2Leaf Press Fall 2018 Catalog by 2Leaf Press

WHAT’S INSIDE

WELCOME TO 2LEAF PRESS

2LP NEW TITLES

2LEAF PRESS publishes fiction, nonfiction, poetry and bilingual works that connect to readers everywhere. We challenge the status quo by partnering with multicultural poets, authors, artists, activists and scholars who create stories that inform, entertain, educate, and inspire. Our press produces high quality and beautifully produced hardcover and paperback print editions, and ebooks. We also publish books through our series: 2LP EXPLORATIONS IN DIVERSITY, 2LP TRANSLATIONS, NUYORICAN WORLD SERIES, 2LP CLASSICS, and 2LP CURRENT AFFAIRS, CULTURE & POLITICS.

Strength of Soul............................................ 4 Monsters........................................................ 5 Designs of Blackness.................................... 6 2LP AUTHORS: A. Robert Lee...................... 7 NO VACANCY.................................................. 8 The Book........................................................ 9 2LP AUTHORS: Deidra Humphries Barker Mother Of Orphans: ...................................11

2LP RECENT TITLES Shrimp.........................................................12 P A P O L Í T I C O.........................................12 The Revlon Slough......................................13 Critics of Mystery Marvel............................13 Adventures in Black and White .................14 Dream of the Water Children .....................14 The Beauty of Being....................................15 Substance of Fire........................................15 Trailblazers..................................................16 2LP AUTHORS: Abiodun Oyewole...............17

2LP FAVORITES

2LEAF PRESS is strongly attached to its home in New York City, its native language and landscape, and its vast richness of cultures, so we consider ourselves “local internationalists” who bring readers an eclectic mix of multicultural writers. As a small press, we publish a limited number of titles (approximately ten titles per year) during spring and fall, so we are committed to publishing the highest quality writing possible that can make a difference.

2LEAF PRESS DISTRIBUTORS All new books and most of our backlist are available as ebooks, often in a variety of formats from most major resellers and library suppliers.

Written Eye Visuals/Verse................................18 A Country Without Borders..............................18 Black Lives Have Always Mattered.................19 The Fourth Moment .........................................19 Tartessos and Other Cities...............................20 The Beiging of America.....................................20 Off Course..........................................................21 What Does it Mean to be White in America?........................................21 Brassbones & Rainbows..................................22 Birds on the Kiswar Tree..................................22 Hey Yo! Yo Soy!...................................................23 Branches of the Tree of Life.............................23 2LP BACKLIST.............................................24 Cover Credits...............................................27

Book previews available at ISSUU http://issuu.com/2leafpress

An imprint of the intercultural alliance of artists

& scholars, inc. (iaas)

a NY-based nonprofit organization PO Box 4378 | Grand Central Station New York, NY 10163 Tel: 646-801-4227 | Fax: 646-998-1318 editor@2leafpress.org | www.2leafpress.org

FALL 2018

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by Naomi Raquel Enright

STRENGTH OF SOUL by Naomi Raquel Enright proposes tangible strategies and ideas on how to challenge systemic racism through naming and resisting an ideology of racial difference and of white supremacy at its root. Enright explores racism and the language that upholds this ideology through personal narratives that includes an examination of her family’s experience. Throughout this volume, Enright shares reflections of her identity growing up as a bilingual, multiethnic individual, and as the mother of a son presumed to be white. She also advances ideas of how to confront societal notions of an inherent difference between the lived experiences of white people and people of color, which results in the widely-held belief that there is an inevitable “us” and “them.” In this regard, Enright suggests that embracing one’s total identity can allow people to challenge systemic racism as well as the language and ideology that created it, and upholds it. In these poignant and deeply personal stories, Enright allows readers to reconsider a society on a genuine path towards justice, healing and true transformation. STRENGTH OF SOUL is for anyone who is willing to rethink the status quo and is interested in creating systemic change vis-à-vis institutionalized and internalized racism. Cover art: Sebastian Whittaker. Cover design: Adam Whittaker.

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FALL 2018

2LP NEW TITLES

Strength of Soul

PAPERBACK $16.99 | EBOOK $6.99 MEMOIR, SOCIAL SCIENCE | 166 pp. | 5” x 8” ISBN: 978-1940939728 (pbk.) ISBN: 978-1940939858 (ebk.) October 2018

NAOMI RAQUEL ENRIGHT was born to a Jewish-American father and an Ecuadorian mother in La Paz, Bolivia, and was raised in New York City. She taught Spanish for eight years, and worked as a diversity practitioner for three years, where she became a National SEED (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity) Facilitator. Her essays have appeared in several publications, and she writes about racism, grief, loss and parenting on her blog. Enright holds a BA in Anthropology from Kenyon College and studied at the Universidad de Sevilla in Spain her junior year. She resides with her family in Brooklyn, NY.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Mathilda by Mary Shelley

Edited by Claire Milllkin Raymond

CLAIRE MILLIKIN RAYMOND is a poet and scholar, who has taught at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville since 2007. Her scholarly works include Women Photographers and Feminist Aesthetics (2017) Francesca Woodman’s Dark Gaze (2016), and Witnessing Sadism in Texts of the American South (2014). She has also published several volumes of poetry. www.claireraymond.org.

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MARY SHELLEY (1797-1851), is the author of seven books, including her most famous novel, Frankenstein (1818), and the posthumously published Mathilda (1959).

FALL 2018

MONSTERS: MARY SHELLEY’S FRANKENSTEIN AND MATHILDA is the publication of Mary Shelley’s most popular works, accompanied by a critical introduction, detailed biography, historical background, and notes by professor and scholar Claire Milllkin Raymond. Cultures create and ascribe meaning to monsters, endowing them with characteristics derived from their most deep-seated fears and taboos. In this volume, Millikin Raymond explores both Frankenstein and Mathilda from a psychoanalytic, feminist, gender/queer, and postcolonial viewpoints, and a cultural studies perspective. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, conceived by nineteen-year old Shelley, and published before she was twenty, is the most famous and enduring imaginative work of the Romantic era. Shelley was keenly aware of contemporary scientific developments and incorporated them into Frankenstein. First issued in 1818, it has never been out of print, and has gone on to inspire legions of writers, scholars, professors, actors, theatrical producers, filmmakers, and even scientists. Mathilda, Shelley’s second long work of fiction written between August 1819 and February 1820, deals with incest and suicide. It published for the first time in 1959, and has become Shelley’s best-known work after Frankenstein. Both capture readers by force of their astonishing fantasy and range of implication: the definition of “monster,” which Millikin Raymond explores as well as other aspects of the Shelley’s work. MONSTERS will resonate forcefully for readers with a background or interest in science, science fiction, history, literature, and anyone intrigued by the fundamental questions of creativity and responsibility. This edition has been corrected for spelling and grammatical errors. Cover art: Dé-Jon Graves.

