Found Footage // Maggie Woodward

Found Footage is visceral little book of freckled skin, fox-bellies, and sparrow blood. There are erasures scribbled out in pen and secrets released into the night—girl stories, horror stories, love stories, a little bit of each one ominous.: “this is how the story goes: there was a girl & / there was a river.” They feel like confessions pulled from a diary stained around the edges in blood and darker things, each one “fanged  (but lovely).” (Porkbelly Press, 2018) » available from our shop »  more info

excerpt

ABOUT THE POET

maggie woodward is an mfa candidate in poetry at the university of mississippi, where she is senior editor of the yalobusha review & curates the trobar ric reading series. she is also a programmer for the oxford film festival. her work has appeared or is forthcoming from The Atlas Review, Devil’s Lake, Witch Craft Magazine, Cloud Rodeo, & New South Journal, among others.

How Darkness Enters a Body // Sarah Nichols

How Darkness Enters a Body by Sarah Nichols

“In this darkness, desire is safe,” begins the title poem for Sarah Nichols’ How Darkness Enters a Body. In this darkness, desire is safe. There are secrets here, confessions. The poet brings us to the photos of Diane Arbus, inspecting contact sheets and images, mining poems from silver embedded in emulsion. Black and white photographs transformed into ekphrastic lines, light and shadow, poet leading reader to artist to begin a conversation. The speaker’s voice is sure, whispering to us in the way Arbus’ images do, pools of darkness unexpected and edged, like shadows thrown under an eclipse. Confront her or take her hand—these and more choices are yours:  “Here is your tongue, sister. / Let me share it.”  (Porkbelly Press, 2018) » available in our shop » more info

 

about the poet

Sarah Nichols lives and writes in Connecticut. She is the author of three chapbooks, including She May Be a Saint (Hermeneutic Chaos Press, 2016) and Edie (Whispering): Poems from Gray Gardens (Dancing Girl Press, 2015). She also co-edits Thank You for Swallowing, an online journal of feminist protest poetry. Her poetry and essays have also appeared and are forthcoming in Queen of Cups, The RS 500, Rogue Agent, and Ekphrastic Review.

excerpt

SOMETHING WAS THERE AND NO LONGER IS

After Inadvertent Double Exposure of a Self Portrait and Images of Times Square, NYC, 1957, by Diane Arbus

I haunt this place now. Under the
neon, I pass between worlds. The

spirit photograph no one wants to
believe.

I catch my subjects so easily: the
woman, poised before the next cigarette,

almost recognizes herself in the
snare of my lens. Or the crowd,

thinking themselves safe in the light
of the next dime show miracle.

I don’t dare to shut my eyes.

End of Year News

How Darkness Enters a Body by Sarah Nichols

Apples or Pomegranates (cover art: Anita Olivia Koester)

bramble&thorn (anthology) cover photo by: Olivia Edvalson

Daughter Shaman Sings Blood Anthem (Kristi Carter) cover: Nicci Mechler

Feeding the Dead by M. Brett Gaffney (cover art: Mary Chiaramonte)

End of year news (December!) for our Porkbelly Press poets & writers:

Dreamland for Keeps (Porkbelly Press, 2018) & How Darkness Enters a Body (Porkbelly Press, 2018) by Sarah Nichols » @onibaba37

• “I Woke Up, I Found Her, That’s All I Know” is up at Rogue Agent!
• “The Monkey On My Back” is up in the December issue of Glass.
• You can listen to two poems by Sarah up at FreezeRay!

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Apples or Pomegranates (Porkbelly Press, 2017)
by Anita Olivia Koester » anitaoliviakoester.com

• “Coronation,” a sonnet crown, was nominated for a Pushcart by Pittsburgh Poetry Review.
• Anita’s poem “Avowal” won the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Award.

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Love Me, Anyway (Porkbelly Press, 2018)
by Minadora Macheret

• “Baba Yaga: Her Almost Origin Story” from bramble & thorn was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

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MEXICAMERICANA (Porkbelly Press, 2017)
by Eloisa Amezcua » www.eloisaamezcua.com

• “Watching Underworld, Inc Episode 3: Human Cargo” from Mexicamericana was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

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Feeding the Dead (Porkbelly Press, 2017)
by M. Brett Gaffney « blog

• “Hellhound, Lost” from Feeding the Dead was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

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Daughter Shaman Sings Blood Anthem (Porkbelly Press, 2017)
by Kristi Carter » @kristixcarter

• “My Mother Is Certain” from Daughter Shaman Sings Blood Anthem was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

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Blackbird Whitetail Redhand (Porkbelly Press, 2018)
by Lindsay Lusby

• We’re working on finishing up the design of the cover for this chapbook. Lindsay blogged some thoughts about letterpress. Blackbird Whitetail Redhand will ship in early 2018.

