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New Poetry from Futurepoem Books

deadfalls & snares
Samantha Giles
$16 | paper | 89 pp.
Futurepoem Books
ISBN: 9780996002509

Poetry. "Under current conditions of militarization and state sponsored torture, DEADFALLS & SNARES stands among our moment's bravest and most necessary works of poetry. Beyond comfortable notions of complicity and witness, Samantha Giles's writing transforms our desire to see into an ability to parse—like a sentient grammarian—the relations between subject and object, torturer and tortured, as they fuse with our interiors. In other words, 'it's us in / what already happened / in the way that it shifts / in its visibility / it's us.' Reading these poems while guided by conventions of collective spectatorship, we catch ourselves perversely trying to refamiliarize what Giles has so successfully defamiliarized, and in doing so, the double bind of our ethical conundrum becomes acutely perceptible."—Rob Halpern

New Poetry from Ahsahta Press

Exclosures
Emily Abendroth
$20 | paper | 88 pp.
Ahsahta Press
ISBN: 9781934103517

Poetry. There are militarized zones that EXCLOSURES tracks, between our lived lives and the exclusionary logics that we are required to contain them within. Emily Abendroth tells us that society effectively criminalizes some of our most basic characteristics—our youth, our old age, our poverty, our needs for housing or a doctor's appointment, our hunger—and feeds them back to us as dangerous behaviors and/or unsustainable demands. But EXCLOSURES also seeks to map something else—something variously wobbly, tender, obdurate, and ecstatic—the ever- innovating struggle to resist, reject, and arrest such logics.

New Poetry from ixnay press

Space Between These Lines Not Dedicated
Frank Sherlock
$16 | paper | 136 pp.
ixnay press
ISBN: 9780692028223

Poetry. "Beginning in a thin line of short lines held broken by indentations, holding us something like together in this common indenture, wading through what we don't want to be—'Ah this / sunrise / again on / a failed / paradigm'—waiting for some other thing, something more like together, SPACE BETWEEN THESE LINES NOT DEDICATED consecrates the little openings within which we prepare. This openness is given in our woundedness, where form arises, or spreads in periodic broadening, flipping the bird to the law it makes, because it can feel good in its own broken skin. I think I understand what Frank is saying: We are the form! We are the form of love! We wait for one another as the form of love! Frank Sherlock is a great poet and this is a great book."—Fred Moten

New Poetry from 42 Miles Press

The Bottom
Betsy Andrews
$15 | paper | 55 pp.
42 Miles Press
ISBN: 9780983074755

Poetry. Winner of the 42 Miles Press Poetry Award. "'It's night on the blood-dimmed gulf between ethics and murk,' Andrews writes, free-diving through tumultuous seas of language to THE BOTTOM, our present on this ghosted earth. Hers is a water-poet's inventory, cry and lamentation in one book-length tsunami of plangent musical phrases that might have frothed from the mouth of Whitman. From strength to strength she writes, pulling everything up into her net that need concern us now lest we harm the world beyond salvage. A stunning achievement destined to be among the great poems of our time."—Carolyn Forché

New Native American Studies from Tavern Books

Fire Water World & Among the Dog Eaters
Adrian C. Louis
$17 | paper | 248 pp.
Tavern Books
ISBN: 9781935635369

Poetry. Native American Studies. A single-volume republication of two early full-length collections by Adrian C. Louis that have been out of print for over a decade: Fire Water World (1989) and Among the Dog Eaters (1992). As noted by N. Scott Momaday, "Adrian C. Louis reaches to the core of contemporary Native American life. An equation of anger and survival, of acceptance and defiance brought into delicate balance. It is work of profound honesty and ought to be read by everyone who cares to know the American heart." No other contemporary poet has taken such an unflinching and explosive look at the intersection of the sacred and the profane.

New Literary Nonfiction from Future Tense Books

Excavation: A Memoir
Wendy C. Ortiz
$15 | paper | 244 pp.
Future Tense Books
ISBN: 9781892061706

Literary Nonfiction. Memoir. Wendy C. Ortiz was an only child and a bookish, insecure girl living with alcoholic parents in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Her relationship with a charming and deeply flawed private school teacher fifteen years her senior appeared to give her the kind of power teenagers wish for, regardless of consequences. Her teacher—now a registered sex offender—continually encouraged her passion for writing while making her promise she was not leaving any written record about their dangerous sexual relationship. This conflicted relationship with her teacher may have been just five years long, but would imprint itself on her and her later relationships, queer and straight, for the rest of her life. In EXCAVATION: A MEMOIR, the black and white of the standard victim/perpetrator stereotype gives way to unsettling grays. The present- day narrator reflects on the girl she once was, as well as the teacher and parent she has become. It's a beautifully written and powerful story of a woman reclaiming her whole heart.

