2LP WRITERS & ARTISTS The Writers Stephanie Agosto Usha Akella Amina Baraka Fredrick D. Kakinami Cloyd Julian Cola Samuel Diaz Carrion Ezra E. Fitz Sean Frederick Forbes Odi Gonzales Brandi Dawn Henderson Patrick Colm Hogan A. Robert Lee Shirley Bradley LeFlore Tony Medina Jesús Papoleto Meléndez Claire Millikin Urayoán Noel Not4Prophet Abiodun Oyewole
Dylcia Págan Ana Rossetti Lisa Sánchez González J. L. Torres Vagabond Omar Villegas Adam Wier The Artists Miriam Ahmed Jeffrey Akers Gary Baller Amina Baraka Jean-Michel Basquiat Eugen Berlo Michael J. Bracey Jaime “Shaggy” Flores Frank Frazier Sam Lahoz Kenji C. Liu
Teofilo Olivieri Spencer Sauter Allison Strauss Holly Turner Clare Ultimo Vagabond The Translators Bayrex Julian Cola Carmela Ferradáns Carolina Feng Fung Marjorie González Lynn Levin Kevin E. Tobar Pesántez Adam Wier
2LP STAFF Stephanie A. Agosto, IAAS Board Liaison Gabrielle David, Publisher Carmen Pietri-Diaz, Program Director Kevin E. Tobar Pesántez, Editorial Adam Wier, Editorial and Translations Carolina Fung Feng, Editorial and Translations Vagabond Beaumont, Graphics & Video Production 2Leaf Press is an imprint of THE INTERCULTURAL ALLIANCE OF ARTISTS & SCHOLARS, INC. (IAAS) a NY-based nonprofit organization that promotes multicultural literature and literacy.
IAAS BOARD OF DIRECTORS Gabrielle David, Stephanie Ann Agosto, Sean Frederick Forbes Lynn Korsman, Shirley Bradley LeFlore, Michelle Aragón, Naydene Brickus, Angela Sternreich Andrew P. Jackson (Selou Molefi Baako), Advisor Kenneth Campbell, Robert Coburn, Advisory Board
IT IS MY GREAT PLEASURE to present our Fall 2014 catalogue. It has been a long and satisfying road working with the authors and translators who have created some really exceptional books. What’s even more exciting is that the issuance of this catalogue coincides with the celebration of 2Leaf Press’ second anniversary. It was on October 19, 2012, when we published our very first book, the bilingual edition of Hey Yo! Yo Soy! 40 Years of Nuyorican Street Poetry, The Collected Works of Jesús Papoleto Meléndez. The folks who helped put that book together, who became affectionately known as “Team Papo,” created an experience unlike any other. I want to thank co-editor Kevin Pesántez; translators Adam Wier, Carolina Fung Feng, Marjorie González; and consultant and cover artist, Jaime “Shaggy” Flores, for their efforts. With an introduction by Sandra Maria Esteves; foreword by Samuel Diaz and Carmen Piertri Diaz; and an afterword by Flores, including historical photos of Meléndez that covers his fifty year career, this 368-page book really set the standard for 2Leaf Press and the books that would follow. I am indebted to Jesús Papoleto Meléndez for allowing 2Leaf Press to publish his works to help establish the press.
Since our founding, we’ve been working very hard to expand the press’ horizons. We recently launched an online submission tool so that potential authors can submit their work via our website. We created 2LP Previews/Reviews, so that book reviewers, librarians and store owners can download digital review copies of our books. We’ve also have begun to roll out our ebooks on Kindle, Kobo and Nook, with the intent to have them available on Google Play and iBookstore as well. In the near future, we intend to launch out 2LP Bookstore, where folks can purchase ebooks directly from us. As major publishers continue to merge and consolidate, and become more focused on finding the next blockbuster best-seller, 2Leaf Press continues its mission to discover new writers and to shepherd their work into the hands of thoughtful readers worldwide. We believe that there are a lot of exciting writers out there who are writing books that are sometimes eccentric or difficult but are extremely rewarding. Visit our website at 2leafpress.org for more information. Happy reading. — Gabrielle David Publisher
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This Fall, 2Leaf Press has begun to venture beyond poetry by expanding its reading genres to include novels, memoirs, and young adult books. 2Leaf Press will publish its first novel, The Morning Side of the Hill by Eric E. Fitz, a contemporary story set in New York City that is inspired by William Faulkner’s classic novel, The Wild Palms. Our long-awaited young adult book, Puerto Rican Folktales/Cuentos folclóricos puertorriqueños by Lisa Sánchez González, is the first offering in nearly 50 years of traditional Puerto Rican folktales and legends presented in a bilingual edition. Echoing shades of the blues imbued in social and political consciousness, Blues In All Hues, Poetry by Amina Baraka, an influential community activist in Newark, New Jersey and a prominent figure during the Black Arts Movement, has published more than 40 years of poetry for the first time in one dynamic volume. The Death of The Goddess, A Poem In Twelve Cantos by Patrick Colm Hogan, is an epic narrative poem inspired by Buddhism and Indic thought. Guided By Love, A Tribute To Dylcia Págan, Former Puerto Rican Political Prisoner, is a biographical and historical tribute to freedom fighter Dylcia Págan. Though the works differ, they all share 2Leaf Press’ vision of sharing compelling stories that investigate the human condition that feels real and true.
