2Leaf Press 2014 Spring Catalog

“Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems.”

— Rainer Maria Rilke

SPRING 2014

www.2leafpress.org new york city

2LP FEATURED WRITERS & ARTISTS The Writers Stephanie Agosto Usha Akella 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 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

FOUNDED IN 2012, 2LEAF PRESS has jumped into the small press arena and is making waves. In just an incredibly short period of time, 2Leaf Press is injecting new blood into the contemporary literary scene with emerging and established authors. We’re also quickly building a reputation of publishing literary fiction and cultural non-fiction that’s completely distinct from works published by most large commercial presses.

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,” committed to bringing readers an eclectic mixture of multicultural authors. As a small press, we publish a limited number of titles (approximately twenty annually in Spring and Fall), so our goal is to publish the highest quality works with an original approach that’s intelligent in concept and execution.

Independent publishers like 2Leaf Press provide a supportive home for authors whose books are given the attention they deserve. The books in this catalog are immediately wide-ranging and diverse. Although it’s insidious to pick out individual titles, I cannot resist mentioning Last Poets Abiodun Oyewole’s first poetry collection, Branches of the Tree of Life, an historical body of work that spans from 1969 to 2013. It’s also worth noting Lisa Sánchez González’ bilingual edition, Puerto Rican Folktales / Cuentos folclóricos puertorriqueños, the first offering in nearly fifty years of traditional Puerto Rican folktales and legends presented in book form that contains beautiful artistic renderings. Puerto Rican Folktales is our first hardcover, 4-color edition, which will be available in paperback this Fall. All of our books are worthy of your consideration, and I encourage you to learn more about them as you peruse our catalog. You can always find out more information about our books and authors, including updates, book trailers and author readings on our website, 2leafpress.org.

We are 2Leaf Press, a small press with big ideas! Happy reading.

— Gabrielle David Publisher

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Here’s who we are and what we do: We are a small volunteer staff of seven people and with the support of an incredible nonprofit organization, The Intercultural Alliance of Artists and Scholars, Inc. (IAAS) and its stellar board members, we make the books happen. What we lack in size, we make up for in integrity, energy and commitment. We’re interested in publishing literary works, specifically poetry, memoir, narratives, and non-fiction; anthologies and collections of essays and short stories; novels and historical works as they pertain to literature. Our press has three series: NUYORICAN WORLD SERIES, 2LP TRANSLATIONS and 2LP CLASSICS. We publish hardcover and paperback books using print-on-demand technology, and our eBooks are available on Kindle, Nook, Kobo, Google Play and iBookstore.

SPRING 2014

This is why 2Leaf Press is always on the lookout for strikingly unconventional manuscripts and book proposals. A wellwritten novella, an off-beat memoir, a cool book of photography, an epic poem, or a book of photography and crazy illustrations is some of the books we are currently publishing. When we accidentally stumbled upon the idea of creating a bilingual edition with our very first book, Hey Yo! Yo Soy! 40 Years of Nuyorican Street Poetry, The Collected Works of Jesús Papoleto Meléndez, who knew that in our desire to build a comprehensive catalog of multicultural works, translations would become the bedrock of 2Leaf Press? And that our first book would be adapted into an off-Broadway play?

Then there’s 2Leaf Press’ first love: Poetry. Good poetry. Interesting poetry. Exciting poetry. Shocking poetry. Thoughtful poetry. We’re publishing across a broad range of categories—always with the goal of delivering innovative books to discerning readers.

Puerto Rican Folktales

Cuentos folclóricos puertorriqueños

by Lisa Sánchez González Translated by Bayrex | Illustrations by Teofilo Olivieri NUYORICAN WORLD SERIES | Bilingual: English/Spanish

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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.

Translations by Bayrex with illustrations by Teofilo Olivieri.

SPRING 2014

“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 “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, $29.99 192 pp. , 8.5” x 8.5” ISBN: 978-1-940939-12-4 (hdc.)

ISBN: 978-1-940939-13-1 (pbk.)

June 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). An Associate Professor of English at the University of Connecticut, Sánchez currently teaches courses in American, Caribbean, and western literary history.

