fall
A lice J ames B ooks
n e w s l e t t e r 2010
AJB STAFF Carey Salerno Executive Director
Julia Bouwsma Managing Editor
Tara Gagnon Editorial Assistant
Debra Norton Bookkeeper
COOPERATIVE BOARD MEMBERS Mihaela Moscaliuc, President Daniel Johnson, Vice President Laura McCullough, Treasurer Nicole Cooley, Secretary Catherine Barnett Joanna Fuhrman Ann Killough Anne Marie Macari Idra Novey Peter Waldor Ellen Doré Watson
INTERNS Shawn Callahan Emma Deans Samantha Ellis Melanie Frank James McCollum Kelsey E. Moore Front cover from Panic (01/2011) Image credit: “La Panique,” Julie Jalil Image of Alice James MS Am 1094 By permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University
Dear Friends: Happy late autumn to you; I trust this newsletter finds you in good health, well-rested—and perhaps traveled—from summer, and ready for new AJB books. The fall list is now upon us, and I hope you’re prepared for three spectacular and gorgeous collections by authors Chad Sweeney, Nicole Cooley, and Laura McCullough. I also hope you will enjoy this newsletter from cover to cover, learn and get excited about our latest authors and their books, and read about what AJB is doing to raise our profile and promote our authors in the poetry community. This summer, as you can see in the photo, we had some visitors at AJB—36 young and talented writers from many different states (page 9). In May, we also had a wonderful afternoon at the 2nd Annual Kinereth Gensler Awards Reading & Book Launch—complete with delicious wine and cheese—at Poets House in New York City. The event was generously sponsored and highly enjoyed by all (see page 11 for more). We’re hoping to keep doing this event for our KGA winners/new board members each spring. And not only have we been working hard on all of this, but we debuted another updated AJB website, a new AJB totebag, which is made of recycled fabric and features our AJB watermark (page 8), and so much more.
Kelsey Lowe
Volume 15, Number 2
poetry since 1973
If you’re happy with what we’re doing, I encourage you to let us know. And to all who have sent handwritten notes on book orders or donation envelopes, acknowledging your happiness with the press’s initiatives, please know we’re so grateful for the feedback and that you are pleased. Thanks for taking the time to let us know we’re making an impact. Last, but certainly not least, autumn marks the commencement of our 2010-2011 Annual Appeal, and we’re hoping to make this our best year yet, capitalizing on the improvements and gains we made last year. Our Annual Appeal goal is set at $15,000, and we’re nearly half way there, so keep the contributions coming—thanks to all who have already given generously. With your continued support and friendship, there’s nothing we can’t accomplish. Yours in poetry,
Carey Salerno, Executive Director
new books
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Chad Sweeney is the author of two previous books of poetry, Arranging the Blaze (Anhinga, 2009) and An Architecture (BlazeVox, 2007), and five chapbooks, most recently The Lost Notebooks of Juan Sweeney (Forklift, 2010)—and he is cotranslator, from the Farsi, of The Selected Poems of H.E. Sayeh (White Pine, 2011). Sweeney’s poems have appeared widely, including in Best American Poetry 2008 and American Poetry Review. He is coeditor of Parthenon West Review and editor of the anthology, Days I Moved Through Ordinary Sounds (City Lights, 2009). Sweeney holds degrees from San Francisco State University and Oklahoma University and is a PhD candidate at Western Michigan University where he teaches poetry and serves as assistant editor of New Issues Press. He lives with his wife, poet Jennifer K. Sweeney, and their son, Liam.
The Hangman’s Swamp The hangman has a secret talent. He sings so sweetly the insects gather around him as their queen, the queen of legend with lunar eyes.
Jennifer K. Sweeney
The hangman didn’t want to become a hangman. He took a personality test in third grade and chose the best of three options. After work he hurries into the swamp. Dragonflies ride on the back of his voice. Scorpions sting themselves in ecstasy.
PARABLE OF HIDE AND SEEK September 2010
Chad Sweeney
Praise for Parable of Hide and Seek “The poems in Chad Sweeney’s new book view the world through strangely faceted eyes (perhaps those of a dragonfly?)—actually they behold it, and as such they display a dazzling Rumiesque ecstasy, one that holds the reader as rapt as the creator of these poems is held by Creation. At any rate he is a shaman presiding over—of all things—the wedding of simplicity and sophistication.” —Mary Ruefle “Chad Sweeney’s poems are matryoshka dolls of imagination: strangeness inside longing inside charm. Relentlessly figurative, they read as dreamscapes and translations: if the human soul has peripheral vision, these poems are what it sees. And gentleness, gentleness abounds here and makes the point of fancy to unite, to bring one thing beside another and build a home of their touch.” —Bob Hicok “What to reveal and what to keep hidden? Parable of Hide and Seek dis/solves the problem by complicating it, deliberately revealing the best of our secrets and hiding all that’s obvious in both gravity and lightness. These poems turn the world inside out. Full-throttle forest! Astronaut winging! Whose shadow is that with a heartbeat so crushing? Ready or not, Chad Sweeney!” —Matt Hart