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Our tag line “We are a small press with big ideas!” is accurate. While we pride ourselves in publishing beautiful, well-designed, readable books, it’s our volunteer staff of editors, translators, artists and interns who have contributed greatly to 2Leaf Press. I would like to take this opportunity to thank our Program Director, Carmen Pietri Diaz and our Graphics and Video guru, Vagabond, for their boundless enthusiasm, attention to detail, and continuing support of the press. I am grateful to our parent organization, The Intercultural Alliance of Artists & Scholars, Inc. (IAAS) and its Board Members, in particular, Stephanie Agosto, Naydene Brickus, Andrew P. Jackson (Sekou Molefi Baako), and Sean Frederick Forbes, for helping to sustain the press. Finally, I want to give special thanks to all of our 2Leaf Press authors for giving us the opportunity to publish their works, and the people who purchase, read and support their work because without them, the press wouldn’t be where it is today. The richness of these interactions never ceases to amaze me, and I remain eternally grateful for their support and input.
Cuentos folclóricos puertorriqueños
by Lisa Sánchez González Translations by Bayrex | Illustrations by Teofilo Olivieri NUYORICAN WORLD SERIES | Bilingual: English/Spanish PUERTO RICAN FOLKTALES is the first offering in nearly 50 years of traditional Puerto Rican folktales and legends presented in book form. Rendered as wonderful short stories for both children and adults alike, author Sánchez González researched these colonial stories and has provided updated versions from a contemporary perspective with the beauty, humor, and urgent honesty they deserve. Readers will discover the real story of Yuisa and Pedro Mejías. A tale of a girl who goes on an adventure and rides home triumphantly on a magical horse with a rainbow tail. Talking trees and plants and magical machetes. PUERTO RICAN FOLKTALES will transport, transform and translate to readers a whole new universe of a quintessentially Caribbean culture that’s alive and well in Puerto Rico.
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Puerto Rican Folktales
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“With this dual language edition, Sánchez González earns her rightful place as cuentista right up there with Pura Belpré and Ricardo Alegría, collecting and re-telling the people’s stories so as to re-ignite that reflective flame that is our common humanity.” — ORALIA GARZA DE CORTÉS Latino Children’s Literature Librarian and Co-founder of the Pura Belpré Award
“With this bilingual collection of Puerto Rican folktales, Lisa Sánchez González has given every lover of folklore and stories a beautiful and priceless gift. — J.L. TORRES, author of The Accidental Native and Boricua Passport
“No longer erased by coloniality, the stories that Sánchez González has ‘heard, read, witnessed, written, revised and rewritten,’ will live on to illustrate the splendor, grace and vigor that is Puerto Rico. A brilliant, captivating contribution.” — EMMA PÉREZ, University of Colorado, Boulder
Hardcover, $29.99 FOLKTALES,YOUNG ADULT | 192 pp. , 8.5” x 8.5” ISBN: 978-1940939124 (hdc.) ISBN: 978-1940939131 (pbk.) ISBN 978-1940939148 (ebk) Oct. 2014
LISA SÁNCHEZ GONZÁLEZ is a professor, scholar and folklorist. Sánchez is the author of Boricua Literature: A Literary History of the Puerto Rican Diaspora (2001) and The Stories I Read to the Children: The Life and Writing of Pura Belpré (2013). A Professor of English at the University of Connecticut, Sánchez currently teaches courses in American, Caribbean, and western literary history.