Branches of the Tree of Life

The Collected Poems of Abiodun Oyewole 1969-2013 Introduction by Betty J. Dopson | Edited by Gabrielle David

SPRING 2014

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. During his forty year career and his long affiliation with The Last Poets, Oyewole is often credited for liberating American poetry by creating open, vocal, spontaneous, energetic and uncensored vernacular verse that paved the way for Spoken Word and Hip-Hop. 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 by Vagabond.

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“I have been listening to Abiodun since middle school and have had the honor to grace many stages with him. He is truly a pioneer . . . He will go in the archives for centuries to come.”

— ETAN THOMAS, poet, author and NBA champion “Branches of The Tree of Life is a literary treasure. Abiodun Oyewole is a living legend who speaks truth to power and celebrates the life, struggles, triumphs, beauty and realities of being African in America.”

— LINDA H. HUMES, African Studies Dept. John Jay College Founder, Yaffa Cultural Arts Inc. “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.”

— JESSICA CARE MOORE, award-winning poet and publisher 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. He travels around the world, performing poetry and teaching workshops.

Paperpack, $24.99 274 pp.; 6” x 9” ISBN: 978-1-940939-03-2 (pbk.)

ISBN: 978-1-940939-04-9 (eBook) May 2014

After Houses

Poetry for the Homeless by Claire Millikin Introduction by Tara Betts

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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. The poems move through an American landscape, between the South and the North, between childhood and adulthood, reaching toward a home that’s never reached, but always at one’s fingertips. 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 by Gary Baller.

SPRING 2014

“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’s deeply perceptive and elegiac poems remind us that the words we use to define the world are the same words that define our losses. . . . Both lush with language and haunting, After Houses is a work of uncanny beauty.”

— KATHLEEN ELLIS, “Vanishing Act” “As Claire Millikin puts it in the final poem of her After Houses, Poetry for the Homeless, ‘This is a book of escape & survival.’ Although all of us readers’ lives differ, this book can also be shared as ‘our history. Don’t turn away.’”

— HENRY BRAUN, poet and peace activist, author of “Loyalty, New and Selected Poems” Paperback, $16.99 160 pp. , 6” x 9” ISBN: 978-1-940939-30-8 (pbk.)

ISBN: 978-1-940939-31-5 (eBook) May 2014

CLAIRE MILLIKIN is a poet, professor and scholar. Her poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals and magazines, and she has published the chapbook The Gleaners (2013), her first poetry collection, Museum of Snow (2013). Millikin’s book, Witnessing Sadism in Texts of the American South, is forthcoming. She currently teaches Art History and Sociology as a Lecturer at University of Virginia.

Our Nuyorican Thing

The Birth of a Self-Made Identity

by Samuel Diaz Carrion | Introduction by Urayoán Noel NUYORICAN WORLD SERIES

SPRING 2014

In OUR NUYORICAN THING, BIRTH OF A SELF-MADE IDENTITY, poet, writer and activist Samuel Diaz Carrion explores the question, “What is a ‘Nuyorican’?” What started out as blog correspondence for the Nuyorican Poets Cafe’s website (2001-2004), quickly turned into a cultural exchange about the Cafe and Puerto Rican culture. OUR NUYORICAN THING is a compendium of those blog entries and emails, that includes Diaz Carrion’s poetry, seen through the eyes of a “Puerto Rican Indiana Jones” who has quietly studied “the trade route of a new language . . . collecting poetry and stories as the artifacts of the day.” This collection is riveting, informative and delightful, and will satisfy any reader with an appetite for cross-cultural discussions. Cover art by Clare Ultimo.

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“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!”

—SANDRA MARÍA ESTEVES, poet, teacher and activist “Sam Diaz, an original from the time the Nuyorican poets first walked as in Genesis, deconstructs and reconstructs all of those assumptions of identity and poetry that wonders identity. Take the plunge, you may find your own ‘Nuyoness.’”

— KEITH ROACH, poet, author, activist and former Nuyorican Poets Cafe SlamMaster

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. Over the years, he has coordinated poetry and reading series, notably for Pedro Pietri and the Nuyorican Poets Cafe.

