Racing Hummingbirds


Book Description

Racing Hummingbirds examines, critiques, and at times delights in one woman's navigation through the many worlds of manic depression and her struggle to maintain humanity in the process. Jeanann Verlee's award-winning debut collection is a series of narratives, prayers, and conjurings which address gender, sex, race, poverty, heartbreak, and survival with such stark intimacy, you will find yourself living inside. These poems cannot possibly be about you, yet they are. They cross boundaries and reclaim hope. They are as the opening poem suggests, nothing short of communion. Fierce and formidable, Jeanann Verlee is poised to make an indelible mark – much like a razor slashing silk – on what's become a comfortably placid poetic landscape. Her unflinching and uncompromising stanzas will change the way you move through the world. -Patricia Smith, “Blood Dazzler” Any storyteller can recount powerful experience [she] makes you feel something powerful is happening in the telling. It is when safety dissolves that we discover possibility...It’s a special person that will make you wish they were your villain. -Brian S. Ellis, “Uncontrolled Experiments in Freedom" ...a roller coaster of imagistic magic. Form, language, allusion, and voice interact, collide, shape-shift, and duel...throughout an utterly arresting mosaic. -Danse Macabre Magazine




Said The Manic To The Muse


Book Description

Jeanann Verlee's second book, Said the Manic to the Muse, takes a deeper, more focused look at the erratic, whimsical, ominous, and sometimes perilous ways manic depression functions. Introduced through the careful prophecy of three archetypes: Medea, Jezebel, and Kali–each a woman largely misrepresented and wholly misunderstood–these poems detail the story of one woman's struggle to maintain both strength and sanity in the face of abandonment and aging. From dangerous trysts and barroom brawls to "grief-induced psychosis," Said the Manic to the Muse recounts the year she lost everything, including her mind.




Prey


Book Description

In her third book, PREY, Jeanann Verlee examines predatory relationships from childhood onward. Drawing parallels between human and non-human predators, the poems collected here strive to illuminate the trauma of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse-exploring what it is to become prey.




Aim For the Head


Book Description

A cross-section of some of the best contemporary poets from the stage and the page rise up and shamble their way through an anthology of post-apocalyptic zombie poetry. Funny, creepy, shocking, and even poignant, this collection challenges award winning authors like Scott Woods, Laura Yes Yes, and Khary Jackson to shake the dust off of old conventions, pull the triggers on their imaginations, and...Aim For The Head.




A Constellation of Half-Lives


Book Description

A Constellation of Half-Lives is a collection of poems that attempt to reconcile the crisis of living on a collapsing planet with the unreasonable joy of loving and the pleasure of being alive. With careful precision and an exquisite eye for detail, poet Seema Reza examines what it means to be a mother, a daughter, and an American in a time of war. Through second-person poems she questions whether the beauty of this world outweighs its fragility and risk.




Sunset at the Temple of Olives


Book Description

Paul Suntup, like many great artists of their time, has spent years in near obscurity with respect to his poetry. The publication of Paul's first full length book of poetry will finally establish this man as one of the most original and gifted voices of his generation. The imagery and cadence in Paul's poems is nothing short of miraculous. With very few words he is able to speak to our senses in a way that is at once reminiscent of some of the great poets, and at the same time, delivered in his own fiercely original and inventive voice. This long-awaited first book will please fans who have already discovered his writing, and will also open the doors for new readers to enjoy. This collection of poetry will become one of the more prized and admired works from a modern day poet. The world needs to KNOW what a fantastic writer this guy is. Seriously. One of the great unheralded writers of our time. - Victor D. Infante, “City of Insomnia” There is an abiding innocence throughout Paul's work that is impervious to the cynicism of our times, and that is the best thing of all, for it makes him one of the most gifted and original voices of our generation - Amélie Frank, author




The Heart Of A Comet


Book Description

The Heart of a Comet is a collection of poems and short stories offering the tale of Comet, who fell from the sky unto an unfamiliar plane of existence. On his quest to return home, he has many life-altering encounters with people and places that completely change his perspective of what it means to love and to live. Through this series of truths, the lines between dreams and reality so often blur, this creates a new mosaic to an ultimate revelation: the internal lesson of the true meaning of purpose. What are we here for? Why do we experience the things that we do, and why do we react to them in the ways that we do? All questions posed with seemingly infinite answers. In this conceptual miscellany, author Pages Matam touches on topics of immigrant experience to fatherhood and love in all of its beautiful but also often tragic and traumatic faces. As the tale unfolds, we become swallowed by a self reflective journey with a destination that could only be sought from one's own soul searching heart...the Heart of a Comet.




Rise Up!


Book Description

This is an account of an ethnically and racially diverse classroom of funny, endearing, and often poignant six-year-olds in a Seattle inner-city elementary school. The author, their volunteer literary coach, describes the classroom, their heroic teacher, a number of clever teaching modules, and the evolution of this school toward excellence. The children’s confidences, essays, and poetry sparkle with humor, and the unexpected viewpoints of childhood. Eight captivating students are profiled and featured for us in line drawing illustrations. In the final chapters some startling school district data is introduced as well as three common-sense recommendations to give all kids a fair chance in school. Having learned so much about the realities of public elementary education in her five years in the classroom, the author wanted to share the good news of what is possible with others who might otherwise view this as a grim subject.




Strange Light


Book Description

Derrick Brown's fourth and final collection of poetry and short stories is a unrelenting machine of honesty that has been called his finest collection of new work. Strange Light takes us back to the docks, to a violent drama class and boring prom, an undersea conversation with Jacques Cousteau, and into his famous romantic bursts of verse. The epic poem, Strange Light, anchors this collection as one of the most inventive and potent collections of modern American poetry. About.com called his 2009 collection Scandalabra, one of the best books of the year. Everything hilarious and stirring is illuminated. The power of Strange Light is waiting.




Floating, Brilliant, Gone


Book Description

In her electrifying debut, Franny Choi leads readers through the complex landscapes of absence, memory, and identity. Beginning in loss and ending in reflective elation, Floating, Brilliant, Gone explores life as a brief impossibility, “infinite / until it isn’t.” Punctuated with haunting illustrations by Jess X. Chen, Choi’s poems read like lucid dreams that jolt awake at the most unexpected moments.