A Novella by Ezra E. Fitz Introduction by Ernesto Quiñonez
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In THE MORNING SIDE OF THE HILL, Ezra E. Fitz’ debut novella, he 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 — and is an homage to — William Faulkner’s classic novel The Wild Palms. Faulkner fans may think they know what the end holds for these characters, 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. “In the novel The Morning Side of The Hill, a character comments that his restaurant has ‘got a menu as diverse as the clientele.’ The same could be said of this first work of fiction by Ezra E. Fitz . . . . a true delight to read, populated with characters you want to follow all the way through to the end.”
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— JOE LOYA, author of The Man Who Outgrew His Prison Cell: Confessions of a Bank Robber
“The Morning Side of The Hill by Ezra E. Fitz is a study in delicious contrasts: it’s gritty yet lyrical, heartfelt yet heartbreaking, highbrow yet street-smart .... Brimming with enviable depth, elegance, and an intriguing, satisfying ending, it was a pleasure to read.” — SARA SHEPARD, New York Times bestselling author
“There’s something of Ishiguro in this novel: it’s introspective, brooding, heartrending, yet never pretentious. In the end, an excellent first novel. I wish I had written something like this.” — ELOY URROZ, author of La mujer del novelista, Friction and The Obstacles EZRA E. FITZ is a novelist and translator who has worked with Grammy winning musician Juanes, Emmy winning journalist Jorge Ramos, and the king of soccer himself, Pelé. His translations of contemporary Latin American literature by Alberto Fuguet and Eloy Urroz have been praised by The New York Times. His work has appeared in The Boston Review, Harper’s Magazine, and Words Without Borders. Fitz is an Affiliate Faculty member at University of Illinois Center for Translation Studies. www.ezrafitz.com.
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The Morning Side of the Hill
Paperback $16.99 FICTION, NOVEL, 162 pp. , 6” x 9” ISBN: 978-1940939261 (pbk.) ISBN: 978-1940939278 (ebk.) Oct. 2014
PHOTO: Leslie Rodriguez
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2LP Author Conversation with Ezra E. Fitz What drew you to write a novel with Latino protagonists? My primary goal with this novel was to pay my respects to William Faulkner’s classic The Wild Palms. But Faulkner is hugely important not only to American literature, but also to literature throughout the Americas in general, both North and South. Jorge Luis Borges chose The Wild Palms as the one Faulkner novel he wanted to translate into Spanish, bypassing more famous works like The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, and Absalom, Absalom!. In his Nobel acceptance speech, Gabriel García Márquez famously referred to Faulkner as his master. To me, retelling Faulkner’s tale with Latino characters seems like a natural stage of literary evolution, one that mirrors the evolving literary relationship between our twin continents. How much did you have to contend with the voice in your head that was warning you about the dangers of adopting modes of speech/street idioms from the Latino and African American community without sounding exploitative? There is always the danger of coming off as exploitative, but for me, the warning from the voices in my head was, “Be accurate, be honest. Your job is to tell the truth. Don’t be judgmental, be understanding.” In The Wild Palms, a Cajun character’s speech is described as “Gobble-gobble, whang, caw-caw-to-to.” There are also Polish miners whose voices sound like “blind erratic birds” communicating with “frenzied and incomprehensible human speech.” But in my novel, I didn’t want to merely describe different forms of dialogue, I wanted to use them, to work with them. The academics can debate the merits of so-called Spanglish and Ebonics. This story takes place on street corners, and I wanted those street corners to sound as accurate and honest as possible.
A Poem in Twelve Cantos Patrick Colm Hogan Introduction by Rachel Fell McDermott
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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. In this groundbreaking narrative, Patrick Colm Hogan sets out to re-synthesize ancient Indian philosophy and myth, with a beauty and literary feeling (called “rasa” in Sanskrit) that are the central aspects of this poem. THE DEATH OF THE GODDESS is an excellent literary achievement to be read by serious poetry lovers and students in mythology or epic literature alike. Cover Art: Lalita Pandit Hogan.
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“With The Death of the Goddess, Hogan gifts us a mythic world chock full of tricky gods, demons and mortals that invite us to join them in their celestial and tellurian dances that spin with the joys and upsets of creation. Not since the Divine Comedy, The Epic of Gilgamesh, and the great Sanskrit epic, the Bhagavad Gita has such a timeless masterpiece appeared. It will be treasured as one of the great philosophical epics of the 21st century. Extraordinary!” — Frederick Luis Aldama, author of Formal Matters in Contemporary Latino Poetry
“To read The Death of the Goddess is an act of walking-with, an accompanied meditation — Patrick Colm Hogan’s epic poem is the record of a trance. Mythology made human, humanity made divine, divinity made mythology, a cycle of epiphanies. Held up to the light, it refracts a spiritual tradition into a tantalizing spectrum of drama and pleasures, and the language strikes a delicate balance between luxuriance and humility. The Death of the Goddess is a tribute to poetry: the task of harnessing the aether.” — David A. Colón Associate Professor of English and Latino/a Studies Texas Christian University PATRICK COLM HOGAN, a Professor at the University of Connecticut,
is the author of sixteen books, including Hogan’s best-known book, The Mind and Its Stories: Narrative Universals and Human Emotion (2003). He has published fiction in The Journal of Irish Literature and poetry in minnesota review, Kunapipi, the Journal of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies, and elsewhere.