Paperback, $16.99 132 pp., 6” x 9” ISBN: 978-1-940939-07-0 (pbk.)

ISBN: 978-1-940939-08-7 (eBook) May 2014

Birds on the Kiswar Tree

by Odi Gonzales | Translated by Lynn Levin 2LP TRANSLATIONS | Bilingual: Spanish/English

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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. Canvas by canvas, poem by poem, Gonzales gives us a poetry collection as a living and talking museum in which the Quechua artists of Peru’s past demonstrate both their sincere Christian faith and their opposition to the Spanish destruction of the Inca empire. 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. Odi Gonzales is the author of seven poetry collections.

BIRDS ON THE KISWAR TREE, an English translation by Lynn Levin, is Gonzales’ first book to be published in a bilingual Spanish/ English edition. Cover art by Eugen Berlo.

SPRING 2014

“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” “This bilingual edition offers readers an eye-opening, rich and transformative experience. Lynn Levin’s translation captures the power and nuanced registers of Odi Gonzales’ tour de force: a gift to Anglophone readers!”

—THALIA PANDIRI, Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature, Smith College Editor-in-Chief, “Metamorphoses” “Birds on the Kiswar Tree is a powerful, poignant and compelling series of poems, truly a verbal museum or gallery of works by underappreciated artists quietly defying their oppressors.”

—CAROLYNE WRIGHT, American Book Award, Blue Lynx Prize Paperback, $18.99 140 pp. , 6” x 9” ISBN: 978-1-940939-24-7 (pbk.)

ISBN: 978-1-940939-25-4 (eBook) May 2014

ODI GONZALES is an award-winning poet who writes in both Que-

chua and Spanish. In collaboration with writers and academics, Gonzales has translated into English a significant body of work on the Peruvian oral tradition for institutions such as the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC. 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.

Boricua Passport

by J. L.Torres

NUYORICAN WORLD SERIES

SPRING 2014

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. For many Puerto Ricans the sense of being unhomed — having a homeland but not really feeling at home anywhere — is a real lived experience determined by a persisting and unsettled colonial condition.

In BORICUA PASSPORT, Torres, screams, shouts, rejoices, celebrates, tickles and challenges with a poetry sprinkled with Spanish/ Spanglish that is immediate and urgent. His is a testimony to the indefatigable Puerto Rican spirit which, although burdened by this colonial condition, still strives to cobble a hybrid world full of love, passion and hope. It’s your passport into a world simultaneously real and imaginary, one most people don’t even know exists. A must read! Cover art by Vagabond.

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“J.L. Torres’ poems draw a line in the sand from the blue green crystal clear agua buenas of Puerto Rico to the blue salsa funk of the Boogie Down. . . .You don’t need a passport to be transported to the world(s) in the words of Torres’ verse — just your heart and head and an imagination scopic and distended as the universe.”

— TONY MEDINA, poet and activist, author of “Broke Baroque” “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.”

— URAYOÁN NOEL, poet, professor and scholar

J. L. TORRES is Professor of English at SUNY Plattsburgh, where he teaches both American and Latina/o Literatures, and Creative Writing. He is the author of The Family Terrorist and Other Stories (2008), and the novel, The Accidental Native (2013). Torres also serves as Editor of the Saranac Review, and is co-editor of Writing Off the Hyphen: New Perspectives on the Literature of the Puerto Rican Diaspora. His poetry has appeared in numerous publications.

Paperback, $16.99 116 pp. , 6” x 9” | ISBN: 978-1-940939-19-3 (pbk.)

ISBN: 978-1-940939-20-9 (eBook) May 2014

Incessant Beauty, A Bilingual Anthology

by Ana Rossetti Edited and translated by Carmela Ferradáns 2LP TRANSLATIONS | Bilingual: Spanish/English

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INCESSANT BEAUTY is a feast for the senses and the mind.

