39 WEST PRESS

39 West Press is an independent book publisher committed to releasing books that encourage critical thinking and promote constructive discourse on key social, cultural, political, and economic issues affecting life in the U.S.

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Alliecats: 53 Graphic Tales & Fun Puns About Cats illustrated by Allie Kirschner words and text by Ben Stoltzfus

Overview Mississippi said to Missouri, “If I put on my New Jersey, what will Delaware?” Virginia replied, “Alaska.” This wordplay on states’ names as vestments resembles the play and ambiguity in Alliecats, a wonderful collection of fifty-three graphic tales that catenate (link) meaning, sound, and likeness into clever puns.

Novelist and literary critic BEN STOLTZFUS penned the introduction and assembled the words. His granddaughter (cater-cousin), ALLIE KIRSCHNER, drew the pictures. You will purr with satisfaction as she romps with feline grace, caterwauling from catalog to Catalina, although not without an occasional cataclysm or catastrophe.

The purrposeful puns of Alliecats will amuse as you slide helplessly into a state of muscular rigidity, or catalepsy, while author and artist cater to your funny bone and make you laugh.

Product Details Publication Date: 24 Sep 2019 ISBN: 978-1-946358-25-7 LoC Control No.: 2019946320 Catalogue No.: 39WP-29 Pages: 82 Dimensions: 7 x 10 inches

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Tribespotting: Undercover Cult(ure) Stories by Harmon Leon cartoons by Keith Knight Overview Legendary infiltration journalist Harmon Leon has gone undercover again and returned with a new book. Gentleman cartoonist Keith Knight provides popular comics that enhance Leon's enlightening narrative. "This book was eye-opening ..." –David Litt, author of NY Times bestseller Thanks, Obama The United States is a divided country, where two disparate tribes fight to provoke, condemn, and defeat the other. In Tribespotting: Undercover Cult(ure) Stories, Harmon Leon dives directly into the eye of the tribal storm, drastically changing his look and attitude as he goes undercover in an exploration of tribal behavior and its many manifestations in modern culture. Employing the same inimitable style that he honed while infiltrating extremist groups, Leon introduces readers to a series of vastly different tribes, including a gathering of five thousand assault weapons fanatics, a clan of white supremacists who recruit at Applebee’s, a church of hookers who walk the streets for Jesus, and a meeting of cult members who stare at their leader’s handsome face. Some of these tribes engage in harmless, hobby-loving fellowship while others revolve around the adulation of charismatic celebrities. Some of these tribes strive to uplift the individual via religious enlightenment, and a few are actually full-blown cults. But at the root of all these different tribes lies the same psychological need—the desire to be around like-minded people. With that in mind ... LET'S DO SOME TRIBESPOTTING! Product Details Publication Date: 30 Jul 2019 ISBN: 978-1-946358-19-6 LoC Control No.: 2019930910 Catalogue No.: 39WP-28 Pages: 206 Dimensions: 6 x 9 inches Purchase online from one of these retailers: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or IndieBound.

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Isle of the Amazons in the Vermilion Sea narrated by Gregory MacDonald illustrated by Judith Palmer Overview Myth has it that Baja California was once ruled by a giant queen, Calafia. Her subjects were black Amazon women, and they lived in a land of ferocious griffins, tall mountains, precipitous cliffs, and deep valleys. Baja was also said to be an island of gold and precious stones. Spanish explorers, lured by tales of riches and beautiful women, were drawn to this mythical place. Jesuit priests, adventurers, fishermen, hunters, and the curious soon followed. In Isle of the Amazons in the Vermilion Sea, Gregory MacDonald has assembled a superb collection of excerpts from diaries, letters, field notes, books, and journals. These short impressions give us the sights, smells, sounds, and tastes of mountain hamlets, lush valleys, hot deserts, and blue seas, and together, they create a stunning narrative of the mythology, history, and topology of the Baja land, sea, and people. Montalvo, Cortéz, and Padre Eusebio Kino—in 1400, 1535, and 1701, respectively—describe the flora and fauna of a peninsula untouched by civilization, and in the twentieth century, Bancroft, Cannon, Crosby, Gardner, North, Steinbeck, and Octavio Paz, among others, speak of the fishing, the hunting, and, despite hardships, the pure joy of being. The writers observe fish pileups and feeding-frenzies; suffer insect bites, cactus pricks, and jellyfish stings; and are awed by magical sunsets, the silence of the desert, and the stars. Original illustrations by award-winning printmaker Judith Palmer transform Isle of the Amazons in the Vermilion Sea into a masterpiece. Product Details Hardcover Publication Date: 23 April 2019 ISBN: 978-1-946358-14-1 LoC Control No.: 2019930908 Catalogue No.: 39WP-26 Pages: 180 Dimensions: 8 x 10 x 0.6 inches Purchase online from one of these retailers: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or IndieBound.