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The Death of the Goddess
Paperback, $16.99 POETRY | 132 pp. , 5” x 8” ISBN: 978-1940939346 (pbk.) ISBN: 978-1940939353 (ebk.) Oct. 2014
PHOTO:Vagabond
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2LP Author Conversation with Amina Baraka You have included in this collection a series of poems that depict the unimaginable cruelty of slavery. What made you to decide to write about such a difficult, and for the most part, uncomfortable topic? Because I was forcibly removed from the womb of Africa. Why do you think poets are uniquely suited to speak publicly and morally about our sociopolitical landscape? Because we are writers. Do you think contemporary poetry is sorely lacking a unified poetic-political movement? No, it’s what so many writers have already said, we write because we feel we have to, and since we seek democracy, you can write under whatever perspective you choose to, so I choose to write from the left.
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BLUES IN ALL HUES is the debut poetry collection of Amina Baraka. Echoing shades of the blues imbued in social and political consciousness, this stunning volume of 122 poems represents more than forty years of Baraka’s work. From slavery, racism, imperialism, women’s rights, gay rights; to personal poems that are a celebratory excursion of self, BLUES IN ALL HUES digs deep into the marrow of Baraka’s being. As the book progresses, readers will find poems intermingled with stories about family members, musicians, poets, artists, activists and the unnamed workers that Baraka holds close to her heart. Written in free verse these lyric poems, which are filled with metaphors and double-entendres, intimately connects readers to an authentic American poetry, making BLUES IN ALL HUES a must read for poets and activists alike. Cover Art: Amina Baraka.
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“Because of her natural artistic talents as an actress, singer and dancer, Amina Baraka provides a tapestry of the world she has lived in a way that is both moving and lyrical. Her Blues lyrics remind me of Billie. Her repetitions remind me of Margaret Walker, her insight reminds me of Gwendolyn Brooks, and her attitude reminds me of Nina Simone. For one woman to encompass all of these characters into one body of work is nothing short of special. Amina is a warrior wordsmith with the heart and strength of a lioness . . . . Let her word spears pierce the lies, and strike a death blow to those who bring political and social grief to millions everywhere.” — ABIODUN OYEWOLE, author of Branches of the Tree of Life (2014)
AMINA BARAKA is a community activist, poet, dancer, singer, artist and editor. Her poetry has appeared in publications such as Long Shot, Unsettling America: An Anthology of Contemporary Multicultural Poetry, and Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam. Baraka is the co-editor of Confirmation: An Anthology of African American Women (1983), The Music, Reflections on Jazz and Blues (1987), and 5 [Ankh] Boptrees (1990). She has been interviewed and mentioned in hundreds of publications.
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Blues In All Hues
The Poetry of Amina Baraka Edited with an Introduction by Gabrielle David Afterword by Abiodun Oyewole
Paperback, $18.99 POETRY | 210 pp. , 6” x 9” ISBN: 978-1940939360 (pbk.) ISBN: 978-1940939377 (ebk.) Dec. 2014
PHOTO: Ruth Halbach
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2LP Author Conversation with Lisa Sánchez González You made a conscious effort in the re-telling and deliberate re-visioning of some of these folktales. Why? Folklore teaches its readers about culture, history, and the world around them. In doing so, it also teaches ethics. So each storyteller will render a tale in a way that she or he thinks will be not only entertaining but instructive. The oral tradition of storytelling in Puerto Rico and its diaspora is radical. I’ve heard from my father’s lips, for example, very funny and sometimes very sad tales that instruct about how to elude getting harassed by the police, how to dress for the cold when your shoes have holes in the soles, and how to cope with injustices of all kinds. My grandmother told me tales about how clever sisters could unite to resist an overbearing patriarch too. But in print, a lot of the oral tradition is twisted around into something conservative and moralistic, in an effort to teach children – especially girls – very bourgeois attitudes and “proper” behavior. For me, the only way to make these folktales feel right in the telling was to refashion the stories for print in the authentic and radical vein of the oral tradition I know and love. I deliberately “decolonized” the colonial era legends, for example, rather than endorsing the Spanish colonial versions of them. Does folklore still play an important role in Puerto Rico and if so, why? Boricuas, whether on the island or off of it, are natural storytellers. Storytelling, like poetry and music, is part of our cultural DNA. The oral tradition is alive and well. However, in book form, traditional folktales are nearly extinct. You have to wonder why that is. According to UNESCO, this is a problem all over the world in former colonies, so much so that the organization has formed a task force to find ways of preserving and disseminating these tales. Personally, I think the root of the problem is colonialism and the institutionalized racism it spawns. The school system in Puerto Rico and in places where Boricuas live stateside have Eurocentric curricula. There’s no space for the wisdom of the colonized in that kind of curriculum. There’s no room for stories that humanize the colonized in ways that empower them to love themselves and respect themselves, which I think is a travesty.