2LP NEW TITLES

Monsters

2LP CLASSICS PAPERBACK $21.99 | EBOOK $9.99 NOVEL, LITERARY CRITICISM | 316 pp. | 6” x 9” ISBN: 978-1940939704 (pbk.) ISBN: 978-1940939841 (ebk.) October 2018

Mappings In The Literature and Culture of African Americans by A. Robert Lee

DESIGNS OF BLACKNESS, MAPPINGS IN THE LITERATURE AND CULTURE OF AFRICAN AMERICANS by A. Robert Lee, which initially published in London in 1998, was one of the first comprehensive studies of African American literature and culture. This highly anticipated 20th anniversary expanded edition is an update of literary trends into the twenty-first century. DESIGNS OF BLACKNESS brings together the work of 150 writers from 1746 to the present in all genres, as well as performers of vernacular forms – from spirituals and sermons to jazz and hip hop. Lee examines both high and popular styles from slave writing through the diaspora and the Middle Passage as memory, to postmodernism and cultural styles like rap. As Lee traverses through four centuries of African American works, he examines the work of writers as diverse as Phillis Wheatley, Frederick Douglas and Harriet Wilson in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Amiri Baraka, Octavia Butler and Robert Hayden in the twentieth century, and the addition of writers representing the twenty-first century, such as Jesmyn Ward, Paul Beatty, Darryl Pinckney, Colson Whitehead and Natasha Tretheway. Lee meets this abundant play of imagination head on against the backdrop of a larger corpus of black artists such as Bessie Smith’s blues, Romare Bearsden’s canvases, Gordon Park’s photography, Martin Luther King’s oratory, Muhammad Ali’s pop culture influence, and Spike Lee’s filmmaking, presenting an intertextual series of mappings of figures and forms in the making of African American literature. Yet despite so spacious a coverage, Lee keeps his focus sharp, and in doing so provides a diligent and informed assessment of the cultural history of African Americans.

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FALL 2018

2LP NEW TITLES

Designs of Blackness

PAPERBACK $24.99 | EBOOK $9.99 LITERARY CRITICISM | 212 pp. | 5.5” x 8.5” ISBN: 978-1940939766 (pbk.) ISBN: 978-1940939865 (ebk.) November 2018

A. ROBERT LEE was a professor in the English department at Nihon University from 1997-2011. British-born, he previously taught at the University of Kent, UK. Among his academic publications are Multicultural American Literature: Comparative Black, Native, Latino/a and Asian Fictions (2003), which won the American Book Award in 2004, and Modern American Counter Writing: Beats, Outriders, Ethnics (2010). He is also the author of several poetry and verse collections. Lee currently resides in Murcia, Spain.

2LP AUTHORS

A. Robert Lee

What was the impetus of writing DESIGNS OF BLACKNESS in 1998?

Absolutely. Readership of the tradition from slave narrative to Toni Morrison, the New Negro 1920s to the autobiographies of Eldridge Cleaver, Malcolm or Maya Angelou, a poetry that embraces Countee Cullen to Rita Dove, and the drama of Lorraine Hansberry or Amiri Baraka, simply refused to be erased. College courses and anthologies incorporate them even as they give them self-standing status.

Is there any merit to critics who argue that black American writing, as a literature, began with the institution of Jim Crow legislation and ended with desegregation, and today is nothing more than the balkanization of American literature?

Cheap shots about balkanization usually come about from a panicked cultural right. The ship is going down, all hands lost. It’s nonsense. African American literature, written and spoken, like African American music and visual art, is utterly integral to America as multicultural fabric — Trump and like notwithstanding. You can relish, say, Ralph Ellison or Alice Walker, without somehow abandoning, say, Melville or Faulkner.

Why is it important for people of all races to read African American literature?

It’s not quite “all races,” simply anyone with a literate turn of mind who has an interest in strong literary-creative achievement and/or the historic making of America should read these works. Different reading communities, for sure, can bring different credentials to bear — if you’re black, white, male, female, or an immigrant. But what simply cannot be in doubt is that here is a body of voices, a dynamic roster of memory and word, that continues to give enlightenment.

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In reviewing the material 20 years later, do you believe some progress has been made of African American writers in the American literary canon?

FALL 2018

I first set foot in the U.S. in 1965, the vintage year of Civil Rights, Black Power, and the Vietnam War. Unusually at the time for a Brit, I’d done a thesis (at the University of London) on American literature. I was reading Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Gwendolyn Brooks and Chester Himes — the latter with whom I’d go on to have exchanges of correspondence. As the years went on, I’d teach African American authorship in the UK and the States and, for the BBC, interview names like Ishmael Reed and John Wideman. I also cultivated friendships with John A. Williams, Leon Forrest, Clarence Major, Ted Joans, and the historians Harold Cruse, Barbara Fields and Nell Irvin Painter. So there was this continuing thread, all within a multicultural literary compass that I was also writing about, which included Native American, Asian American and Latino/s literatures. I seem to have written a slew of essays on all these – as on black and multicultural Britain. By the 1990s, just as I was about to depart for an appointment in Tokyo (which lasted fourteen years) I felt, rightly or otherwise, that I’d served a reasonable apprenticeship. The upshot was the publication of Designs of Blackness by Pluto Press, a progressive publishing house in London.

