My winter conference season finally came to an end with the AWP, the annual conference of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs. This year's AWP took place in NYC and I was urged by many friends to give it a try, "if only for the bookfair." As far as conferences go, this one was pretty laid back for me. I didn't give any papers or feel compelled to attend many panels. I spent my mornings working at the American Literary Translators Association table, raising visibility for my beloved organization, and my afternoons at the occasional panel or reading. But most of the time that I wasn't with ALTA, I was at the bookfair. The bookfair involved the participation of the usual suspects--mass market and university presses--but the real draw for me was the opportunity to support my favorite small and independent presses and to discover new, emerging publishers. One thing that I noticed is the increased interest in translation, which I found very encouraging both as a translator and scholar of translation. Action Books, in particular, stood out for me as a small publisher committed to English translations of contemporary writing. At their table, I picked up Jen Hofer's translation of Laura Solórzano's Lobo de labio and had a nice chat with Johannes Göransson, Action Books co-founder and editor and a translator of Swedish literature into English. He remarked that their decision to publish a translation is rarely guided by what is canonical. Their manifesto declares "We want poetry that goes too far," and that commitment to bold, experimental writing carries to their translation choices.
If you take a look at my book list (see post below), you'll notice quite a few purchases from Etherdome and Belladonna*, two presses that promote work written by women (in fact, only four of the books I acquired were written by men). Etherdome publishes two chapbooks a year and each one is stunning. I love the simplicity of their books--the layout of the poems is uncluttered and the covers always feature a delicate print in monochrome. Belladonna* refers to its chapbooks as pamphlets or "chaplets" and they have more of a classic zine feel to them than the Etherdome books. But belladonna* publishes with greater frequency, usually timing their chaplets for a poet's reading, and the range of the work they promote is more extensive (including poets like Marcella Durand, Alice Notley, Laynie Browne, Jen Benka). They also publish translations, most recently a gorgeous English translation of Lila Zemborain's Malvas orquídeas del mar (Mauve Sea-Orchids). (On 2/12, belladonna* is hosting a reading with the poets Barbara Cole and Elizabeth Robinson, who is one of the editors of Etherdome.)
One press I had never heard about until the bookfair was Pilot Books, which is affiliated with the on line poetry magazine Pilot. From their website:
We strive to publish innovative work, and believe that innovative work demands innovative design. All of our limited-edition poetry chapbooks and broadsides are designed and printed in ways unique and luminous to the manuscript itself. We use fine papers and construct all books by hand. Someday, we will own our very own Vandercook printing press and oh the fun we will have then!
The design and layout of their books generate unique reading experiences. Take for instance, their most recent publication: Joshua Marie Wilkinson's The Book of Flashlights, Clovers & Milk. The book is meant to be read from back to front and as you read, transparencies with text fill in the white spaces of the page before. This creates three distinct but related texts: the text on the page, the text on the transparency, and then the text they create when they are brought together. I love this kind of play and multiplicity. And I'm kicking myself for not picking up a copy. I am glad, however, that I decided to buy Lori Shine's Coming Down in White, a chapbook with a pale blue cover that folds like an accordion. The publishers recommend unfurling it and hanging it on the wall, and if it weren't for the fact that I am sure I would find a way to rip it accidentally, I would do this. The fragility of handmade books means that they often end up in a cool, dark box far from the bookshelf, but, that being said, the books made by Pilot Books felt sturdy and were priced very fairly. The Center for Book Arts also produces limited-edition, letter-pressed books (for the winners of its chapbook contest) but follows a more standard book design.