NUYORICAN WORLD SERIES
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GUIDED BY LOVE provides an introspective look at Dylcia Pagán’s life as an artist as well as an activist, balancing the more salacious subject matter of her imprisonment and her role as “freedom fighter.” This collection includes personal tributes to Pagán, including poety and artwork by Pagán herself, as well as essays from family, friends, scholars and activists. Throughout this time-honored tribute, GUIDED BY LOVE asks readers to think deeply about Puerto Rico and its status as an American colony, the U.S. legal system, its treatment of political prisoners, and the consequences of leading a life as a political and cultural activist. Cover Art: Vagabond.
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In her own words and through the eyes of countless colleagues, friends and supporters, readers will discover Dylcia Pagán, a trailblazer who broke many barriers as a Puerto Rican female growing up in New York’s Spanish Harlem /El Barrio. Follow her journey as the first Latina child star on television’s Horn and Hardart Children’s Hour during the 1950s; to her rise as a community organizer, political activist, and television producer; to becoming a political prisoner sentenced to 58 years for seditious conspiracy in her quest to see Puerto Rico become a free and sovereign nation. Notables such as former news anchorman Sherman Jackson; producers Humberto Cintron and Gary Weinberg; civil rights attorney Jan Susler; author and former Young Lord, Mickey Melendez; poet Jesús Papoleto Meléndez, and countless others relate their personal, professional and often dynamic relationships with Dylcia. Their tributes speak volumes of Dylcia Pagán’s steadfast tenacity in pursuing roads less traveled with vim, vigor, and a whole lot of spunk. — CARMEN PIETRI-DIAZ Civil Rights lawyer and community activist LISA SÁNCHEZ GONZÁLEZ, a professor, scholar and folklorist, is the author of Boricua Literature: A Literary History of the Puerto Rican Diaspora (2001), The Stories I Read to the Children: The Life and Writing of Pura Belpré (2013) and Puerto Rican Folktales (2014). DYLCIA PAGÁN is a producer, director, political activist, artist, healer and former political prisoner. Born and raised in New York City, she is best known as one of the first Latina television producers in the United States who was charged with Seditious Conspiracy in 1980, and sentenced to 63 years of imprisonment. Besides working on documentaries, art, poetry and special events, Pagán is an international speaker who talks about justice, media, culture and the Independence Movement.
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Guided By Love:
A Tribute to Dylcia Pagán, Former Puerto Rican Political Prisoner Edited by Dylcia Pagán and Lisa Sánchez González
Paperback, $18.99 MEMOIR | 160 pp. , 6” x 9” ISBN: 978-1940939124 (pbk.) ISBN: 978-1940939131 (ebk.) Dec. 2014
PHOTO:Vagabond
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2LP Author Conversation with Abiodun Oyewole How did the tree become a theme to a body of work you have been writing for the past 40 years? 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 excerpts of 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 alters I use for prayers. 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? 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.
RECENT FAVORITES
Branches of the Tree of Life
The Collected Poems of Abiodun Oyewole 1969-2013
Introduction by Betty J. Dopson | Edited by Gabrielle David
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. His poetry rebranches into different directions, becoming grandeur in its proportions, and more complexly diversified in its structure. BRANCHES OF THE TREE OF LIFE is a living testament to a stunning career that confirms Abiodun Oyewole’s place at the forefront of poetic achievement. Cover Art: Vagabond. “Abiodun Oyewole is one of the most important voices of his generation and my own. He opens up his heart and allows us to be one of the branches of a tremendous tree he has planted inside this revolutionary language called poetry.A mentor, a critic, and an inspirational voice of truth, I am forever grateful for being one of the flowers he helped bloom.”
