that Portland, Oregon, based poetry press Write Bloody Publishing is looking for freelancers for editors, cover designers, and proofreaders. The Instagram (@writebloodypublishing) posting says, “These positions are part-time with the hours ranging from 4 to 20 per week. This is an amazing side hustle. To apply please send your resume to nikkiwritebloody@gmail.com. We are looking forward to hearing from you and growing our Write Bloody Family.”

Not looking for a side hustle? Check out the Write Bloody book list!

Hot Off the Press

Fantagraphics Bookstore and Gallery (Seattle) promises comics, art, poetry, prose, music, and more by over 50 indie artists from the Northwest and beyond at the 8th annual Hot Off the Press Book Fair on Saturday, July 9, 2022. It’s free. Details on the Fantagraphics Events page and on Facebook.

and speaking of books…

Have you seen the Artist’s Book Collection at Bainbridge Island Museum of Art? BIMA’s Sherry Grover Gallery is home to more than 1,300 artist-made books, with the exhibit changing three times each year.

A new exhibit, A to Zine, will open tomorrow, July 1, 2022, and continue through October 9, 2022.

In addition to the work on view in the gallery and other exhibits and events, BIMA has three video collections that offer further insight into the book artists and their work: Artist’s Books Unshelved, Open Book Tours Video Library, and Artist’s Books Lectures & Panels Video Library.

Bainbridge Island Museum of Art is open daily, 10:00am to 5:00pm, and admission is free!

First Glimpse of Swallows

This is a guest post by Glenn “Chip” Hughes

First Glimpse of Swallows is the fifth book of Robert Sund’s poetry to be published posthumously. Lovingly printed and hand-bound in an edition of one hundred seventy-five copies by Sam and Sally Green of Brooding Heron Press (Waldron Island), it brings together twenty previously uncollected poems of the Northwest poet and painter, who died in late 2001.

Before his death, Sund named Tim McNulty (whose poetry and nature writings are widely known) and myself to be his literary co-executors. Singly and together as editors, between 2002 and 2012 we saw four books through publication, including 2004’s Poems from Ish River Country: Collected Poems & Translations.

During years of sifting through Sund’s journals, letters, and papers, which now reside in Special Collections at the University of Washington Library, we would occasionally find a stray poem of impressive quality, perhaps published in a regional newspaper, perhaps casually calligraphed on a piece of paper. To use a metaphor of Rabbe Enckell’s — a Swedish poet whose work Sund loved and translated — these poems were like matchsticks: each one suddenly lit up Robert and whatever he was writing about, making them present.

So, after the other books had been completed, we edited and sequenced what we thought to be the best of these poems, finishing the work in 2016. Soon after, Sam and Sally Green told us that Brooding Heron Press wished to honor Sund’s lifetime of gifts to the poetry community by publishing them in a chapbook.

First Glimpse of Swallows more than fulfills expectations. Not only are the poems a treasure saved from obscurity, but the features of the physical book — the dimensions, design, paper, font, open space, binding, embossed cover, and overall feel — serve them with the beauty and taste that has always been characteristic of Brooding Heron Press.

“How many are out here,” Robert asks, “listening to the moon?”

. . . . .
More information on Robert Sund.
Brooding Heron Press does not have a website, but ordering information is provided below.
. . . . .

Glenn “Chip” Hughes is the author of the poetry chapbooks Sleeping At the Open Window (2005) and Erato: Twenty Elegies (2010), both from Pecan Grove Press, and the poetry booklet Preparing to Wake Up (Longhouse, 2021). His poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Poetry East, and many other journals. He edited Robert Sund’s Taos Mountain: Poems and Paintings (2007), and with Tim McNulty coedited Notes From Disappearing Lake: The River Journals of Robert Sund (2012). He has also authored, edited, or coedited eleven books of philosophy. He can be found online at glennchiphughes.com.

. . . . .

The following information is provided courtesy of Brooding Heron Press:

Copies of this book were printed on a 1920 C&P treadle-operated platen press & stitched into paper wrappers. Text paper is Mohawk Superfine; cover is Stonehenge. The type is 12 pt. Bembo cast by McKenzie-Harris & set by hand. The decorative elements on cover & title page were taken from an original calligraphed poem given by Robert as a gift to the publishers.

Paper: $25

Send orders by email to: bhpress2@gmail.com

We will ship the books via media mail with a tracking number. When we know they have arrived, we will send an invoice via email, which will include Washington sales tax where applicable, as well as a shipping & handling fee of $5.

finding an audience

While self-publishing has gained respect, the challenge of any publishing endeavor is getting your book in front of an audience. We recently happened across Author Event Network (AEN), a now-regional non-profit that is facing that challenge head-on.

Here’s how it works: you pay a modest annual fee to participate, then you share the cost of a booth or table at a local event and share booth time with other participating authors. You keep 100% of your sale proceeds (well yes, of course, we must say: if any).

Planning is by Zoom meeting. AEN participated in the U District Street Fair in May and has other events in the works. If you think the street-fair crowd might respond to you and your work, have a look at the Author Event Network website and/or contact the founder, Guy Morris.

the digital page

It has been a long time since we mentioned the Electronic Literature Organization (ELO) and even longer since ELO began investigating literature produced for the digital medium. Based at Washington State University Vancouver, Electronic Literature Organization pursues an ambitious program of scholarly and artistic projects, including an annual conference and a variety of publications.

Each edition of the Electronic Literature Collection (there are now four volumes) explores material created specifically for the digital medium. The range of approaches, styles, and subjects is dazzling (see Volume 4 filters to get a sense of this).

In Collection Volume 4, clicking on a project name takes you to a page where the project is introduced (metadata, author’s bio and artistic statement, editorial statement). From there, an ACCESS THE WORK button takes you to a video introduction to the project and, from there, another click takes you to the author’s WORK WEBSITE (and occasionally options to travel elsewhere).

It is quite a remarkable collection and a wide skew from poetry printed in black ink on white paper.

the word gets around

If you think that summer-festival fare is limited to hot dogs and pretzels, think again. Blue Kettle Books is on the festival circuit, too. Owned and operated by Monica LeMoine, the Seattle-based, revamped shuttle bus has room for about 800 books, some Cascadia-centric gift items, and a few browsers at a time. According to this article in Seattle Met, Monica looks for “locales that would otherwise lack the option to shop small” and the Blue Kettle Books website also suggests booking (can we say that?) a bookmobile for your event or fundraiser.

Oh, Emily

We haven’t read the book (Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin), but in the interest of all-things-poetry, we feel obliged to tell you that Emily Blaster is here. If you are already a gamer, or are looking to improve your hand-eye coordination as you memorize the words of “Hope” is the thing with feathers
by Emily Dickinson, Emily Blaster is your ticket. Read the article in Smithsonian Magazine or play Emily Blaster now.