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Bramble & Thorn Anthology

bramble&thorn (anthology) cover photo by: Olivia Edvalson

 from the introduction

We ask you to step into the dark forest with us, with these women and girls in poem—their sharp knives, those long fangs may protect you. Reach out—take the hand of the one beside you. Don’t worry if she seems hungry; she’s always hungry; she has her mind already made, blade sharpened to meet the wolf’s heart. (Porkbelly Press, 2017) » more information

contributors

Sarah Ann Winn, Donna Vorreyer, Robin Turner, Phoebe Reeves, Lori Propheter, Susan Milchman, Melissa Atkinson Mercer, Rebecca Macijeski, Minadora Macheret, Lindsay Lusby, Sally Rosen Kindred, Sonja Johanson, Alicia Hoffman, Jenn Givhan, Emily Corwin, Emily Rose Cole, Ava C. Cipri, Erinn Batykefer, Stacey Balkun, Stephanie Bryant Anderson, E. Kristin Anderson, & Cassandra de Alba.

covers & binding

bramble & thorn is a handbound anthology limited to an edition of 125. Our cover imagery was provided by Olivia Edvalson.

available in our shop » $9.50

Pushcart Prize Nominations 2017

Daughter Shaman Sings Blood Anthem (Kristi Carter) cover: Nicci Mechler

MEXICAMERICANA by Eloisa Amezcua (cover artwork: Sharmon Davidson)

Feeding the Dead by M. Brett Gaffney (cover art: Mary Chiaramonte)

bramble&thorn (anthology) cover photo by: Olivia Edvalson

Our 2017 Pushcart Prize nominations are drawn from our anthology, bramble & thorn, and chapbooks from this year’s line:

“Tincture” by Emily Corwin from bramble & thorn

“Vestigial Epithalamium” by Erinn Batykefer from bramble & thorn

“Baba Yaga: Her Almost Origin Story” by Minadora Macheret from bramble & thorn

“Watching Underworld, Inc Episode 3: Human Cargo” by Eloisa Amezcua from Mexicamericana (Porkbelly Press, 2017)

“Hellhound, Lost” by M. Brett Gaffney from Feeding the Dead (Porkbelly Press, 2017)

“My Mother Is Certain” by Kristi Carter from Daughter Shaman Sings Blood Anthem (Porkbelly Press, 2017)

November’s Good Stuff

Good news, interviews, happenings, & pubs from our Porkbelly family.

How Darkness Enters a Body by Sarah Nichols

Apples or Pomegranates (cover art: Anita Olivia Koester)

The Girl by Donna Vorreyer (cover image: Alexandra Eldridge)

Dry Spell by Patrick Kindig (cover: Nicci Mechler)

A Map of the Farm Three Miles from the End of Happy Hollow Road by Amorak Huey (cover image: Alexandra Eldridge)

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Dreamland for Keeps (Porkbelly Press, 2018) & How Darkness Enters a Body (Porkbelly Press, 2018) by Sarah Nichols » @onibaba37

• “A Poem For Dope Sickness” is up at Rogue Agent.

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Apples or Pomegranates (Porkbelly Press, 2017)
by Anita Olivia Koester » anitaoliviakoester.com

• Apples or Pomegranates (Porkbelly Press, 2017) is available now!

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The Girl (Porkbelly Press, 2017)
by Donna Vorreyer » donnavorreyer.com

• “Some Magic” is up on SWWIM. A little spellwork as we go into winter.

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Dry Spell (Porkbelly Press, 2016)
by Patrick Kindig »

• a new poem, “PDA,” in The National Poetry Review.

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A Map of the Farm Three Miles from the End of Happy Hollow Road (Porkbelly Press, 2016) by Amorak Huey » amorakhuey.net

• two poems in Four Way Review, including “FMK.”