ABIODUN OYEWOLE is a poet, teacher, and founding member of the American music and
spoken-word group The Last Poets, which laid the groundwork for the emergence of Hip-Hop. Over the years, Oyewole has collaborated on more than a dozen albums and several books.
POETRY | 274 pp.; 6” x 9” ISBN: 978-1940939032 (pbk.) | $24.99 ISBN: 978-1940939049 (ebk.) | $6.99
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After Houses
Poetry for the Homeless by Claire Millikin
Introduction by Tara Betts
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. Throughout the collection, Millikin draws from personal and family history, from classical mythology and architectural theory, to shape a poetry of empathy, in which some of the places where people get lost in America are faced and given place. AFTER HOUSES echo 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. “An astute critic as well as a scrupulous and admirably driven poet, Millikin combines formal élan and emotional intensity. I think of her poems as following in the noble, painful tradition of Maurice Blanchot — language reaching toward silence.” —WAYNE KOESTENBAUM Distinguished Professor of English, CUNY Graduate Center CLAIRE MILLIKIN is a poet, professor and scholar. Her poetry has appeared in numerous liter-
ary journals and magazines, and she has published the chapbook The Gleaners (2013), her first poetry collection, Museum of Snow (2013).
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— JESSICA CARE MOORE, award-winning poet and publisher
POETRY | 160 pp. , 6” x 9” ISBN: 978-1940939308 (pbk.) | $16.99 ISBN: 978-1940939315 (ebk.) | $6.99
PHOTO: Beverly Collins-Roberts
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2LP Author Conversation with Lynn Levin How did you come to translate Odi Gonzales’s work? In 2002, I began to make contact with Cusco-based poets and writers in advance of a trip to Peru. A lucky string of emails led me to Odi Gonzales, who was then studying in the US. I translated a number of his early poems. Then, in 2005, he sent me La escuela de Cusco [Birds on the Kiswar Tree], and I was so captivated by the passion and rebelliousness of the poems that I translated the whole book. How closely do you think translation of syntax is tied to the translation of tone and rhythm? Gonzales’s poems speak assertively, and the poet’s use of complex periodic sentences lends his lines accumulating power. My translation closely follows the poet’s syntax, and I hope that recreates the drive of the poems. When translating Birds on the Kiswar Tree, were you seeking an idiom, and what do you think of rendering local color in translations? I sought to recreate the elegant and formal language that Gonzales uses in the poems. I think of that as speaking in his idiom, as opposed to seeking another style of speech. He does include much local color: references to foods, festivals, customs, and landscape. In some cases, I retain the original words, for example, cuy for guinea pig, as well as many of the names of flowers and birds. The foreignness adds flavor, and I include glossaries for the poems that define the foreign words.
RECENT FAVORITES
Our Nuyorican Thing
The Birth of a Self-Made Identity
by Samuel Diaz Carrion | Introduction by Urayoán Noel 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. “Our Nuyorican Thing by Sam Diaz is a must read about all things Nuyorican in essays that emerged from the heart of the Mother Matrix, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe . . . a poetic buffet for the universal creative spirit that is comprehensive, intelligent, insightful, sensitive and beautifully written ‘. . . in the service of poetry.’ Bravo!”
SAMUEL DIAZ CARRION is a Puerto Rican poet and writer born in the South Bronx. While
working as a chemist, he participated in meetings that led to the founding of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, New Rican Village and other venues.
POETRY | 132 pp., 6” x 9” NUYORICAN WORLD SERIES ISBN: 978-1940939070 (pbk.) | $16.99 ISBN: 978-1940939087 (ebk.) | $6.99
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Birds on the Kiswar Tree
by Odi Gonzales | Translated by Lynn Levin 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. “A haunting gallery of indigenous painters from colonial Peru, most anonymous, is mapped out by Quechua poet Odi Gonzales in this admirable collection ....Poetry, Gonzales persuades us, is a tool to unveil the past, to come face to face with history.” —ILAN STAVANS, editor of “The FSG Book of Twentieth-Century Latin American Poetry”
ODI GONZALES, the author of seven poetry collections, is an award-winning poet who writes
in both Quechua and Spanish. Since 2000, he divides his time between Peru and the US, teaching courses in Quechua language and culture, and prehispanic literature of the Andean region at NYU.