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Dumpster, for God's Sake by Ben Stoltzfus Overview Loviers City believes that cleanliness leads to Godliness. But order quickly descends into chaos when a sighting of the Virgin occurs. Soon, thousands arrive to visit the spot where She appeared. But the pilgrims leave their mark, discarding refuse and besmirching Loviers City's All-America vision. Suspense mounts as Rudy Squazza, the red-bearded ringleader of the homeless, and Jasmine, a rich teenager working on a high school project, fall in love. He is a dumpster diver and the victim of police brutality. She dresses in black leather, rides a red Ducati Supersport 750, and is known as the “Angel from Hell.” Equal parts sociological lore and screwball comedy, Dumpster, for God's Sake bends reality into fiction in a uniquely American exploration of the passions that make us human. With compelling prose, canny insight, and artful empathy, Ben Stoltzfus brilliantly examines group behavior in a timely tale of collective zeal and righteous intent that explores a city’s urgent quest for soul. Product Details Hardcover, Paperback, eBook Publication Date: 9 April 2019 ISBN: 978-1-946358-16-5 LoC Control No.: 2019930909 Catalogue No.: 39WP-27 Pages: 244 Dimensions: 6 x 9 x 0.7 inches Purchase online from one of these retailers: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or IndieBound.

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To Act Is To Do Six Classes for Teachers and Actors Based on the Uta Hagen Technique

by Richard Alan Nichols

Overview

To Act Is To Do by Richard Alan Nichols, who studied as a scholarship student for five years with Uta Hagen at the HB Studio in New York, is the ultimate guide for both actors and teachers. In six informative and interactive class sessions, Nichols details twenty exercises designed to solve most acting problems that arise while working on plays. Also included are eighteen evaluations of work (scenes, monologues, and Hagen exercises) presented by Nichols' students, with each evaluation serving as a model for teachers to follow in order to assist actors in learning how to assess their own work in an honest way. This unique exploration—the personal journey of one actor’s lifelong quest to perfect his craft while in pursuit of becoming a player—will help all actors develop the discipline necessary to fine-tune their acting instruments and discover new behaviors in themselves.

Product Details

Hardcover Publication Date: 9 January 2018 ISBN: 978-1-946358-06-6 LoC Control No.: 2017960410 Catalogue No.: 39WP-25 Pages: 180 Dimensions: 6 x 9 inches

Praise

"In To Act Is To Do, Richard Alan Nichols reconnects me with the craft of acting and feeds my curiosity, as he does in class. Anyone who experiences his guidance and attention can’t help but benefit from it.”

–Kathleen Warfel, professional actor

“As an actor and acting coach, I practice the techniques Richard Alan Nichols presents in this book. For the last thirty years, they have been-and still are-vital tools as I pursue my career!”

–Nancy Marcy, Teaching Artist for The Coterie

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Romoland

by Ben Stoltzfus & Judith Palmer (artist)

Overview

Romoland, a postmodern event conjoining feminist artist Judith Palmer and novelist Ben Stoltzfus, uses twenty-five art works as generative surfaces for a series of dialogues between a man and a woman. The images and the text explore the historical subjection of women by men, their deliverance through art, and the dismantling of cultural codes. Both texts foreground the voice of the Other as it manifests itself in the traces, lines, and cracks of speech—be they visual or verbal. The arabesques of the woman’s sensibilities oppose the squares of man’s authority. Her art speaks and his text sees. Together, they unveil another space between the pictures and the text—the body of bliss and equality—in a way that is ironic, comic, and playful.

