Marsh Hawk Press Blog

MARSH HAWK PRESS POETRY PRIZE

We’re very close to the end of the month and the deadline for submitting to the annual Marsh Hawk Press contest. In case you were planning to send in your entry but haven’t yet done it, your work will be entered into the contest so long as it is postmarked by April 30th.

Last year’s contest not only awarded the $1,000 prize and publication of her book to Jacquelyn Pope, but we were also able to offer publication to one of the runner’s-up, Sharon Olinka. Her book will appear next January 2006.

Best of luck to everyone entering the contest!

CONGRATULATIONS TO BURT KIMMELMAN

whose latest Marsh Hawk collection SOMEHOW is a "Featured Title" with Small Press Distribution!

SPD RECOMMENDS: NEW TITLES for April 9-April 25, 2005

ORDERS: 1-800-869-7553
ORDERS@SPDBOOKS.ORG
FAX: 1-510-524-0852
WWW.SPDBOOKS.ORG
Try Electronic Ordering!  SPD is on PUBNET (SAN #106-6617)
Questions?  Contact Brent Cunningham at brent@spdbooks.org

SOMEHOW
by Kimmelman, Burt
$15.00 / paper / pp.80
Marsh Hawk Press, 2005
ISBN: 0-9759197-0-9
Poetry. Kimmelman has previously published three collections of poetry, including a collaboration with the painter Fred Caruso. He teaches English at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, and is the author of two book-length literary-critical studies. "Burt Kimmelman is a poet who obviously admires the clarity of classical Chinese poetry and strives for it in his tight syllabics and in his shifting images of light and dark. In doing so, he finds what is luminously transcendent in the routines of everyday life" -- Harvey Shapiro.
http://www.spdbooks.org/details.asp?bookid=0975919709

JANE AUGUSTINE'S NIGHT LIGHT RECEIVES REVIEW FROM NEWPAGES BOOK REVIEWS!

Deborah Diemont offers a wonderful review of Jane Augustine's latest collection Night Lights. Congratulations to Jane for this review which is archived at http://www.newpages.com/bookreviews/archive/reviews/night_lights.htm

Here's an excerpt:

If awareness were madness, then reading Augustine’s poetry wouldn’t make me feel more sane. Night Lights is just the sort of poetry I like best: poetry that defies the jargon of criticism. It is not merely “well-crafted,” “lyrical,” “precise,” “meditative,” and “imagistic.” It touches us at the core.

Augustine never forgets she has a reader. She reminds us that when literature really matters, there is a feeling of holy communion between reader and writer. Sometimes her poems make me say, “ I knew that but I didn’t know I knew,” as in her fresh and startling, “The Painter Does Little Red Riding Hood.” Other poems, such as “Perspective,” which paints a jury room as an unsettling metaphor for a way of life make me think, “I wouldn’t have seen that and now my vision is richer.”

The poems in Night Lights make me feel richer for knowing them.

TOM BECKETT INTERVIEWS EILEEN TABIOS

over at the Will to Exchange Blog. Mentioned are Eileen's two Marsh Hawk Press books, I TAKE THEE, ENGLISH, FOR MY BELOVED and REPRODUCTIONS OF THE EMPTY FLAGPOLE. Here's an excerpt:

"As you know, my 2005 book ENGLISH is 504 pages. Part of the intended aesthetic for that book, by the way, is that I wanted its form to insert itself into mundane facets of life rather than just lying on a bookshelf. Hence, it can be used as a doorstop, or to help make one of my favorite foods, the Swedish/Finnish gravlax. For the latter, wrap the book in foil and use it as a brick to place atop the salmon as it’s being cured. I’m not talking fancifully here but still addressing my poetics: Poetry belongs outside the library!"

MARSH HAWK PRESS POETRY CONTEST

To remind, the deadline for Marsh Hawk Press' second annual poetry contest is coming up at April 30, 2005. We thought it may be useful to describe the process of our contest (judged this year by Gerald Stern):

How Contest Entries Are Judged

We use a blind judging system to arrive at the contest winner. This is how we do it:

1. After we’ve received your entry, we remove identifying information about you from the manuscript, and assign it a unique number. We also enter your name, address, name of your manuscript and the number we’ve assigned you into our database, in order to keep track of your work. The people who do this preparation do not judge the entries.

2. Once all entries have been received and the contest is closed, we divide the manuscripts into roughly equal piles and assign them to eight senior Marsh Hawk Press editors. The editors meet in teams of two to read each manuscript. Manuscripts are exchanged so that two editors read each entry.

3. When this initial screening process is complete, the 30-70 finalists are announced and the manuscripts are turned over to the final contest judge. Final contest judges must affirm that they have no knowledge of the author of the manuscripts that they are to read. Students, former students, relatives and friends of the judge are automatically excluded.

4. The winner and runners-up are announced approximately one month following the final judge’s receipt of the manuscripts.