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—SANDRA MARÍA ESTEVES, poet, teacher and activist
POETRY | 140 pp. , 6” x 9” | 2LP TRANSLATIONS BILINGUAL: Spanish/English ISBN: 978-1940939247 (pbk.) | $18.99 ISBN: 978-1940939254 (ebk.) | $6.99
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Boricua Passport 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. “This is not your abuelita’s poetry, except that it is — tu sabes? In the spirit of Rev. Pedro Pietri, Torres seeks out the ‘location of this nothingness’where we all scrawl our own passports in in(di)visible ink. Watch /here/ and /there/ blur! This /Boricua Passport/ has your name.”
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— URAYOÁN NOEL, poet, professor and scholar
J. L. TORRES is Professor of English at SUNY Plattsburgh. He is the author of The Family Ter-
rorist and Other Stories (2008), and the novel, The Accidental Native (2013). Torres also serves as Editor of the Saranac Review, and his poetry has appeared in numerous publications.
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Incessant Beauty, A Bilingual Anthology
by Ana Rossetti | Edited and translated by Carmela Ferradáns
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. “At last English-speaking readers can indulge in Ana Rossetti’s enticing poetic banquet, deliciously daring to somberly meditative....This long overdue translation by Carmela Ferradáns is most welcome.” —SHARON KEEFE UGALDE University Distinguished Professor, Texas State University
ANA ROSSETTI is an award-winning Spanish poet from Cádiz, Spain. Her most well-known
poetry collections include Los devaneos de Erato (Premio Gules, 1980), Indicios vehementes (1985), Yesterday (1988), and Punto Umbrío (1996).
POETRY | 168 pp. , 6” x 9” | 2LP TRANSLATIONS BILINGUAL: Spanish/English ISBN: 978-1940939216 (pbk.) | $18.99 ISBN: 978-1940939223 (ebk.) | $6.99
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As one of the founding members of the Nuyorican movement, what’s your take on Nuyorican literature today? To me, the topic of Nuyorican poetry travels through a myriad of areas – there’s message, content, performance, appearance, style – a whole bunch of stuff. When we were coming up (during the 1960s and 1970s), we had a distinct relationship with identity and culture, and one would think that conversation is over: ‘nough said; it’s been covered. However, the Nuyorican/Puerto Rican Diaspora is a living organism, constantly evolving. And over the years, many people of a variety of cultures have come to identify themselves with this movement as an ethereal forum for personal investigation and growth. I’m glad to see young people take up the mantle of poetry; that’s how it should be; it’s the natural order of things. But when we were coming up, our voices were marginalized so our battle was against a system that ignored us. Today, I see that the spoken word poets want to marginalize the elder poets as passé. In poetry, there is no such thing as an old poet; there are younger and older poets, that’s it. Since poetry is life-blood and life-giving, experience speaks for its own wisdom, and that simply cannot be denied. So, while I’m appreciative of poets rising out of the ashes from wherever they come from, it is imperative that they study and learn to appreciate what preceded them, because it is the older poets that laid the foundation for the artistic freedom of expression that they currently enjoy.
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PHOTO:Vagabond
What’s it like being the first author published by 2Leaf Press? I remain quite moved and humbled to have been the first author to publish under 2Leaf Press, which, in its two-year existence continues to publish, against all odds, quite a number of new and established voices in poetry. To have been the first is quite an honor. I am especially thrilled because publisher and editor, Gabrielle David, has been an inspiration and the prime motivator in this endeavor. She believed in my work, and in this age of “spoken-word” poetry, I am happy that 2Leaf Press believes in the printed poem on the page. And I also get a kick out of lining up 2Leaf Press publications along their spines to view the many Latino surnames aligned with the 2Leaf Press logo.
2LP AUTHORS
2LP Author Conversation with Jesús Papoleto Meléndez
2LP BACKLIST PAGE 18 FALL 2014
The Last of the Po’Ricans y Otros Afro-artifacts
Providencia
Introduction by Tony Medina
POETRY | 104 pp. ISBN: 978-1940939018 (pbk.) | $16.99 ISBN: 978-1940939025 (ebk.) | $6.99
Poems by Not4Prophet Graphics by Vagabond
POETRY | 132 pp. ISBN: 978-0988476332 (pbk.) | $16.99 ISBN: 978-0988476325 (ebk.) | $6.99 NUYORICAN WORLD SERIES
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/East Harlem and the South Bronx. LAST OF THE PO’RICANS 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.