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Daughter Shaman Sings Blood Anthem // Kristi Carter

Daughter Shaman Sings Blood Anthem (Kristi Carter) cover: Nicci Mechler

Carter’s work investigates the intersection of intergenerational trauma, survival, feminism, and power. Body-heavy and image-rich, these poems evoke a landscape of the scars and blood we carry with us, all the things that make up our lineage of memory and modes of recovery/survival/learning. It’s an intensely intimate series of poems about the claiming and finding of voice, body, and agency. “And ever since I anchored myself to the ground / and split off from myself, from the cracked husk / of girlhood finished, I return replenished. /  I return, to burn. / I return, with the wound / like a medal—in its gleam, how it sings.” (Porkbelly Press, 2017) » available in our shop » more info & excerpt

about the poet

Kristi Carter is a PhD student in Creative Writing–Poetry with a specialization in Women’s and Gender Studies at University of Nebraska Lincoln. Her poems have appeared in publications including So to Speak, poemmemoirstory, CALYX, Hawaii Review, and Nimrod. Her work examines of the intersection of gender and intergenerational trauma in 20th Century poetics. She holds an MFA from Oklahoma State University.

 

Apples or Pomegranates (Anita Olivia Koester)

Apples or Pomegranates (cover art: Anita Olivia Koester)

Apples or Pomegranates is an intimate exploration of the spirit housed inside a body, the failings and the strength in each. Sometimes erotic and at other times full of another kind of wanting, this micro chapbook delves into the experience of living boldly, step by step along the path—”a tight-rope walking girl, a pit of lions beneath.” This is the route she takes on these pages, hand out, palm up, if you’ve courage enough to join her. (Porkbelly Press, 2017) » more info & excerpt » available in our shop

about the poet

Anita Olivia Koester is a Chicago poet and author of the chapbooks Marco Polo (Hermeneutic Chaos Press) and Arrow Songs which won Paper Nautilus’ Vella Chapbook Contest. Her poems have been nominated for Best New Poets and Pushcart Prizes, and won Midwestern Gothic’s 2016 Lake Prize in Poetry, So to Speak’s Annual Poetry Contest, and the Jo-Anne Hirshfield Memorial Poetry Award. She is currently the poetry editor for Duende. Her poetry is published or forthcoming in Vinyl, CALYX Journal, Tahoma Literary Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, and elsewhere. Her work as been supported by the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Vermont Studio Center, and Sundress Academy for the Arts (SAFTA). Visit her online at www.anitaoliviakoester.com.

blurbs

In this collection, Koester gives us three central lessons. One, it is not always necessary to be loud to be ferocious. Two, there are unlimited ways to be naked, most of which happen clothed. Three, even longing that begins with nostalgia can blossom into something altogether and luminously new.

—Marty McConnell

Apples and Pomegranates unravels and interrogates a universe set on its denial of the body feminine. Artistic canon, the expectations and consequences of relationships, biology itself, and even language (its translation or mistranslation) are called into light by Koester’s words. “Travelling the fallopian tubes of the Milky Way” is a tender prospect in every sense of the word. Koester’s command of passion and utterance is that kind of double-edged wonder.

—Keith S. Wilson

Anita is also the cover artist for her chapbook.

October’s Bacony Goodness

Good news, interviews, happenings, & pubs from our Porkbelly family.

Apples or Pomegranates (cover art: Anita Olivia Koester)

How Darkness Enters a Body by Sarah Nichols

My Heart in Aspic by Sonya Vatomsky (cover: Shannon Perry)

The Girl by Donna Vorreyer (cover image: Alexandra Eldridge)

A Map of the Farm Three Miles from the End of Happy Hollow Road by Amorak Huey (cover image: Alexandra Eldridge)

Dry Spell by Patrick Kindig (cover: Nicci Mechler)

Feeding the Dead by M. Brett Gaffney (cover art: Mary Chiaramonte)

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The Girl (Porkbelly Press, 2017)
by Donna Vorreyer » donnavorreyer.com

• a poem, “Detente,” in the October issue of Glass.
• “Declaration” appears in The Indianapolis Review.

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A Map of the Farm Three Miles from the End of Happy Hollow Road (Porkbelly Press, 2016) by Amorak Huey » amorakhuey.net

• two prose poems in Pithead Chapel.
• Amorak’s essay “Where the River is Shaped Like Words and the Words Are Shaped Like Blades” appears in The Collagist.