Homeless Women in Paradise by Michael E. Reid

NO VACANCY, HOMELESS WOMEN IN PARADISE describes an incredible journey of Michael E. Reid’s discovery of 500 women living without shelter in one of the most aﬄuent sea-side communities in California, to uncovering the complicated reasons for its existence — even in the place so many call “paradise.” One by one, bodies were being found dead in plain sight, high above the glittering cities of Monterey, Pebble Beach and Carmel. When Reid, an Episcopalian priest, found out he took action and co-founded the Fund for Homeless Women, which he now manages full time. NO VACANCY captures Reid’s journey into this landscape with a personal story that delves into the complex realities of homelessness, and how existing well-intentioned policies and programs often widen the gap between the indigent and mainstream societies. By sharing these women’s stories, Reid has provided an unvarnished look at the culture of long-term homelessness with a fresh approach. He also explores issues related to marginalization, belonging, and the effects of long-term gender-based bias in sociocultural practices as it particularly relates to women and people of color. This is especially relevant today when communities face weakened political and financial support from the government and their communities. In the United States, we all live with the growing reality of homelessness, even in the places where one least expects it. NO VACANCY will inspire and encourage readers to take the next step to help make a difference for the greater good, and onto the circuitous road of grassroots social change. Cover design: Donna Murphy.

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FALL 2018

2LP NEW TITLES

NO VACANCY

PAPERBACK $18.99 | EBOOK $7.99 NONFICTION | 186 pp. | 5” x 8” ISBN: 978-1940939711 (pbk.) ISBN: 978-1940939810 (ebk.) November 2018

MICHAEL E. REID, a retired Episcopal priest, is the first born of West Indian immigrants from Brooklyn, New York. Reid earned his master’s degree from New York University, a doctorate from Temple University, a Master’s of Divinity degree at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, and was ordained a priest at All Saints Episcopal Church in Carmel. He retired from parish ministry to focus his full attention on the Fund for Homeless Women, which he co-founded in 2012. Reid has published three collections of personal essays of his life experiences. He is married and currently resides in Monterey, California.

Understanding Publishing and the New Technology A Historical Overview With A Publisher’s Perspective by Gabrielle David

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GABRIELLE DAVID is a multidisciplinary artist who is a musician, photographer, digital designer, poet and writer. David is the publisher of 2Leaf Press and serves as the Executive Director Intercultural Alliance of Artists & Scholars, Inc. (IAAS), a NY-based nonprofit organization that promotes multicultural literature and literacy. David has participated in panel discussions and workshops, published articles and essays, and has edited and co-edited several books. www.gabrielledavid.net.

FALL 2018

THE BOOK, UNDERSTANDING PUBLISHING AND THE NEW TECHNOLOGY, A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW WITH A PUBLISHER’S PERSPECTIVE by Gabrielle David, publisher of 2Leaf Press, is not a typical book about the publishing industry. It is historical as it is a personal story about the book publishing industry from a small press publisher’s perspective. David shares her lifelong obsession with publishing, beginning with her use of mimeograph machines and press type, to running a small press using digital technology against the historical backdrop of an industry she loves. She also discusses how book publishing has been dramatically altered by self-publishing and digital technology and its effect on the author-publisher relationship, the time and craftsmanship it takes to publish high quality books, as well as express concerns about how an industry traditionally dominated by white men needs to become more diverse and inclusive. THE BOOK delves into the book’s beginnings, from writing on papyrus to digital technology, and provides invaluable insight into bookmaking (including editing, book layout and design). She also shares the inside scoop about the politics of publishing, market pressures, and changing reading habits that has led to an unprecedented paradigm shift in the world of books. THE BOOK goes beyond the usual discussion of book publishing to uncover these complex interrelationships that is both interesting and insightful, essential reading for writers and publishers, those seeking a career in publishing, recent entrants to the industry and people seeking an insider’s view of publishing.

2LP NEW TITLES

The Book

PAPERBACK $24.99 NONFICTION | 346 pp. | 8.5” x 8.5” ISBN: 978-1940939469 (pbk.) November 2018

2LP AUTHORS

Dedria Humphries Barker

Why did you want to write about your great-grandmother Alice?

I wanted to write about Irish Alice because of an increasing American curiosity about the interracial, intercultural American family. Besides providing a missing historical link of my family during the Gilded Age era, I discovered that despite her shortcomings, she was a heroine who sacrificed her future for her family. I wrote about Irish Alice because I was working through that issue of sacrifice.

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FALL 2018

How difficult was the research?

The research was difficult and surprisingly, as I relate in Mother of Orphans, the frightening part was asking permission from my family to investigate. I discovered how invested families are in their inherited history. This difficulty was complicated by Irish Alice being an ordinary person who didn’t document their life in a diary or a journal. I had to go far back in history to lay a foundation for my Irish great grandmother’s life-changing decision to marry a black man in 1899. It turned out to be rooted in European ethnic discrimination, including 800 years of war with the English that the Irish lost. And most difficult was trying to discover why as a widow, Alice put her children in an orphanage as opposed to keeping her ten-year-old daughter home from school to care for the baby, as was common practice in most families, especially among African Americans.

What surprising things did you learn that helped you understand more about yourself and your family?

There was a surprise at every turn. As an African American woman, I was surprised to learn that discrimination exists among Europeans – something rarely discussed in American history class. I was surprised that this bias against the Irish was brought to the United States, and the complex relationship that existed between blacks and the Irish communities eventually helped me to get born. How startling it was to learn the Irish were held in lower regard than slaves. People paid good money for a slave; the Irish had no value. To realize how deeply the Irish matriarchal influence shaped my experiences in school, employment, religion, and especially my tastes in food, amazed me, and it brought Alice’s turn-of-the-century life closer to my twentyfirst century life when I understood that media influenced both of us. Imagine my shock in learning that, in 1913, a mother could put her children in an Ohio public orphanage and still be a mother to them. It didn’t make sense. My idea of an orphanage did not jive at all with Irish Alice’s experience with them.

What do you want people to take away from your book?

I hope all readers will question their family stories because you just might be living a lie. Seeking truths about family ghosts can spark racial understanding and the social justice we sorely need today.

The True & Curious Story Of Irish Alice, A Colored Man’s Widow

Dedria Humphries Barker

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DEDRIA HUMPHRIES BARKER is a writer, journalist and teacher who lives in Michigan. Her essay, “The Girl with the Good Hair,” appeared in the anthology, The Beiging of America: Personal Narratives about being Mixed Race in the 21st Century (2017). Her essays have been published by The Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature, the Ohio and Michigan historical societies, and the National Trust for Historical Preservation. A Detroit native, she graduated from Wayne State University, and studied at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop with James McPherson.

