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Poetry for Fall 2019

Poetry Collections by Two Award-Winning Poets in Fall 2019

Have we told you about the the outstanding poetry collections we have leading off our Fall 2019-Spring 2020 offerings?

 A Clearing Space in the Middle of Being and poet Jeff HardinA Clearing Space in the Middle of Being, by Jeff Hardin

978-1-948692-18-2 paper 16.95
978-1-948692-19-9 ebook 9.99
6×9, 72 pp.
Poetry
September 2019

If the taste of the eternal “is increasingly absent in our words,” then Jeff Hardin’s sixth collection, A Clearing Space in the Middle of Being, attempts to behold language anew, to listen in on its “preview of eternity.” Aware of ambiguities that plague our lives and given to swerves of logic and dislocations, to echoes and reverberations “too numerous to see in some totality,” his poems nonetheless speak openly to existence, to the mind’s “attempts/to console itself,” and to the “intoxication of incoherence” existence so often feels like. Here in a postmodern world, is it still possible to step boldly into certainty, into clarity, to find a sacred and shared space where “all moments blaze up with a speaking/voice”? Hardin listens intently, discovering more and more how “wanderingly vast” enchantment still might be. In the presence of so many options for understanding, he chooses to believe “a new/parable unfolding, still instructive,” pointing him toward a fellowship with others who likewise “lean toward thinking some healing is already/underway.”

Jeff Hardin is the author of five previous collections of poetry, most recently Small Revolution and No Other Kind of World. His work has been honored with the Nicholas Roerich Prize, the Donald Justice Poetry Prize, and the X. J. Kennedy Poetry Prize. His poems have appeared in The Southern Review, Hudson Review, North American Review, Gettysburg Review, Southern Poetry Review, and many others. He is a professor of English at Columbia State Community College in Tennessee. Visit his website at www.jeffhardin.weebly.com.

 


One House Down--Poetry by Gianna RussoOne House Down, by Gianna Russo

978-1-948692-20-5 paper 16.95
978-1-948692-21-2 ebook 9.99
6×9, 72 pp.
Poetry
October 2019

The candid poems in Gianna Russo’s One House Down are grounded in experiences of ambivalence and oneness, not unlike those we sometimes find in true love. Russo ruminates on the past and scrutinizes the present in her hometown of Tampa with honest affection, concern, anger and delight. She asks an essential question: How can we treasure a place whose history and values have sometimes supported injustice? And if those wrongs are still evident today—then what? With family roots in Tampa that go back over a century, Russo skillfully pursues an answer in these inventive, surprising poems.

Gianna Russo is a Tampa native and third generation Floridian. She is the author of Moonflower, winner of the Florida Book Award Bronze and Florida Publishers Association Silver awards. A Pushcart Prize nominee, she has had publications in Green Mountains Review, The Sun, Poet Lore, The MacGuffin, Tampa Review, Valparaiso, Ekphrasis, Crab Orchard Review, Florida Review, Florida Humanities Council Forum, Water Stone, Karamu, The Bloomsbury Review, and Calyx, among others.  She is founding editor of the Florida poetry chapbook publisher YellowJacket Press (www.yellowjacketpress.org). She holds an MFA in Poetry from the University of Tampa. She is Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Saint Leo University where she directs the Sandhill Writers Retreat.

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Familiar Essay at Madville 2019

Sam Pickering and Bob Kunzinger, editors of BEING HOME

Two Masters of the Familiar Essay Join Madville in 2019

The World was My Garden, Too, by Sam Pickering

The World Was My Garden, Too, by Sam Pickering978-1-948692-14-4 paper 19.95
978-1-948692-15-1 ebook 9.99
5½x8½, 304 pp.
Familiar Essays
May 2019

The World Was My Garden, Too is a collection of familiar essays in which Sam Pickering wanders the blooming world. He roams New England, Arkansas, the Caribbean, Nova Scotia and the familiar and odd plots of mind and thought. He explores shorelines and climbs “hillish” mountains. He sits on porches and talks to passersby and their dogs. He meets strange and delightful people, most of whom are real. “Reading Pickering,” a reviewer wrote in The Smithsonian decades ago, “is like taking a walk with your oldest, wittiest friend.” “Now,” Pickering says, “I am old, and the friends who thought me witty have fallen off the perch. But that’s okay. What I write makes me smile and mutter, ‘What a guy.’” And what wonderful essays these are—pages that awaken the affections and make readers smile and embrace the beauty of this bruised world.

Sam Pickering grew up in Nashville, Tennessee. He spent 67 years in classrooms learning and teaching and has long been a rummager and writer wandering New England and the South, the Mid-East, Britain, Australia, and Canada. He has written some thirty books and is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers.

A Third Place: Notes in Nature, by Bob Kunzinger

A Third Place: Notes in Nature, by Bob Kunzinger978-1-948692-16-8 paper 16.95
978-1-948692-17-5 ebook 9.99
5½x8½, 144 pp.
Familiar Essays
August 2019

A Third Place exists in the extremes, pinpointing the details in nature which demand attention, and finding within those details our place in the bigger picture. Set in a series of observations and experiences, A Third Place on the one hand brings us all closer to nature through the eyes of the author yet makes us wonder if he has been following us around on our afternoon walks.