A final word on the bookfair. Most publishers and writers promoted new works with postcards and fliers, most of which get lost amid all of the paperwork you gather as you walk through the fair (in fact, there was an entire table on the second floor of the fair that looked like a purgatory for discarded paper). So the little blue origami bird that fell on the ALTA table made an impression. It was distributed by Briery Creek Press to promote A Book of Birds by Amy Tudor. I also liked the $3 chocolate candy bar (free with a purchase!) for Sholeh Wolpé's collection Rooftops of Tehran. Here's a picture:
As for panels--I did enjoy very much (though it feels strange to put it that way) a panel on "The Disabled Body Poetic." Greg Fraser talked about poetic form and disability and discussed the ironic relation between strict, regular forms in poems addressing the breakdown of the body. Paul Guest read the first chapter of his memoir One More Theory About Happiness, forthcoming from Ecco Books. A bicycle accident left him paralyzed at the age of twelve and as he described this moment--in very direct, unsentimental language--the audience reacted with soft gasps of dismay and a lot of cringing in seats. The point, which didn't need to be stated, is that readers respond to bodily disintegration and disability in literature with their bodies. We imagine (some don't even have to) our own "immobility and impairment" (quoting from the the panel description) and respond by holding our breath, clutching our hands. We remind ourselves that our bodies our still present and intact, for now. Guest's presentation gave me so much to think about it and since then, I've had the chance to read more of his poetry, which is absolutely wonderful (click link, scroll down to Exit Interview). I misplaced my notes from this panel but Jim Ferris read a poem, from his 2004 collection The Hospital Poems, which contained a great rhyme like "hope springs gymnastic/ I sing of the body plastic." The link I provide is not from a bookseller--you can find the book on Amazon, etc--but it does link to excerpts from this book. Finally, Susannah Mintz talked about Lucia Perillo's I Hear the Vultures Singing: Field Notes on Poetry, Illness, and Nature. My only notes were "MS, Park Ranger" which four days later I read as "Ms. Park Ranger." Perillo was a 2000 MacArthur Fellow and the author of several books of poetry, including Luck is Luck and The Oldest Map with the Name America (two poems: 1, 2). The Q&A was fantastic. Someone asked "Is the mind elastic enough to deal with disability on a mass scale...thinking of Iraq War returnees?" I think it was Ferris who answered that actually, WWI changed the way the public perceived disability, particularly the permanent injuries and disfigurement caused by war. This reminded me of an early twentieth century French book on plastic surgery that I came across on line. It featured several stories of war veterans and the massive facial reconstruction they underwent in the years following WWI (not about France specifically, but this article from 1945 is very interesting).
Another panel that jump started my synapses after a long morning was "Crafting an Eco-Poetics." The panel promised to address the question "Aside from issues of theme and reference, how might syntax, line break, or the shape of the poem on the page express an ecological ethics?" and finally did so with Jonathan Skinner's talk on weeds and invasive species in poetry. He began with a Lorine Niedecker poem that contained the following lines:
Thoughts on things
fold unfold
above the river beds
His presentation brought together Gilles Clément's writings on "moving gardens" and the "vagabond behavior" of plants. According to Clément--or maybe I'm referring to Skinner's reading of Clément--an "aversion for weeds [is a] kind of xenophobia." "Demonization of foreign species--invasive species," I wrote in my notes. Skinner cited Maggie O'Sullivan's poem "Starlings" as well as his contribution to Julie Patton's Slug Art (in Ecopoetics 1 [links to PDF]). Peter Larkin's poem "Opening Woods" (from Leaves of Field) also came up, but really, I need a copy of this talk (Carrie Etter wrote about this panel as well and was able to sum up Skinner's talk more elegantly than I can.). Marcella Durand discussed "false color views". She observed that false color descriptions tend to be written in the passive voice--they are colors that are imposed on the image and fall outside of color theory. She demonstrated how false color views have shaped our perception of the cosmos, beginning with the stunning image "Pillars of Creation," taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995 (the latest reports claim that they may "have met their demise"). I wish she had had time to discuss the impact of issues raised by false color views on her own work or on other poets. Rochelle Tobias provided a very interesting reading of Gottfried Benn's poem "Kleine Aster." The poem takes place in an autopsy room, and as Scott Horton (who translated the version I link to) mentions "Benn really was a medical doctor, and he wrote this as he was spending an inordinate amount of time dealing with cadavers" (Horton, "Poor Aster: The Expressionist’s Take on a Flower"). Unfortunately, there wasn't time for Cecilia Vicuña to offer her entire presentation. She sang an impromptu song that gathered together themes and language from the previous presentations. Her delivery is incredible. I need to write a separate post about her. When I first saw her perform, at Poet's House, I couldn't believe her total lack of self-consciousness. She sings, warbles, holds the individual letters of a word until they become uncomfortable, which means that they become real. She briefly spoke about "a shipwreck poetics," "una poesía náufraga." She said "a name begins and dies at the same time." The way she said this gave me goose bumps.
Somehow I squeezed in two readings. One hosted by Colin Cheney at Pacific Standard, a Brooklyn bar, and another at the Bowery,celebrating the publication of Lyric Postmodernisms (Counterpath Press). The highlights: Malena Mörling (@ Pacific Standard), Laynie Browne and Forrest Gander (both @ Bowery).
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