FALL 2018

MOTHER OF ORPHANS: THE TRUE & CURIOUS STORY OF IRISH ALICE, A COLORED MAN’S WIDOW by Dedria Humphries Barker is the compelling true story of Alice, an Irish-American woman who overcomes restrictive white-on-white discrimination to form a family with a black man and their mulatto children in Ohio in 1899, until his death forced her back to deeply-held values. In 1961, Alice, the matriarch of the family arrived in Detroit to live with her black family. A few months later she was dead, leaving three generations to wonder why she had surrendered her three mulatto children to an orphanage after her black husband died in 1912. Forty years after her death, Alice’s great granddaughter, Barker, who suffered her own clashes with American race relations, decided to find out what really happened and why. MOTHER OF ORPHANS uses memoir, biography, research, historical documents and photographs to reel through a story of early twentieth century race mixing in the Ohio River Valley. Barker switches narrative vantage points frequently, offering fragments of the past and glimpses of the present. The result is a haunting, introspective meditation on race and family ties that tackles the tricky questions involved in constructing identity. Part personal journey, part cultural biography, MOTHER OF ORPHANS examines a little-known piece of this country’s past: interracial families that survived and prevailed despite Jim Crow laws, including those prohibiting mixed-race marriage. In lyrical, evocative prose, this extraordinary book pierces the heart of issues of race and racial identity, leaving us ultimately hopeful about the world as our children might see it.

2LP NEW TITLES

Mother Of Orphans:

PAPERBACK $18.99 | EBOOK $7.99 BIOGRAPHY, SOCIAL SCIENCE | 250 pp. | 6” x 9” ISBN: 978-1940939780 (pbk.) ISBN: 978-1940939872 (ebk.) October 2018

2LP RECENT FALL 2018

PAPOLÍTICO

PAPOLÍTICO, POEMS OF A POLITICAL PERSUASION is award-winning poet Jesús Papoleto Meléndez’ sixth book of poetry. Classical, contemporary, witty, wise, personal and political, Meléndez, often weary of the social issues and politics of the day, has created an exciting compilation of new and previously published poems to nudge people out of complacency and draw readers into his own kingdom of truth and justice. Investigating the serious and mundane, Meléndez’ poetry is written with the satirical and ironic wit and “cascading” style he has become known for. Throughout this volume, Meléndez maintains an eternal belief that it is never too late for our future to be changed for the better, making PAPOLÍTICO a poetic call for tolerance, reflection, reconciliation, and healing.

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Shrimp

SHRIMP, the debut poetry collection of jason elong vasser, examines the African diaspora in a post-colonial context using “shrimp” as a metaphor for the “small” things in life. Using the shrimp motif, elong vasser weaves together his ancestral past and present through nature, the topography of the land, and all creatures “great and small,” simultaneously casting a light on the broader cultural and sociopolitical issues of the day. As the elong vasser scavenges for answers about his own ancestry, he stumbles onto the small things in life which he finds most meaningful, like the reclamation of self with a renaming that is tied to his roots in Cameroon; or colloquial name-calling reserved for those who are short in an ancestral society where being tall is the standard. Throughout SHRIMP there is hope: something that is not always easy to hold on to when you are going through challenges both inside and outside yourself—but it is definitely necessary if you are going to survive. SHRIMP is the realization of that journey.

Critics of Mystery Marvel by Youssef Alaoui

FALL 2018

CRITICS OF MYSTERY MARVEL is Youssef Alaoui’s third poetry collection, which explores human relationships between individuals, cultures, races, and genders. Alaoui deftly utilizes archaic tones that formulates an artistic approach to metaphor in verse creating images that appear wholly in the mind and not on the page. This volume consists of ten sections that explores Alaoui’s family and heritage, an endless source of inspiration for his varied, dark, spiritual and carnal writings, which blends surrealism, magical realism, and language alchemy as he explores the human mythos of love, gender, poverty, politics, racism, and war. A few of the poems are written in French and Spanish, translated to English. Post-beat verse from the San Francisco Bay area and the Big-Sur, CRITICS OF MYSTERY MARVEL touches the depth of the soul with poetry that is metaphorically luminous.

2LP RECENT

Collected Poems

The Revlon Slough by Ray DiZazzo

THE REVLON SLOUGH, Ray DiZazzo’s fourth poetry collection, represents fifty years of writing that explores his life’s observations in harmony with both the natural world and the often anomalous societies we inhabit. This volume is organized into seven sections, exploring creatures both exotic and mundane, the fragility of damaged individuals, social and political perspectives, personal observations, science fiction and space, and perhaps most important, what it means to be a human being in this contested, often volatile world. As the collection’s title elucidates, DiZazzo has created a narrative initially inspired by his discovery of a farmland slough, with its own biosystem, natural beauty and ugliness. His poetry, primarily written in free verse, projects an intimacy with nature that resists sentimentality and romanticism, giving the poetry a vivid, unadorned feel throughout the volume. THE REVLON SLOUGH is DiZazzo’s most intimate and eloquent poetry collection to date.

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New and Selected Poems

2LP RECENT FALL 2018

Dream of the Water Children

Memory and Mourning in the Black Paciﬁc by Fredrick D. Kakinami Cloyd

DREAM OF THE WATER CHILDREN, MEMORY AND MOURNING IN THE BLACK PACIFIC is a lyrical and compelling memoir about a son of an African American father and a Japanese mother who spent a lifetime being looked upon with curiosity and suspicion by society. Cloyd begins his story in present-day San Francisco, reflecting back on a war-torn identity from Japan, U.S. military bases, and migration to the U.S., uncovering links to hidden histories. Tautly written in spare, clear poetic prose, DREAM OF THE WATER CHILDREN delivers a compelling and surprising account of racial and gender interactions. Cloyd’s debut work is a one-of-a-kind nonfiction interdisciplinary evocation that will appeal to not only those interested in black and Asian relations and mixed-race Amerasian histories, but also a general audience that will move readers through emotional depths. Cover art and design: Kenji C. Liu.