Product Details

Hardcover/Paperback Publication Date: 12 December 2017 ISBN: 978-1-946358-12-7 LoC Control No.: 2017962314 Catalogue No.: 39WP-24 Pages: 104 Dimensions: 8 x 8 x 0.4 inches

Praise

Romoland's "originality lies ... in its gendered, multilayered, culturally allusive presentation of the compelling and complex encounter within and between picture and word."

–Roch C. Smith Professor Emeritus, French, UNC-Greensboro, American Book Review

"Romoland is an amazing collaboration between two artists: a woman and a man, a wife and a husband. The woman's visual strategy, in conjunction with the man's witty 'ecofeminist' text, plots the liberation of women—persistently and playfully."

–Ai Ogasawara Associate Professor, Kwansei Gakuin University, Japan

"In this delightful work, received ideas about the separate domains of masculine and feminine, inner and outer, line and mass, visual and narrative art, ruler and ruled, master and servant are playfully and seriously inverted to reveal that our unconscious sexual coding of space, time and form is coming undone."

–Juliet Flower MacCannell author of The Hysteric's Guide to the Future Female Subject

"Echoes in Romoland can be traced to Surrealism's use of dreams and the unconscious to create art, to the playful disruptions of Dada, and to the Situationists' conception of art as pollitical performances of revolt. [It] appeal[s] to ... those interested in the relations between ... fiction and critical reflection on the nature and purposes of the arts."

–Lynn A. Higgins Edward Tuck Professor of French, Dartmouth College, The Comparitist

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Meet the Deplorables Infiltrating Trump America

by Harmon Leon and Ted Rall

Overview

Legendary infiltration journalist HARMON LEON is at it again, this time teaming up with ferocious political cartoonist TED RALL to answer the question most of America has been asking: "What the hell happened in 2016?" In their new book, Meet the Deplorables: Infiltrating Trump America, Leon goes deep undercover into the heart of Trump America, and Rall—two-time winner of the RFK Journalism Award and a Pulitzer Prize finalist—adds an innovative extra dimension to the book with his own essays and full-color cartoons.

Running throughout Meet the Deplorables, Rall’s distinctive artwork enhances the insightful and often irreverent tone employed by Leon—an award-winning New York journalist whose stories have appeared in VICE, Esquire, The Nation, and National Geographic. In his inimitable Gonzo-style, Leon’s carefully crafted narrative is designed to help us understand (and humanize) the "deplorables," a word used by Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign to describe the racist, sexist, homophobic, and xenophobic supporters of Donald J. Trump.

For the sake of humor and satire, Leon ventures where elite coastal journalists dare not: deep into Red State territory, where his audacious accounts vicariously take readers on a journey of enlightenment by providing a fresh and first-hand perspective of right-wing subcultures and those most adversely affected by Trump’s appalling policies on immigration, healthcare reform, and race relations. His exploits include:

visiting an anti-Muslim hate group during the height of Islamophobia

knocking door-to-door as a canvasser for the Trump campaign

joining a conversion therapy group that tries to “turn” homosexuals straight

attending a gun store wedding where couples seal vows by firing assault rifles

watching fanatics receive free Trump tattoos

participating in a Christian purity ring ceremony in Ohio.

This unique collaboration between the formidable team of Harmon Leon and Ted Rall holds up a mirror to modern conservative life and reflects a reality that is outrageous, entertaining, and always illuminating.

Product Details

Hardcover/Paperback/eBook Publication Date: 12 December 2017 ISBN: 978-1-946358-09-7 LoC Control No.: 2017960409 Catalogue No.: 39WP-23 Pages: 244 Dimensions: 6 x 9 inches

Praise

"A rollicking ride through Trumpland; Leon takes you on a tour of the stranger side of the States. By turns laugh-out-loud funny and poignant, it’s a vital guide to understanding what is happening in America today."

–Harriet Alexander US Correspondent for The Daily Telegraph

"If you’ve had the courage to peek out of your asshole and take a gander at our devolving America, you won’t be shocked the evils and inequities that Harmon Leon takes to task in this book. But you’ll be amazed how Leon’s hilarious subterfuge of a collapsed system can make us laugh as we slowly swirl down the muddy toilet."