Ana Rossetti from Cádiz, Spain, is an award winning poet and writer. She became prominent among the many women poets who used the lifting of Spain’s censorship to produce a fresh, often daring, body of poetry. INCESSANT BEAUTY offers to an English-speaking audience a first glimpse into 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 playful, often cheeky, early poems for which she is well-known, to the more brooding meditations on transcendental human qualities, to the latest festive celebrations of the poetic word itself. Cover art by Spencer Sauter.

SPRING 2014

“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 “The English-language versions of these poems celebrate paradox; they are erotic and erudite, earthy and ethereal. . . . Ferradáns has given Anglophone readers a gift whose beauty is, indeed, relentless and incessant. And we are very grateful.”

—VIRGINIA BELL, Ph.D, Senior Editor, “RHINO Poetry” Adjunct Professor of English, Loyola University Chicago “Incessant beauty subsana esta carencia de una forma atrevida y equilibrada . . . la función poliédrica del arte, oficio e inspiración a partes iguales, artificio y talento en el sabio recorrido de un banquete poético.

Imprescindible.”

—TINA ESCAJA, artist and Professor of Spanish at the Unviesity of Vermont Paperback, $18.99 168 pp. , 6” x 9” ISBN: 978-1-940939-21-6 (pbk.)

ISBN: 978-1-940939-22-3 (eBook) May 2014

ANA ROSSETTI is an award-winning Spanish poet from Cádiz, Spain, known in some circles as the “Madonna of Spanish Letters.” Her most well-known poetry collections include Los devaneos de Erato (Premio Gules, 1980), Indicios vehementes (1985), Yesterday (1988), and Punto Umbrío (1996). In INCESSANT BEAUTY, editor and translator Carmela Ferradáns provides a wide range of selected works that capture the essence of Rossetti’s poetry.

2LP BACKLIST

SPRING 2014

Poems by Not4Prophet Graphics by Vagabond Introduction by Tony Medina

Providencia

a book of poems by Sean Frederick Forbes

NOV. 2013

Introduction by V. Penelope Pelizzon

ISBN: 978-09884763-3-2 (pbk.) | $16.99 ISBN: 978-0-9884763-2-5 (eBook) | $6.99 NUYORICAN WORLD SERIES

ISBN: 978-1-940939-01-8 (pbk.) | $16.99 ISBN: 978-1-940939-02-5 (eBook) | $6.99

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 the perpetual islands 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. As he elaborates this “otherness,” which includes the hassles of poverty, racial pride and racial discord, Not4Prophet pays homage to the old school cats from the Nuyorican and Black Arts movements. Written in free verse and layered with cultural and historical references, 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 by Jeffrey Akers; cover design by Vagabond.

OCT. 2013

PROVIDENCIA, Sean Frederick Forbes’ debut poetry collection, provides deeply personal poetry that digs beneath the surface of family history and myth. This coming-of-age narrative traces the experience of a gay, mixed-race narrator who confronts the traditions of his parents’ and grandparents’ birthplace: the seemingly idyllic island of Providencia, Colombia against the backdrop of his rough and lonely life in Southside Jamaica, Queens. These lyric poems open doors onto a third space for the speaker, one that does not isolate or hinder his sexual, racial, and artistic identities. Written in both free verse and traditional poetic forms, PROVIDENCIA conjures numerous voices, images, and characters to explore the struggles of self-discovery. Cover art by Holly Turner.

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

PAGE 12 SPRING 2014

Imaginarium

WHEREABOUTS: Stepping Out of Place

Sightings, Galleries, Sightlines Poetry by A. Robert Lee

An Outside in Literary & Travel Magazine Anthology Edited by Brandi Dawn Henderson

OCT. 2013

OCT. 2013

ISBN: 978-1-940939-05-6 (pbk.) | $16.99 ISBN: 978-1-940939-06-3 (eBook) | $6.99

ISBN: 978-0-9884763-6-3 (pbk.) | $19.99 ISBN: 978-1-940939-00-1 (eBook) | $9.99

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.