Adventures in Black and White

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by Philippa Duke Schuyler | Foreword by Deems Taylor Edited and with a critical introduction by Tara Betts 2LP CLASSICS

ADVENTURES IN BLACK AND WHITE, a memoir-travelogue, was first published by worldrenown child prodigy Philippa Duke Schuyler in 1960. In this first revised edition of ADVENTURES IN BLACK AND WHITE since its initial publication, scholar Tara Betts provides a critical introduction, including minor edits, and annotations of the original text. Schuyler was heralded as America’s first internationally-acclaimed mixed race celebrity. When the transition from child prodigy to concert pianist proved challenging in America, like many black performers before her, she went abroad during the 1950s for larger audiences. She traveled to Latin America, and later throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa, performing before royalty, dignitaries and celebrities, witnessing first-hand the dissemblage of European colonies in Africa and the Middle East, readers learn how this young musician would eventually find her way tp become an author and a journalist.

Substance of Fire by Claire Millikin

Introduction by R. Joseph Rodriguez | Contributors Blake Calhoun, Richard Delgado, Reginald Wilburn, Riley Blanks and Roxana Trujillo 2LP EXPLORATIONS IN DIVERSITY

2LP RECENT

Gender and Race in the College Classroom

MAY 2018 | PAPERBACK $29.99 SOCIAL SCIENCES | 198 pp. | 8.5” x 8.5” | ISBN: 978-1940939681 (pbk.)

FALL 2018

SUBSTANCE OF FIRE: GENDER AND RACE IN THE COLLEGE CLASSROOM brings readers inside the four-year college experience, unfolding multiple perspectives and voices. This multi-genre book, written by college professor Claire Millikin, explores how race and gender function within the privilege of the four-year college classroom. Additional contributions are from recent graduates and current faculty, who interrogate the forces of sexism and racism from the various perspectives of gay, straight, biracial, white, African American, and Latino writers and artists. As the title suggests, race and gender are not topics “under control” in higher education but instead they are flash points, tinder, waiting just under the surface of our culture that still makes the claims of equal access to higher education even as so many lives testify to the incompleteness of this so-called equality. Gender and race can ignite, causing pain in the college setting. This book goes to the place of that fire.

The Beauty of Being

by Abiodun Oyewole

THE BEAUTY OF BEING, A COLLECTION OF FABLES, SHORT STORIES AND ESSAYS, is Abiodun Oyewole’s debut collection of prose. Oyewole writes frankly about his experience as a young poet and activist, and provides life lessons with fables and a fascinating travelogue, as he promotes resilience and self-care to his readers. Unbeknownst to many, Oyewole, a founding member of the Last Poets and a poet in his own right, has been writing short stories for years. As the title suggests, THE BEAUTY OF BEING investigates a natural, moral, and sacred spiritual being of self-love, reminding readers if they use these elements as part of the beauty within, endless possibilities await. Perhaps the most riveting part of this book are Oyewole’s short stories of remembrance, which at first glance read like a travelogue but under closer scrutiny are collectively a love story, and a beautiful mediation on grief and loss. In THE BEAUTY OF BEING, Oyewole connects to readers with sincerity, humor, heart and grace.

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A Collection of Fables, Short Stories & Essays

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FALL 2018

2LP RECENT

How did the tree become a theme to a body of work you have been writing for the past 40 years?

PHOTO: Vagabond

FALL 2018

For several years I have been talking to trees. There is a park across the street from my apartment and each morning I give honor to the trees. They stand so regal and tall. I know they’ve been here a long time, so I imagine that they know something since they’ve seen so much. It’s like if walls could talk. I feel like trees can see and hear everything around them. Even though they don’t move they are still active and they store a lot of information. Because the title of my first book of poetry was Rooted In The Soil, I felt I needed to stay in that arena of thought, so I entitled this book, Branches of the Tree of Life. After deciding on the title, I began to realize that throughout my poetic career I have used mother nature as my metaphorical pool to express my feelings and ideas. This awareness became even more apparent when my publisher, Gabrielle David, found quotes from other writers’ use of trees in their work, and I felt like I was in good company. While re-reading my poetry, I discovered that more often than not I use trees or some aspect of a tree to make a point. When I look at my life through my work and the places I’ve been, trees have played a very important role. I guess you could say, trees are altars I use for prayers.

2LP AUTHORS

Abiodun Oyewole

What are your thoughts on the shifting state of the political voice in poetry, from the Black Arts Movement to today? Where are we now? Where are we going?

PAGE 17

The politics of poetry has changed dramatically since the days of the Black Arts Movement. You have open mic night and poetry slams, two things that did not exist back in the day. During the Black Arts Movement, poetry concentrated on the social and political scope of our lives. We used poetry as a weapon against oppression and racism. The Black Arts Movement made it clear that you’re not just writing for yourself, but for the masses. There were love poems back in the day, but they too were tied up with the values of the movement; it was all about the collective. Poetry today is more about “me” as opposed to “we.” It’s more or less an ego exercise and much of it wallows heavily in the pathos of our lives. Poetry as a revolutionary tool is not popular today. It has become a vent for frustrations and fears that we tackled in the Black Arts Movement. I always say that in the absence of a movement, the circus comes to town and much of what we’re hearing today does not echo the cry of black unity.

2LP RECENT

A Country Without Borders Poems and Stories of Kashmir by Lalita Pandit Hogan

FALL 2018

A COUNTRY WITHOUT BORDERS, POEMS AND STORIES OF KASHMIR is the debut collection of Lalita Pandit Hogan, an expatriate Kashmiri scholar and poet who shares with readers the loss of identity and home, culture, migration, womanhood, otherness and exile. Blooming with intense lyricism and fertile imagery, these full-blooded poems are elegant, mythic, and intricately woven, evoking a home no longer accessible. A COUNTRY WITHOUT BORDERS is an invaluable collection for all who are interested in cultural remembrance and meditations thalect postcolonial poetry, and for students reading South Asian literature and culture.

Written Eye Visuals/Verse PAGE 18

by A. Robert Lee

WRITTEN EYE VISUALS/VERSE by A. Robert Lee offers poems whose starting point or source of inspiration is a work of visual art. Through the imaginative act of narrating and reflecting on the “action” of a painting or sculpture, Lee seeks both to engage and amplify their meaning. Accessible and insightful, these delightful poems express the poet’s playful attention to a wide international range of paintings, photography, films, sculptures and architecture, and the impact literary and visual arts can have on society. For those interested in the re-thinking of ekphrastic poetry’s motives and purposes, and the interplay between poetry and visual art, WRITTEN EYE VISUALS/VERSE is essential reading.