–Doug Stanhope author of This Is Not Fame: A "From What I Re-Memoir"

"Anyone can mock their ideological enemies, but Harmon Leon does something revolutionary here—he actually gets to know them. A natural, endlessly engaging storyteller, Leon’s forays into Trump America are fascinating, funny, and incisive. Gonzo journalism at its finest."

–Davy Rothbart creator of Found Magazine, author of My Heart is an Idiot

"I got more of a sense of Trump's voters from this than from a lot of other reporting."

–Nancy Updike producer of This American Life

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Where Water Meets the Rock

by Lindsey Martin-Bowen

Overview

In her fourth collection of poetry, Where Water Meets the Rock, Lindsey Martin-Bowen explores loss and recuperation in three sections. "Erosion," the book's elegiac opening sequence, laments a trinity of tragic Greek personas: Pasiphaë, Psyche, and Antigone. The middle section, "Frenzies," a series of zany poems, emulates the ensuing topsy-turvy world that follows deep loss. And finally, "On the Shore" completes the triad, concluding that by re-seeing and re-building life, one can heal the psyche and the spirit. Once again, through the use of her recurring sea-rock metaphor, Martin-Bowen has employed a poetic technique that effectively maintains both a visual and auditory descriptive style, which, according to New Letters editor Robert Stewart, is defined by her "refreshing reliance on imagery and understatement."

Product Details

Paperback Publication Date: 18 July 2017 ISBN: 978-1-946358-05-9 LoC Control No.: 2017942503 Catalogue No.: 39WP-22 Pages: 100 Dimensions: 6 x 9 x 0.2 inches

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The Life and Times of José Calderon

by José Faus

Overview

If you would have met José Calderon on the street, you might have wondered if he was all there — not because the man lacked substance but because he blended well with shadows and light. Though tall and imposing, his gait was easy and slight, as if a breeze could carry him away like a scent or a leaf. One friend said of him: "He suffered his life silently to the point of indifference." That is until he found inspiration from an old gypsy woman with young girl's smile and set out to chronicle his life, motivated by "a question life had begun to ask of him."

The Life and Times of José Calderon — compiled from papers he left behind and the cryptic asides he made to the few acquaintances he let into his musty house on Independence Avenue in Anytown, USA, where he lived with a rambunctious cat and a majestic harp — follows This Town Like That, the debut book of poetry by José Faus.

Product Details

Paperback Publication Date: 30 May 2017 ISBN: 978-0-9908649-8-1 LoC Control No.: 2016953095 Catalogue No.: 39WP-21 Pages: 118 Dimensions: 6 x 9 x 0.3 inches

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A Secret History of the Nighttime World

by Jason Ryberg

Overview

Welcome to the world of Jason Ryberg—a world of true crimes and misdemeanors in the American grain—transformed through the poet’s retelling into miniature works of art. Reading Ryberg is like driving a pick-up truck across Kansas on shrooms, and his imagery, as fresh as a midnight S curve, takes the reader on a journey from city streets to wheat fields, navigating through a landscape bright with the "five-battery-flashlight of a moon." A Secret History of the Nighttime World, the twelfth book of poetry by Ryberg, delivers one great breath of fire directly from his heart onto the page.

Product Details

Paperback Publication Date: 25 April 2017 ISBN: 978-1-946358-04-2 LoC Control #: 2017938920 Pages: 132 Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.5 x 0.3 inches

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Black Girl Shattered by Sheri Purpose Hall

Overview Black Girl Shattered, the third book by spoken word artist Sheri Purpose Hall, effortlessly weaves her spirituality, black consciousness, and femininity into a tapestry of fully poetic words that are part memoir, part Black Studies thesis, part feminist manifesto, and part sacred text. By exploring the root causes of misfortunes that have been engineered to break the spirit of every woman—and revealing a path that leads to the beauty of mending—she ministers to all women (and men) while also speaking directly to issues that are both unique and specific to the black woman. This collection of poetry, prose, epistles, and essays is built on the kind of raw honesty designed to reveal, refresh, and uplift.

Paperback Publication Date: 21 February 2017 ISBN: 978-1-946358-01-1 LoC Control #: 2016958895 Pages: 130 Dimensions: 6 x 9 x 0.3 inches

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Desolate Country We the Poets, United, Against Trump Edited by j.d.tulloch

Overview Now, more than ever, our collective voices (and actions) must stand united in opposition to Donald J. Trump, who—by following the demagogue's playbook—seeks to divide and conquer by turning Christians against Muslims, white folks against people of color, men against women, and straights against LGBTQIAs, thereby creating fear and hate amongst the populace.