Broke Baroque by Tony Medina
Introduction by Ishmael Reed POETRY | 176 pp. ISBN: 978-0988476356 (pbk.) | $18.95 ISBN: 978-0988476394 (ebk,) | $9.99
BROKE BAROQUE is the third in a series of Broke Books by awardwinning poet, Tony Medina, who articulates Broke’s erratic experiences on the streets of Any City, USA. Through tall tales, anecdotes, rants and jokes, Medina portrays Broke’s anger, fear, humility and resolve that conveys his marginalization in a grossly unaccommodating society. Funny and perversely sharp, whimsical and impassioned, BROKE BAROQUE is compulsively readable and will connect with fiction and poetry lovers alike. Cover Art: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Boy and Dog in a Johnnypump, 1982; Cover Design: Miriam Ahmed
a book of poems by Sean Frederick Forbes
Introduction by V. Penelope Pelizzon
PROVIDENCIA, Sean Frederick Forbes’ debut poetry collection, is a deeply personal, coming-of-age narrative traces the experience of a gay, mixed-race narrator who confronts that the traditions of his parents’ and grandparents’ birthplace in Providencia, Colombia against Forbes’ rough and lonely life in Southside Jamaica, Queens. PROVIDENCIA conjures numerous voices, images, and characters that explore the struggles of self-discovery. Cover Art: Holly Turner.
Brassbones & Rainbows The Collected Works of Shirley Bradley LeFlore
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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.
Poetry by A. Robert Lee
POETRY | 126 Pages ISBN: 978-1940939056 (pbk.) | $16.99 ISBN: 978-1940939063 (ebk.) | $6.99
by Shirley Bradley LeFlore
with photographs by Michael J. Bracey PLAY, POETRY, THEATRE | 104 pp,. ISBN: 978-0988476370 (pbk.) | $12.99
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.
ESSAYS | 212 pp. ISBN: 978-0988476363 (pbk.) | $19.99 ISBN: 978-1940939001 (ebk.) | $9.99
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?”
Hey Yo! Yo Soy!
40 Years of Nuyorican Street Poetry The Collected Works of Jesús Papoleto Meléndez POETRY | 368. pp. ISBN: 978-0988476301 (pbk.) | $25.00 ISBN: 978-0988476318 (ebk.) | $9.99 NUYORICAN WORLD SERIES BILINGUAL: English/Spanish
HEY YO! YO SOY! is an 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. Foreword by Sam Diaz and Carmen M. Pietri Diaz; introduction by Sandra Maria Esteves; and an 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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Rivers of Women, The Play
An Outside in Literary & Travel Magazine Anthology Edited by Brandi Dawn Henderson
FALL 2014
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 twoway exchange, imagination as seeing, seeing as imagination.
WHEREABOUTS: Stepping Out of Place
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Imaginarium Sightings, Galleries, Sightlines
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SUPPORT 2LEAF PRESS! 2LEAF PRESS is an imprint of the Intercultural Alliance of Artists & Scholars, Inc. (IAAS) a NY-based nonprofit organization that promotes multicultural literature and literacy. Our press was launched in 2012 with our first book, Hey Yo! Yo Soy! 40 Years of Nuyorican Street Poetry, A Bilingual Edition by Jesús Papoleto Meléndez. Our founding was made possible with funding by a group of poets, writers, scholars, artists and activists, with profits and sales ploughed back into future publishing. While we are now vigorously seeking support from foundations, corporations, and state and federal funding, 2Leaf Press continues to push forward with the generous support from individuals who believe in the publication of quality work by culturally diverse authors.
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2Leaf Press salutes its supporters as seen listed below. Their support helps us publish the decidedly non-commercial books of poetry, prose and all in-between; the printing, promotion and distribution of our books; and innovative programming and events, such as our “2Leaf Press Presents” at the Bowery Poetry Club in New York City. We ask that you join us today in helping to insure the future of 2Leaf Press. You can donate on our website, www.2leafpress.org, or contact us at 646-801-4227 for further assistance. 2LP DONORS 2013 Donna Aiken Yvonne Aiken Usha Akella Stephanie Agosto Jon Andersen Maria Luisa Arroyo Sekou Molefi Baako Kimberly Banks Vagabond Beaumont Lynn Bloom Virtual Boricua Naydene Brickus Carolyn Butts J.J. Campbell Georgiana Cleary Francis Coughlin Paula Cruickshank
Gabrielle David Alison Desir Lucia Desir Carmen Ferradans Hermes Forbes Xiomara Forbez Lee Francis Brandi Henderson James Herring Bob Holman Lawrence La Fountain Lyah LeFlore Angela Magnan Michael Mahoney Kenneth Mcclane Jesús Papoleto Meléndez Eva Miller
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