The Fourth Moment by Carole J. Garrison Introduction by Sarah Willis

FALL 2018

THE FOURTH MOMENT, JOURNEYS FROM THE KNOWN TO THE UNKNOWN is a memoir by Carole J. Garrison. A child of humble beginnings, Garrison paved the way for herself to accomplish great things, but for her, the journey was far from your typical “rags to riches” tale. Through a series of tragedies and triumphs, blunders and epiphanies, Garrison’s life has been filled with a number of unusual detours from being a suburban housewife in Miami, to working in Cambodia as it emerged from decades of civil strife, all the while growing into the passionate humanitarian she is today. Eschewing the formulaic conventions of autobiography, THE FOURTH MOMENT consists of short stories—vignettes—that move back and forth across time and space to describe events and observations from a fascinating life. In THE FOURTH MOMENT, Garrison reveals truths not always within everyday reach, but certainly within everyday aspirations, something that readers will be able to connect to.

2LP RECENT

Journeys from the Known to the Unknown, A Memoir

Black Lives Have Always Mattered

Edited by Abiodun Oyewole

BLACK LIVES HAVE ALWAYS MATTERED, A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS, POEMS AND PERSONAL NARRATIVES, edited by Abiodun Oyewole, extends beyond the Black Lives Matter movement’s primary agenda of police brutality to acknowledge that even when affronted with slavery, segregation,Jim Crow, racial injustice and inequality, black lives have always mattered. This anthology consists of 79 contributors who address a wide range of hot-button issues that disproportionately impact the black community. While written primarily by African American poets, writers, activists and scholars, selections are also from people of the Latino and African diasporas, and white activists. Connecting the past to the present, the contributors of BLACK LIVES HAVE ALWAYS MATTERED provide an eye-opening and engaging collection that has the potential to reignite a broader push for black liberation and equality for all. Cover photo: Ricky Flores, Cover design: Vagabond.

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A Collection of Essays, Poems, and Personal Narratives

2LP RECENT

The Beiging of America

Personal Narratives About Being Mixed Race in the 21st Century

Edited by Cathy J. Schlund-Vials, Sean Frederick Forbes, and Tara Betts 2LP EXPLORATIONS IN DIVERSITY

FALL 2018

THE BEIGING OF AMERICA takes on “race matters” and considers them through the firsthand accounts of mixed race people in the United States. Edited by mixed race scholars Cathy J. Schlund-Vials, Sean Frederick Forbes and Tara Betts, this collection consists of 39 poets, writers, teachers, professors, artists and activists, whose personal narratives articulate the complexities of interracial life. THE BEIGING OF AMERICA is an absorbing and thought-provoking collection of stories that explore racial identity, alienation, with people often forced to choose between races and cultures in their search for self-identity. While underscoring the complexity of the mixed race experience, these unadorned voices offer a genuine, poignant, enlightening and empowering message to all readers. Cover art: Laura Kina, Cover design: Cathy J. Schlund-Vials.

Tartessos and Other Cities PAGE 20

Poems by Claire Millikin

Introduction by Fred Marchant

TARTESSOS AND OTHER CITIES is Claire Millikin’s second book of poetry with 2Leaf Press that continues to explore homelessness. In this collection, Millikin uses the sensitivity of poetry to express some of the emotions surrounded by homelessness and loss. Named for Tartessos, a lost city on the Guadalquivir, a river in Andalusia, Spain that was likely buried by a devastating tidal wave in BC, the poems in TARTESSSOS gather lost cities and places that were not myths, but were once real. Throughout the collection, Millikin addresses questions such as, “What happened to home” and “Where do I come from?” that examines American geographies of loss, with the poems serving as archeological elements that persist against these losses. TARTESSOS charts a map of disappearances and resistances to vanishing that make up part of the ghostly American landscape. In the end, Millikin leads readers to discover that home is not just the place where you happen to live, it is the place where you become yourself.

What Does it Mean to be White in America? Edited by Gabrielle David and Sean Frederick Forbes 2LP EXPLORATIONS IN DIVERSITY

2LP RECENT

Breaking the White Code of Silence, A Collection of Personal Narratives

FALL 2018

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE WHITE IN AMERICA? is a collection that asks just that. While the literature on “whiteness” has long been dominated by an academic point of view, editors Gabrielle David and Sean Frederick Forbes came to the realization that there was an unmet need for an anthology about white race and culture from the perspective of white Americans. The first of its kind, this collection of 82 personal narratives speak frankly and openly about race. The stories cover a wide gamut of American history from contributors around the United States; from reminiscing about segregation and Jim Crow, to addressing today’s headlines of police brutality, politics and #BlackLivesMatters. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE WHITE IN AMERICA is a valuable starting point that includes numerous references and further readings for those who seek a deeper, richer, understanding of race in America.

Off Course

by A. Robert Lee

OFF COURSE ROUNDABOUTS & DEVIATIONS by A. Robert Lee’s interleaves poetry and prose. Beneath the carefully crafted and accessible surface of Lee’s work lies a profound, complex voice that deliberately disrupts traditional literary boundaries and distinctions. Different takes on the odd, oftentimes the antic, at work in the daily round. Seamed in wit, dark but congenial humor, Lee’s work is aimed to amuse yet at the same time, stir recognitions. Fake correspondence might just be real. Foodways edge towards the gothic. Each composition comes over as slant, diagonal, oblique. Set phrases turn askew. Geographies un-map themselves, whether ostensibly Europe, England Japan, or America. Of course, it’s all OFF COURSE. Read without discretion, and take out some personal insurance before reading.

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Roundabouts & Deviations

2LP FAVORITES

Birds on the Kiswar Tree by Odi Gonzales Translated by Lynn Levin

FALL 2018

BIRDS ON THE KISWAR TREE by Peruvian Andean poet Odi Gonzales presents poems that sing in the voices of native birds and speak through the devout, but subversive, Quechua artists of Peru’s colonial era. Originally published in Peru in 2005 as La Escuela de Cusco (The School of Cusco), BIRDS ON THE KISWAR TREE stands as an elegant and richly imagined tribute to these indigenous and mestizo artists. Translated by Lynn Levin, this is Gonzales’ first book to be published in a bilingual Spanish/English edition. Cover art: Eugen Berlo.