While We the People quarrel and vilify each other, Trump, without opposition, slyly invokes his true agenda: the marginalization of the masses and the continued facilitation of the advancement and concentration of wealth of the most affluent members of our society, which is evidenced by his billionaire cabinet nominees and bizarre infatuation with Russian President (and evil dictator) Vladimir Putin.

Desolate Country, therefore, represents an amalgamation of defiant work by established artists and those who, as a result of Trump's election, were inspired to write in protest. It aims to give voice to believers in the power of art as both a spiritual catharsis and a manifestor of change and to those who are morally opposed to saying, "Trump is my President."

Paperback Publication Date: 13 January 2017 ISBN: 978-1-946358-02-8 LoC Control #: 2017900193 Pages: 96 Dimensions: 6 x 9 x 0.2 inches

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Novel Cliché Aphorisms

by Jeanette Powers

Retail Price: $10.00 Paperback: 72 pages, 4x6 ISBN: 978-1-946358-00-4 LoC Control #: 2016958886 Publication Date: 29 November 2016

Overview: Poet Jeanette Powers, well-known for her quips, presents her first collection of modern maxims. Novel Cliché: Aphorisms is a book of simple thoughts, or micropoems, that range from humorous to potent to pointing, and each adage is memorably quotable.

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Corazón y una lengua peregrina by Latino Writers Collective edited by Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs

Retail Price: $18.00 Paperback: 128 pages, 6x9 ISBN: 978-0-9908649-9-8 Library of Congress Control Number: 2016956737 Publication Date: 15 November 2016

Overview: Corazón y una lengua peregrina es una antología atípica que recoge en sus páginas a escritores de diferentes meridianos literarios. Es un compendio de historias en que la realidad y la ficción se mezclan para crear un mundo alterno que surge de la problemática social de sus protagonistas.

La escritora Mexicana, Minerva Margarita Villarreal, en su comentario del libro Corazón y una lengua peregrina, hace una apología de la literatura de habla hispana en los Estados Unidos, y como ella misma menciona, es la defensa de "una cultura permanentemente amenazada con la deportación", añadiendo que la segregación a que se ven sometidos los hispanos indocumentados en los Estados Unidos va acompañada del acoso y el rechazo social, que hace que los inmigrantes se mantengan y experimenten una vida de miedo constante. Por lo tanto, la defensa de la lengua es la defensa de la cultura.

De ahí, la importancia del lanzamiento de esta antología, cuando empieza a hacer carrera en este país, un sentimiento atávico de odio hacia los inmigrantes, que promete criminalizar a los individuos simplemente por su lengua, color o religión; todo ello impulsado por personajes de ingrata recordación, pero que revisten gran importancia en una nación que siempre se calificó como tierra de inmigrantes.

En este libro hay veintiocho poemas de facturas muy diferentes, pero que a pesar de las barreras generacionales de sus autores, conforman un todo homogéneo que nos revela una preocupación universal por nuestra identidad y nuestros orígenes. También encontramos once cuentos, relatos deslumbrantes, que recrean la vida y la muerte, en un transcurrir de disímiles experiencias que nos transportan a la madre tierra. Si bien los poetas de esta antología cuestionan en una reflexión interna y profunda el tipo de sociedad en que vivimos, de igual modo, nos presentan el amor como una consecuencia natural y algunos relatos nos brindan una muestra de brillante humor que nos trae de regreso a la realidad.

Praise for Corazón y una lengua peregrina: Juan Felipe Herrera, Poeta laureado de Estados Unidos: "Esta antología es un nuevo mar de voces hondas, energías de Rosario Castellanos, Neruda y Borges-añoranzas, micro-historias que nos iluminan. Celebremos estos poetas de infinitos horizontes."