Bob Kunzinger is the author of eight collections of non-fiction, and has been widely published in publications such as World War Two HistorySouthern Humanities Review, the Washington PostSt Anthony Messenger, and more, including notations for essays in Best American Essays. He lives and writes in Virginia.


We also want to give a shout out to our long-time friend, Nancy Parsons at Graphic Design Group in Conroe, Texas, who designed these two beautiful covers.

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By the Light of a Neon Moon

By the Light of a Neon Moon, edited by Janet Lowery

By the Light of a Neon Moon, edited by Janet LoweryOur first poetry anthology is at the printer!

If you’ve been following us for a while, you will have seen our calls for submissions to the Dancehall Poetry Anthology. We are happy to announce that it has gone to press, and we hope to have copies available at AWP! Editor Janet Lowery named the collection By the Light of a Neon Moon and Jacqui Davis created this eye-catching cover for it. We are humbled by the quality of the poetry we received, and we cannot wait to share it with everyone. The contributors are already discussing the fact that the launch party should include a dance. We aren’t sure how we’ll pull that off, but we love the idea!

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A sneak-peek at the Table of Contents:

We had several poets laureate contribute to the collection as well as many other award-winning poets from around the country. Have a look at the Table of Contents.

Contents

Introduction by Janet Lowery

I—Neon Light

Beloved, After These Things by Alan Birkelbach
Like People in Love by Kimberly Parish Davis
A Thing About Rhumba by Gianna Russo
Pretty Woman by Luanne Smith
Not That Sally by George Drew
Dear Will’s Pub by Pj Metz
Rose-Colored by Janet Lowery
Old Flame by Winston Derden
Music for Arms Like Ours by Mike Schneider
Oh, That Buckskin by Christine Cock
Dancing Fool by John Grey
Always Open by Karen Head
Words from My Father by karla k. morton
One Way Traffic by Alan Birkelbach
Dancing at Dirty Frank’s by Lisa Naomi Konigsberg

II—Neon Signs

The Bull Rider by Katherine Hoerth
The Archaeologist Dreams of Sleep by Kimberly Parish Davis
Chevy Pick-Up, Loaded by Ed Ruzicka
Integration 1964 by Dave Parsons
Dalliance by Ruth I. Healy
Triple-Two at the Dance by Janet Lowery
Prickly Pear by Katherine Hoerth
Partner by Sarah Cortez
You Ain’t the First Singed Hash Browns on My Plate by R. Gerry Fabian
Just Believe Her! by Alan Birkelbach
Rodeo Exchange by karla k. morton
Back by Juleigh Howard-Hobson
I May Not Be Drunk, But I’ll Get There by Herman Sutter
Your Dancing Lessons Didn’t Pay Off by J. J. Steinfeld
Little Heretic by Gerry LaFemina
Waiting for Resurrection by Leah Mueller
Always by Anusha VR
The Way We Danced Before I Became Another Ex in Texas by Laurie Kolp
Dancing with a Cue Stick by George Drew
Death at the Dancehall by Janet Lowery
Two Dogs Howling at the Moon by Dave Parsons
Resurrection Mary by Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda

III—Neon Hearts

Standing on the Edge of the Roadhouse Charybdis by Alan Birkelbach
Dancing Before by Lesley Clinton
Zydeco Shindig by Dolores Comeaux
Friday’s Dance by Mike Schneider
Road House on the Way to Cheyenne by Rick Campbell
Guitar and Mandolin by Gerry LaFemina
Dress Code at the Dance Hall by Alan Birkelbach
Here at Ransom’s Saloon by George Drew
Hard Wood by Jerry Bradley
Bootstrap by Winston Derden
6 a.m. Outside the Dance Hall by John Grey
Empties by Gerry LaFemina

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Audiobook–Our first

Nick Gilley reads No Evil is Wide

Nick Gilley reads No Evil is Wide

Audiobook Now Available:

No Evil is Wide by Randall Watson, read by Nick Gilley.
We count ourselves extremely fortunate to have Nick Gilley lending his rich deep voice to the project, and we are happy to announce that the No Evil is Wide audiobook is now available on Audible, iTunes, and Amazon. Mark our words, you’ll be seeing and hearing more from Nick Gilley. He is a unique talent.

About the book:

No Evil is Wide is a violent story of an unnamed narrator, the prostitute he is tasked to “find,” and Carpenter Wells, the man who makes it impossible for the narrator or the girl to return to the lives they knew. The remembrances of the narrator revolve around sexual awakening, family distance and dissolution—how they crumble to common and inevitable animalism. The story is filled with philosophical epistles to the reader while the world devolves into a chaotic madness of bombings and destruction not dissimilar to a potential contemporary existence that waits just over the horizon. It offers an uncanny reminder of the everyday violence we overlook.

Learn more on Audible