New Asian American Studies from Passager Books

Beyond Lowu Bridge
Roy Cheng Tsung
$20 | paper | 238 pp.
Passager Books
ISBN: 9780983620952

Literary Nonfiction. Memoir. Asian & Asian American Studies. California Interest. BEYOND LOWU BRIDGE tells the story of a young Chinese-American's "return" to a country he had never seen and the experiences of his family during two turbulent decades of life in Mao's China. It is a gripping story that brings to light the way human beings make choices that affect only their own lives but the lives of those we love.

New Poetry from Dos Madres Press

The Unknowing Muse
Sarah White
$16 | paper | 78 pp.
Dos Madres Press
ISBN: 9781939929150

Poetry. "Sarah White is all that a good poet should be—smart, funny, daring. She redefines the familiar, giving new aspects to themes as commonplace as love and motherhood, standing beside her son in a courthouse, or advising her children that, as a poet, she has other work to do. Following her, we end up in unexpected places, in the graveyard where Baudelaire is buried, or in Purgatory itself, ...an island in the Southern Sea, where sin can be handled, deftly. You go with her through poems that assume their own heft and place on the page—'I can step next door / to see Vesuvian flames / and hear the roar,' confident she'll not leave you stranded, even as she quips, 'I tip to one side when I walk.'"—Mervyn Taylor

New Poetry from Factory Hollow Press

Not Ideas
R. H. W. Dillard
$15 | paper | 112 pp.
Factory Hollow Press
ISBN: 9780983520399

Poetry. NOT IDEAS finds its life force especially in Wittgenstein and Williams, in Philosophical Investigations and Paterson. It alternately celebrates and condemns, coruscating with intelligence, wit and heart. Readers of 20th and 21st Century's philosophy, poetry, science, politics and religion will recognize the aggregations accumulated in the mind NOT IDEAS invokes, accommodates and regards with love, horror, awe and close attention.

New Jewish Studies from Box Turtle Press

Vilnius Diary
Anna Halberstadt
$16 | paper | 128 pp.
Box Turtle Press
ISBN: 9781893654150

Poetry. Jewish Studies. "History's a glowing lamp held slightly aloft in Anna Halberstadt's hand. She guides us wisely, richly, and satirically across continents, tough choices and the gorgeous pithy details of otherwise overwhelming tragedies and truths. I love this book—across all of it and poem by poem because it's like a kind of careful shopping, she weighs and feels each thing and remembers to read her own heart too and the hearts of all the lost and known friends, the cousins and lovers and parents and strangers—waiting in rooms and getting on trains, acting, vanishing, all of it, all of them. This beautiful book lives most perfectly in the throbbing heart of our time."—Eileen Myles

New Fiction from BlazeVOX books

The Electric Affinities
Wade Stevenson
$18 | paper | 340 pp.
BlazeVOX books
ISBN: 9781609641481

Fiction. "I'm enthralled with THE ELECTRIC AFFINITIES. The bittersweet delight of feeling Maya present through your words... her graceful gestures—sleek and cat-like, her intense regard, the intensity of her friendship, her ecstatic demand for beauty, the cruelty of her judgments when aesthetic standards were neglected, and her vibrant, sensuous humor. What a whirlwind delight to have Maya as my guide to experiencing the inner and outer worlds."—Carolee Schneemann

New Short Stories from Monkey Puzzle Press

Justice, Inc.
Dale Bridges
$13 | paper | 136 pp.
Monkey Puzzle Press
ISBN: 9780991542956

Fiction. Imagine a future where orphaned children are adopted by international corporations and forced into indentured servitude, where zombie viruses are spread through heterosexual intercourse, where Osama bin Laden is being cloned by the thousands for public execution. Welcome to the world of JUSTICE, INC. Stay awhile. After all, it's your future too.

New Latino/Latina Studies from BookThug

Air Carnation
Guadalupe Muro
$23 | paper | 192 pp.
BookThug
ISBN: 9781771660310

Fiction. Latino/Latina Studies. Guadalupe Muro, recipient of the Raul Urtusan-Frances Harley scholarship for young emerging Artists from Argentina, has always had her own unique way of experiencing life. When applied to her writing, Muro says she finally "felt like a dog deciding to be a dog." Muro's Spanish publications have achieved strong acclaim, and now, BookThug is proud to introduce this remarkable new talent to the Canadian literary market. AIR CARNATION features an absorbing narrative that bridges non-fiction and fiction, poetry and song, as Muro explores themes of independence in love and the writerly life. With sojourns in Argentina, Buenos Aires, New York, Washington, and a cross-Canada train passage from Edmonton to Toronto, AIR CARNATION is an affecting work that will have readers laughing, crying, and all the while, enjoying this fascinating meta-fiction that sings of hippiedom in Patagonia.