Sightings commemorates a dozen or so celebrated visual artists, among them J.M.W. Turner and Frida Kahlo. Galleries extends the usual meaning of the term to include vantage-points like a French archeological cave, a Bosphorus Straits crossing or a Tokyo station. Sightlines frames a run of personal encounters within the heights and widths of buildings and landscapes. IMAGINARIUM: SIGHTINGS, GALLERIES, SIGHTLINES is a delightful yet informative collection that invites readers into a two-way exchange, imagination as seeing, seeing as imagination. Cover art: © DrAfter123/iStock Vector/Getty Images.

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 stories discussing what it means to enter a new place; the kinds of worlds that exist to others that we, ourselves, do not experience; and how place and/or circumstance can affect who and what we are. Whether it is the story of a dog musher’s girlfriend, a heavy-metalloving Marine, an Inner Mongolian lover, or a Mormon missionary living in a dangerous land, this anthology explores the question: Why does anyone take the first step to anywhere he or she doesn’t “belong?”

SPRING 2014

by Tony Medina Introduction by Ishmael Reed JUL. 2013

Brassbones & Rainbows The Collected Works of Shirley Bradley LeFlore MAY 2013

ISBN: 978-0-9884763-5-6 (pbk.) | $18.95 ISBN: 978-9884763-9-4 (epub) | $9.99

ISBN: 978-0-9884763-4-9 (pbk.) | $18.99 ISBN: 978-9884763-8-7 (epub) | $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. With razor-sharp scatological whimsy, Medina’s iconic ironic existential everyman — Broke — bears witness to the plight of homelessness from his curbside porch, torching the capitalist system and its myriad societal contradictions. 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

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.

In BRASSBONES & RAINBOWS, 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. While LeFlore tackles social, political and cultural issues with a profound love for humanity, she also provides insight into self-identity, inner-strength, beauty and faith. 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.

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Broke Baroque

PAGE 14 SPRING 2014

Hey Yo! Yo Soy!

Rivers of Women,The Play

by Shirley Bradley LeFlore with photographs by Michael J. Bracey MAY 2013

ISBN: 978-0-9884763-7-0 (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 simple yet breathtaking. Here is the complete text, including stage directions, accompanied with photographs by award-winning, Chicago-based photographer Michael J. Bracey. This poignant, heartfelt, humorous and powerful play explores family, love, woman-to-woman experiences, race and religion, speaking to the very soul of the reader. In all, it is a descriptive, evocative, lyrical production filled with folk sentiments, conjuring familiar images that seem to be more the craft of an urban anthropologist than a poet, which is clearly the genius of Shirley Bradley LeFlore.

Cover photo: Michael J. Bracey.

40 Years of Nuyorican Street Poetry The collected works of Jesús Papoleto Meléndez OCT. 2012

ISBN: 978-0-9884763-0-1 (pbk.) | $25.00 ISBN: 978-9884763-1-8 (epub) | $9.99 NUYORICAN WORLD SERIES

HEY YO! YO SOY! is an historical poetry collection comprised of legendary Nuyorican poet Jesús Papoleto Meléndez’ three previously published books. In this collection, Meléndez shares stories about growing up Puerto Rican in New York City’s El Barrio during the 1960s and 1970s. The poems also cover social and political topics that remain relevant even today. 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. Includes photos and an interview. Cover design: Jaime “Shaggy” Flores.

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.

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.

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

Taiji Miyagawa Myrna E Nieves Marina Ortiz Efrain Ortiz Jr Shenan Prestwich Claire Raymond Garrett Riggs Ofelia Robinson LeShannon Spencer Angela Sternreich Brian Stross Carol K. Taylor Jose Torres Wendy Vardaman Amber West Adam Wier

The Intercultural Alliance of Artists & Scholars, Inc, is a 501(c)(3) organization and a registered nonprofit corporation in the state of New York. All donations are tax-deductible to the full extent allowed by law. Online donations processed securely via PayPal. DISTRIBUTION Ingram and 2LP Distribution Direct | 2lpdd@2leafpress.org | 646-801-4227

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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

SPRING 2014

2LP DONORS 2013

THE INTERCULTURAL ALLIANCE OF ARTISTS & SCHOLARS, INC. (IAAS) PO Box 4378 Grand Central Station New York, New York 10163-4378