Brassbones & Rainbows

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The Collected Works of Shirley Bradley LeFlore

Foreword by Amina Baraka | Introduction by Gabrielle David

BRASSBONES & RAINBOWS is the debut poetry collection of Shirley Bradley LeFlore, an oral poet and performance artist from St. Louis, Missouri who has been in the literary scene for over five decades. LeFlore’s poetry weaves the fabric of verse through jazz, blues and gospel in an easy going, smooth and soothing Southern American dialect mixed with African American vernacular that will certainly roll off your tongue. With a foreword by Amina Baraka and introduction by Gabrielle David, this collection also includes historical photos of LeFlore and other prominent poets and writers. Cover art: Frank Frazier.

2LP FAVORITES

Branches of the Tree of Life

BRANCHES OF THE TREE OF LIFE is the first comprehensive volume of poems by Abiodun Oyewole, many of them never before published. Oyewole’s poems are powerful, often political, always lyrical and profoundly moving. Using the spiritual, the sacred and the mystical, Oyewole turns to the tree as a symbol of change and growth. The poetry rebranches into different directions, becoming grandeur in its proportions, and more complexly diversified in its structure, that confirms Abiodun Oyewole’s place at the forefront of poetic achievement. Cover art: Vagabond. FALL 2018

Hey Yo! Yo Soy!

HEY YO! YO SOY! is n historical poetry collection comprised of legendary Nuyorican poet Jesús Papoleto Meléndez’ three previously published books. Meléndez shares stories about growing up Puerto Rican in New York City’s El Barrio during the 1960s and 1970s. It is the first book to be translated from the English to the Spanish, which links cultural connections in the Spanish-speaking community. Foreword by Sam Diaz and Carmen M. Pietri Diaz; introduction by Sandra Maria Esteves; and afterword by Jaime “Shaggy” Flores. Edited by Gabrielle David and Kevin E. Tobar Pesántez, with translations by Adam Wier, Carolina Fung Feng, and Marjorie González. Cover art Jaime “Shaggy” Flores.

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40 Years of Nuyorican Street Poetry The Collected Works of Jesús Papoleto Meléndez

2LP BACKLIST FALL 2018

Our Nuyorican Thing

Providencia

by Samuel Diaz Carrion Introduction by Urayoán Noel

Introduction by V. Penelope Pelizzon

The Birth of a Self-Made Identity NUYORICAN WORLD SERIES

MAY 2014 PAPERBACK $16.99 | EBOOK $6.99 POETRY | 132 pp. | 6” x 9” ISBN: 978-1940939070 (pbk.) ISBN: 978-1940939087 (ebk.)

In OUR NUYORICAN THING, BIRTH OF A SELF-MADE IDENTITY, poet, writer and activist Samuel Diaz Carrion explores the question, “What is a ‘Nuyorican’?” OUR NUYORICAN THING is a compendium of blog correspondence for the Nuyorican Poets Cafe’s website (2001-2004), which includes Diaz Carrion’s poetry, seen through the eyes of a “Puerto Rican Indiana Jones.” This collection is riveting, informative and delightful, and will satisfy any reader with an appetite for cross-cultural discussions. Cover art: Clare Ultimo.

OCT 2013 PAPERBACK $16.99 | EBOOK $6.99 POETRY | 104 pp. | 6” x 9” ISBN: 978-1940939018 (pbk.) ISBN: 978-1940939025 (ebk.)

PROVIDENCIA, Sean Frederick Forbes’ debut poetry collection, is a deeply personal, coming-of-age narrative. This lovely collection traces the experience of a gay, mixed-race narrator who confronts the traditions of his parents’ and grandparents’ birthplace in Providencia, Colombia against Forbes’ rough and lonely life in Southside Jamaica, New York, that explores the struggles of self-discovery. Cover art: Holly Turner.

The Morning Side of the Hill

Boricua Passport

Introduction by Ernesto Quiñonez

NUYORICAN WORLD SERIES

OCT 2014 PAPERBACK $16.99 | EBOOK $6.99 NOVEL | 132 pp., 6” x 9” ISBN: 978-1940939070 (pbk.) ISBN: 978-1940939087 (ebk.)

MAY 2014 PAPERBACK $16.99 | EBOOK $6.99 POETRY | 116 pp. | 6” x 9” ISBN: 978-1940939193 (pbk.) ISBN: 978-1940939209 (ebk.)

A Novella by Ezra E. Fitz PAGE 24

A book of poems by Sean Frederick Forbes

In THE MORNING SIDE OF THE HILL, Ezra E. Fitz’ debut novella, asks readers: What if you anted up and kicked in everything you had on a belief, a hope, a dream, on faith, and you lost? This is one of the questions facing Willie and Mo, the two insecure, incomplete protagonists that was inspired by William Faulkner’s classic novel The Wild Palms. Faulkner fans may think they know what the end holds, but rest assured, THE MORNING SIDE OF THE HILL exposes an unexpected coincidence that Faulkner may have hinted at but never fully explored. Cover art: Vagabond.

by J. L. Torres

BORICUA PASSPORT evokes the complex in-betweeness that represents the contemporary Puerto Rican condition as filtered through the prism of poet J.L. Torres’ life experience. In BORICUA PASSPORT, Torres, screams, shouts, rejoices, celebrates, tickles and challenges with a poetry sprinkled with Spanish/ Spanglish that is immediate and urgent. It’s your passport into a world simultaneously real and imaginary, one most people don’t even know exists. A must read! Cover art: Vagabond.

Poems by Not4Prophet Graphics by Vagabond Introduction by Tony Medina NUYORICAN WORLD SERIES

NOV 2013 PAPERBACK $16.99 | EBOOK $6.99 POETRY | 132 pp. | 6” x 9” ISBN: 978-0988476332 (pbk.) ISBN: 978-0988476325 (ebk.)