Contest winners receive the $1,000 prize and publication of their book the following spring. The diversity and quality of the Marsh Hawk Press titles reflects the integrity and success of the screening and judging process. We invite you to judge for yourself.

MARSH HAWK PRESS INVITATION

You Are Cordially Invited To The Book Launch For Our Spring Titles:

Somehow by Burt Kimmelman

Skinny Eighth Avenue by Stephen Paul Miller, and

Watermark by Jacquelyn Pope

Wednesday, May 25th at 7:00 pm at
Teachers & Writers Collaborative
5 Union Square West
New York, NY 10003-3306

(Contact them at http://www.twc.org/tmmain.htm for directions, or call them at: 212-691-6590.)

Please attend yourself and bring a friend.

OUROWNVOICE REVIEWS I TAKE THEE, ENGLISH, FOR MY BELOVED

The new issue of OurOwnVoice features a review of Eileen Tabios' I TAKE THEE, ENGLISH, FOR MY BELOVED , as reprinted below:

"BEAUTIFUL AMBITION" TO TAKE ON ENGLISH

A Book Review by Guillermo Juan Parra

I'm reading through I Take Thee, English, for My Beloved, jumping around through the pages and like it very much. Particularly ... with couplets like these:

"End with Part 1. End to begin
all over again. No one ever teaches
what the end of the circle reveals..."

The title alone has got me very interested and is so brilliant because of how it undermines certain conceptions of what English is, while acknowledging its place as the global language, but going (through the poems) into the beauties of that particular language. How to weigh its pleasures and dangers. Of course, the cover photo makes me giggle,too.

There's an ambition in publishing such a massive book that I really respect. To take on English and do it in 500 pages is a brave act and one Tabios does beautifully.

Eileen's taking on an epic endeavor, emphasizing that poetics and verse can be written simultaneously. How many of us do love English, even though we mistrust its history. And why humor and vision remain so crucial.

(Guillermo Juan Parra is a poet, editor and critic who is working on an anthology of contemporary Venezuelan poets.)

REPRODUCTIONS GARNERS MORE ATTENTION!

Poet-blogger Ivy Alvarez dips into Reproductions and says:

"Like one of those novelty dipping birds, I'm taking small sips from Eileen Tabios' Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole. So aswarm is this book with imagery and thought-provoking phrases, I have to take a pencil in hand, so I can underline and make brief notes in the margins [something I haven't done since completing my MA]. My last note was on 'Profiles', which starts:

I returned to the wheat fields I had loved as a boy and realized I was just beginning a transition, your friend said as his hair swayed in the faint breeze.

"The nifty racecar twists and turns in that one sentence is, I am guessing, a fractal miniature of the book—I'll find out in due course. My pencil notes for this poem reads:

"'The I addressing Eileen
who shares the author's name
This is an I who is male
who perceives Eileen
as a woman without sisters
and who does not complete his thoughts.'"

Reproductions is also noted at the "English R1B/19: Advocacy & Abilidad" class blog where it is an assigned text over at U.C. Berkeley. Here are excerpts:

Eryk finds that he is initially feeling a bit lost when reading Eileen's poems, however, he writes: "What i did get from the poem though was a sadness," and in the second poem, he senses that "She seems to be talking about several things, and maybe she is really speaking of one topic, but I can't seem to grasp what that is? Once again though, she is speaking of art, visual art. Once again though, I am eage[r] to understand what she is talking about." Eryk is keeping an open mind, trying to understand, and that's good! We are still in the beginning of the book, and as we read on, we may detect some patterns in the writing...

Kristin also has some interesting thoughts on Reproductions, which also relates to Kenneth's question about why Eileen has used Greek culture as a topic to launch this book: "This...overall theme [of Greek culture] is very interesting to me since she is a Filipina poet who is apparently known for her work surrounding her own culture. Perhaps this connection to ancient Greek life is a way for Tabois to express another side of her, or maybe it is somehow related to Filipino culture. However, I have not quite figured out how it could be possibly connected in this way, but it must have some kind of significance since she has begun this book strategically with these essays. Some have mentioned the connection to colonialzation, or de-colonialzation, but I think there is another level there."

Certainly, one of the aspects of Eileen Tabios's poetry is that it is not simplistic, that it operates on a number of levels. Again, while we may not feel that we understand everything about the poems, there will be words, or phrases that resonate with you, perhaps remind you of something else. I think it will be interesting, as we read along, to see what other connections we can make, and of course, to find out what Eileen has to say about it!

Following a guest lecture today by Eileen, the students will be posting prose poems at their blog as inspired by Reproductions!

ROBERT CREELEY (1926-2005)

Marsh Hawk Press notes the passage of Robert Creeley, a poet whose generosity included a presence on our Artistic Advisory Board.

Robert Creeley, R.I.P.