New California Interest from Pelekinesis

Pomona A to Z
David Allen
$20 | paper | 242 pp.
Pelekinesis
ISBN: 9781938349195

Literary Nonfiction. California Interest. Humor. David Allen takes an alphabetical tour through 26 uniquely entertaining aspects of Pomona, California with this delightful series of newspaper columns that first appeared in the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin. This 10th Anniversary edition, the first time in paperback, includes updates, commentary, and a new introduction by the author.

New Poetry from Able Muse Press

Walking in on People
Melissa Balmain
$18.95 | paper | 102 pp.
Able Muse Press
ISBN: 9781927409299

Poetry. In Melissa Balmain's WALKING IN ON PEOPLE, the serious is lightened with a generous serving of wit and humor, and the lighthearted is enriched with abundant wisdom. She shows us how poetry can be fun yet grounded in everyday challenges and triumphs, with subjects ranging from the current and hip (Facebook posts, online dating, layoffs, retail therapy, cell-phone apps, trans fat), to the traditional and time-tested (marriage, child-rearing, love, death). Through it all, her craft is masterful, with a formal dexterity deployed with precision in a showcase of forms such as the villanelle, ballad, triolet, nonce, and the sonnet.

New Poetry Anthology from Timeless, Infinite Light

It’s night in San Francisco but it’s sunny in Oakland
Otis Pig, emji spero, and Zach Houston, Editors
$25 | paper | 240 pp.
Timeless, Infinite Light
ISBN: 9781937421052

Poetry. California Interest. "Rumor has it Oakland is a place, but I can say with some certainty it is also a time. It outwaits empire in alleys and corners, counting negation upon its fingers, refusing to show its face to what surveils. The walls speak—underpasses, too, and its literature says some things we were thinking, like, for Oakland, elsewhere is also temporal. The futureless future requires a multitude for laureate. This anthology is that multitude's germ."—Anne Boyer

New Poetry from Hanging Loose Press

Blue Hanuman
Joan Larkin
$18 | paper | 80 pp.
Hanging Loose Press
ISBN: 9781934909386

Poetry. "Joan Larkin's are poems of "relentless self-examination, taking on love and death, family and sexuality in a voice that is unsentimental, ruthless and clear-eyed."—David Ulin, The Los Angeles Times

New Poetry from Chax Press

Parts of Speech
Kyle Schlesinger
$17 | paper | 134 pp.
Chax Press
ISBN: 9780989431699

Poetry. "PARTS OF SPEECH ventriloquizes even as it amputates clichés and idiomatic expressions, where the cumulative effect is more exhilarating than terrifying, due in part to this book's underlying architectonics. Overheard conversations, radio broadcasts, film titles, allusions and elisions swirl about one another. Enjambments snowball into a torrent of clauses, refusing disambiguation. Blues and jazz repetition and refrain slide into monomania. Schlesinger's darkly humorous collage of Americana evokes an other-reflexive strategy and an obtuse coherence: 'Art is serious // Enough already / There is no point / In taking it / Too seriously / Seriously.'"—Tyrone Williams

New Travel Writing from Hobblebush Books

The Nepal Chronicles: Marriage, Mountains and Momos in the Highest Place on Earth
Dan Szczesny
$19.95 | paper | 208 pp.
Hobblebush Books
ISBN: 9781939449047

Literary Nonfiction. Travel. South Asia Studies. When travel writer Dan Szczesny and his wife, Meenakshi, traveled to Nepal to marry in Kathmandu and trek to Everest Base Camp, they knew the journey would be difficult. What they didn't realize was how life-changing their time in the land of mountains would be. From the chaos of Kathmandu's super-charged streets to the tranquil but challenging trails of the Himalayas, THE NEPAL CHRONICLES is a deeply felt exploration of the culture and history of one of the world's most complex places, and is a meditation on the author's own personal journey into a new family and relationship unlike any he's ever experienced.

New Fiction + Illustrations from Anvil Press

I’m Not Scared of You or Anything
Jon Paul Fiorentino
$18 | paper | 160 pp.
Anvil Press
ISBN: 9781927380949

Fiction. Art. Illustrations by Maryanna Hardy. The characters in I'M NOT SCARED OF YOU OR ANYTHING are invigilators, fake martial arts experts, buskers, competitive pillow fighters, drug runners, and, of course, grad students. This collection of comedic short stories and exploratory texts is the ninth book by the critically acclaimed and award- winning author Jon Paul Fiorentino. Deftly illustrated by Maryanna Hardy, these texts ask important questions, like: How does a mild mannered loser navigate the bureaucratic terrain of exam supervision? What happens when you replace the text of Christian Archie comics with the text of Helene Cixous? And, most important of all, what would it be like if Mr. Spock was a character in the HBO series GIRLS?