Poetry by A. Robert Lee

OCT 2013 PAPERBACK $16.99 | EBOOK $6.99 POETRY | 126 pp. | 6” x 9” ISBN: 978-1940939056 (pbk.) ISBN: 978-1940939063 (ebk.)

IMAGINARIUM SIGHTINGS, GALLERIES, SIGHTLINES, A. Robert Lee’s latest collection of poetry, turns on two connecting keynotes imagination and sight. Each sequence provides a broad canvas that explores the ways we go about imagining as much as seeing reality. A delightful yet informative collection that invites readers into a two-way exchange, imagination as seeing, seeing as imagination.

Rivers of Women, The Play

JUL 2013 PAPERBACK $18.95 | EBOOK $9.99 POETRY | 176 pp. | 6” x 9” ISBN: 978-0988476356 (pbk.) ISBN: 978-0988476394 (ebk,)

MAY 2013 PAPERBACK $12.99 PLAY, POETRY | 104 pp, | 8.5” x 8.5” ISBN: 978-0988476370 (pbk.)

by Tony Medina Introduction by Ishmael Reed

BROKE BAROQUE is the third in a series of “Broke Books” by award-winning poet, Tony Medina, who articulates Broke’s erratic experiences as a homeless person on the streets of Any City, USA. Funny and perversely sharp, whimsical and impassioned, this poetry collection is compulsively readable, and will connect with fiction and poetry lovers alike. Cover art: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Cover design: Miriam Ahmed.

by Shirley Bradley LeFlore Photographs by Michael J. Bracey

In RIVERS OF WOMEN, THE PLAY, Shirley Bradley LeFlore has outdid herself in this groundbreaking collection of dramatic poems written in vivid and powerful language that is simply breathtaking. Here is the complete text, including stage directions, accompanied with photographs by award-winning, Chicago-based photographer Michael J. Bracey. This poignant and powerful play explores family, love, woman-to-woman experiences, race and religion, speaking to the very soul of the reader. Cover photo: Michael J. Bracey.

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Broke Baroque

FALL 2018

LAST OF THE PO’RICANS Y OTROS AFRO-ARTIFACTS, the debut poetry collection of Not4Prophet, provides an incredible verbal and musical profusion of poetry that reflects the cultural landscapes of Puerto Rico and New York City through the eyes of a Puerto Rican born in Ponce, living in El Barrio and the South Bronx. A poetry collection that breaks boundaries and challenges us with iconic imagery and word play that dares to speak of the unspeakable. Cover photo: Jeffrey Akers, Cover design: Vagabond.

Imaginarium Sightings, Galleries, Sightlines

2LP BACKLIST

The Last of the Po’Ricans y Otros Afro-artifacts

2LP BACKLIST FALL 2018

After Houses

The Death of the Goddess

Introduction by Tara Betts

Patrick Colm Hogan Introduction by Rachel Fell McDermott

MAY 2014 PAPERBACK $16.99 | EBOOK $6.99 POETRY | 160 pp,| 6” x 9” ISBN: 978-1940939308 (pbk.) ISBN: 978-1940939315 (ebk.)

OCT 2014 PAPERBACK $16.99 | EBOOK $6.99 POETRY | 132 pp. | 5” x 8” ISBN: 978-1940939346 (pbk.) ISBN: 978-1940939353 (ebk.)

Poetry for the Homeless by Claire Millikin

AFTER HOUSES is an extended meditation on homelessness. In unflinching, raw poetry, poet Claire Millikin explores states of homelessness, and a longing for, even a devotion to, houses — houses as spaces where one could be safe and at ease. Millikin’s verse echos the voices of girls who have not quite survived, but who persist, intact in the way that Rimbaud insists on intactness, in words. Cover photo: Gary Baller.

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WHEREABOUTS

Stepping Out of Place An Outside in Literary & Travel Magazine Anthology Edited by Brandi Dawn Henderson

A Poem in Twelve Cantos

THE DEATH OF THE GODDESS is an epic, narrative poem that is a moving account of affection, personal loss, and grief. Inspired by Buddhism and Indic thought, its central figures are two lovers who refuse to accept unjust social hierarchies and suffer separation and death for that choice. This groundbreaking narrative is a literary achievement to be read by serious poetry lovers and students in mythology or epic literature alike. Cover art: Lalita Pandit Hogan.

Incessant Beauty, A Bilingual Anthology Ana Rossetti Edited and translated by Carmela Ferradáns

2LP TRANSLATIONS | BILINGUAL SP./ENG.

OCT 2013 PAPERBACK $19.99 | EBOOK $9.99 ESSAYS | 212 pp. | 6” x 9” ISBN: 978-0988476363 (pbk.) ISBN: 978-1940939001 (ebk.)

WHEREABOUTS STEPPING OUT OF PLACE is an anthology of the best nonfiction stories from Outside In Literary & Travel Magazine, an online journal founded in 2011. Editor Brandi Dawn Henderson presents thirty-eight emerging and established global storytellers who share what it means to enter a new place, exploring the question Why does anyone take the first step to anywhere he or she doesn’t “belong?”

MAY 2014 PAPERBACK $18.99 | EBOOK $6.99 POETRY | 168 pp. | 6” x 9” ISBN: 978-1940939216 (pbk.) ISBN: 978-1940939223 (ebk.)

INCESSANT BEAUTY offers to an English-speaking audience a first glimpse into Ana Rossetti’s eclectic and voracious symbolic universe. Editor and translator Carmela Ferradáns has selected poems that offer a wide range of themes that span more than thirty years, varying from the more brooding meditations on transcendental human qualities, to the latest festive celebrations of the poetic word itself. Cover art: Spencer Sauter.

COVER ART The painting on the cover is “Cold City” (1921) by Swiss German artist Paul Klee (1879–1940), whose highly individual style was influenced by expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Medium: Watercolor on paper mounted on maroon paper mounted on cardboard. Dimensions: 10 5/8 × 14 3/8 in. (27 × 36.5 cm). Credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Berggruen Klee Collection, 1987. QUOTE Mason Cooley (1927-2002) was an American literary academic and aphorist known for his witty aphorisms. JOIN OUR MAILING LIST & RECEIVE 2LP UPDATES We periodically email our newsletter about new books, special discount offers, and upcoming events. You can sign up on our website at www.2leafpress.org.

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