Minerva Margarita Villarreal, Premio Nacional de Poesía, Aguascalientes, México, 2016: "Esta es la virtud del libro Corazón y una lengua peregrina. La defensa de la escritura en español es la defensa no sólo de la lengua, sino de una cultura permanentemente amenazada con la deportación, una cultura de indocumentados, en la que ser hispano es estar marcado por la segregación y estar condenado a vivir con miedo, bajo el acoso y el estigma. Una cultura en la que el español queda relegado a la vergüenza, como si nuestra lengua fuera útil sólo para el sector terciario, para nombrar comidas y exigir trabajos que implican extenuantes fatigas."

Duncan Tonatiuh, Premio al mejor Illustrador de Libros Infantiles por el New York Times: "Corazón y una lengua peregrina posee una amplia gama de voces. Refleja la diversidad de los autores Latinos que la conforman. Sin embargo hay un sentimiento que impregna todas sus hojas. Estos escritores se niegan a olvidar sus raíces y se niegan a olvidar las injusticias."

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Promtps! A Spontaneous Anthology edited by jeanette powers & j.d.tulloch

Retail Price: $15.00 Paperback: 102 pages, 6x9 ISBN: 978-0-9908649-7-4 LoC Control #: 2016953067 Publication Date: 25 October 2016

Overview: In June 2016, Jeanette Powers sent out a social media call egging on the artists of Poetic Underground—a whiskey drinking, verbal slinging, raucous and righteous open mic poetry sequence at the Uptown Arts Bar in Kansas City, MO—to contact her and request a prompt: a short, personally crafted phrase intended to be the inspiration for NEW SHIT! to spit at open mic night. During the follwing week, she issued over one-hundred prompts, leading to the epic readings of volumes of New Shit! But other folks, many of whom were unable to attend open mic, wanted to be part of the shenanigans; so, the idea of a prompts book was born.

Prompts! A Spontaneous Anthology represents the outpouring of new work by both fledgling and established writers and artists, which was engendered, simply, by the offer of a prompt.

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Ghost Sign by Al Ortolani, Melissa Fite Johnson, Adam Jameson, JT Knoll

Retail Price: $20.00 Paperback: 210 pages, 5.5x8.5 ISBN: 978-0-9908649-6-7 LoC Control #: 2016953095 Publication Date: 11 October 2016

Overview: In the 1920s and 1930s, Pittsburg, KS was a major coal-mining town, attracting various ethnic groups from southeast Europe and beyond. The often belligerent and divisive spirit of the miners--and the unpredictable politics of Southeast Kansas--earned the region the nickname, "The Little Balkans." The four poets (Al Ortolani, Melissa Fite Johnson, Adam Jameson, JT Knoll) appearing in this collection carry forward that same proud, independent spirit. They call themselves White Buffalo, after a now-defunct café in Pittsburg that offered writers, poets, artists, musicians, and friends a place of warmth and community, which in turn fostered an environment of challenge and diversity.

Ghost Sign epitomizes honest work that is both lyrical and painful while simultaneously joyous and sad. It is rooted in folklore and mystery, and its place is informed by powerful imagery: sunlight on the crater of a strip pit, the shadow of an owl at Camp 50, junkyard mechanics, railroad men, and a grandfather at a piano plunking out Methodist hymns. With craft and passion, the Ghost Sign poets, who each know how to remember, resurrect those indomitable, lost places, folks, and ghosts from the forgotten past of Southeast Kansas.

Published in partnership with Spartan Press.

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Nomadic? Rover by Days Singing These Gang Plank Songs of the Ambler by Hugh Merrill

Retail Price: $18.00 Paperback: 64 pages, 6x9 ISBN: 978-0-9908649-5-0 LoC Control #: 2016947066 Publication Date: 13 September 2016

Overview: Hugh Merrill, the printmaker, has a dirty little secret: for many years, he has been covertly writing … poetry. His debut book of poems, Nomadic? Rover by Days Singing These Gang Plank Songs of the Ambler, reflects the intense and unguarded energy of a vital artist and natural storyteller who has deep connections to both historic and current movements. His subject matter ranges from childhood memories of racial inequality to contemporary ideas of gender fluidity, and his absurd ditties tickle the what the fuck bone in all of us. Littered amongst the poems are moments of prose and snippets of email exchanges between Merrill and his editor, Jeanette Powers. But perhaps the most dynamic aspect of this book is the inclusion of Merrill's original drawings and handwritten notes, which occupy the space around the poems: visual expansions from the poet’s haptic nonce of a squirrelly soul.

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