Have you watched a skilled butcher break down a side of beef? Such precision, such devastation, the way the final product is not recognizably related to the slab of meat we started with—this teaches us something important about art. About hunger.

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Dreamland for Keeps (Porkbelly Press, 2018) & How Darkness Enters a Body (Porkbelly Press, 2018) by Sarah Nichols » @onibaba37

• She May Be a Saint (Hermeneutic Chaos Press, 2016) was part of the Poetry Center Chapbook Exchange!
• Four poems up at Anti-Heroin Chic: “Are You Pregnant?,” “Skyfall,” “This is Not a Redemption Story, Part One,” and “This is Not a Redemption Story, Part Two.”

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Apples or Pomegranates (Porkbelly Press, 2017)
by Anita Olivia Koester » anitaoliviakoester.com

• Apples or Pomegranates (Porkbelly Press, 2017) is available for pre-order & releases November 14!

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My Heart in Aspic (Porkbelly Press, 2015)
by Sonya Vatomsky » www.sonyavatomsky.com

• Recent articles like: “Death Becomes Her” for Bitch Media, “The Movement to Bury Pets Alongside People” for The Atlantic, “Creature Comfort” for Southwest The Magazine, and “What to Wear at the End of Someone Else’s Life” for Racked.

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Daughter Shaman Sings Blood Anthem (Porkbelly Press, 2017)
by Kristi Carter » @kristixcarter

• Kristi’s book Cosmovore (Aqueduct Press, 2017) is available!

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Dry Spell (Porkbelly Press, 2016)
by Patrick Kindig »

• “fascinations: thumbnail” is up at Juked.

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Feeding the Dead (Porkbelly Press, 2017)
by M. Brett Gaffney « blog

• a mini review of Feeding the Dead courtesy of Michelle Castleberry.

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First Bacon of Fall (September’s Good News)

 

Apples or Pomegranates (cover art: Anita Olivia Koester)

hiku [pull] by James A. H. White (cover: Nicci Mechler)

A Map of the Farm Three Miles from the End of Happy Hollow Road by Amorak Huey (cover image: Alexandra Eldridge)

Set the Garden on Fire by Chen Chen (cover: Nicci Mechler)

Haunting the Last House on Holland Island, Fallen into the Bay (Porkbelly Press, 2016) by Sarah Ann Winn (cover: Angie Reed Garner)

MEXICAMERICANA by Eloisa Amezcua (cover artwork: Sharmon Davidson)

Dry Spell by Patrick Kindig (cover: Nicci Mechler)

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Apples or Pomegranates (Porkbelly Press, 2017)
by Anita Olivia Koester » anitaoliviakoester.com

• “Constellation with False Moon” is up at Glass Poetry Journal.

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Love Me, Anyway (Porkbelly Press, 2018)
by Minadora Macheret

• “She Called Them All Bandit-God or How My Grandmother Survived the Holocaust” is up at Red Paint Hill.

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Haunting the Last House on Holland Island, Fallen into the Bay (Porkbelly Press, 2016) by Sarah Ann Winn » bluebirdwords.com

• Haunting reviewed by Kimberly Ann Southwick at Ploughshares blog.

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A Map of the Farm Three Miles from the End of Happy Hollow Road (Porkbelly Press, 2016) by Amorak Huey » amorakhuey.net

• A Map of the Farm reviewed by Kimberly Ann Southwick at Ploughshares blog.
• “Prayer for What I Do Not Want” is up at Third Point Press.

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hiku [pull] (Porkbelly Press, 2016)
by James A. H. White

• hiku [pull] reviewed by Kimberly Ann Southwick at Ploughshares blog.

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Set the Garden on Fire (Porkbelly Press, 2015)
by Chen Chen » chenchenwrites.com

• When I Grow Up… was long-listed for the National Book Award! (poetry)
• Set the Garden on Fire turned two this month!
• When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities reviewed by @shitty_book_reviews:

Because the word will not save you. Because an elegy is a body’s warm light unfolding. Because the tree cannot hold all of you. Because love’s glossolalia isn’t translatable. Because translation is a kind of murder. Because language is both the bread and the knife. Because we could all stand to be a little more like flowers. When I Grow Up I Want To Be A List Of Further Possibilities pairs well with a date to the zoo, the works of Paul Celan, and New York tap water. Chen Chen’s poems are hearts too big for their bodies. // @shitty_book_reviews

• Chen’s interviewed by Allison Peters for Michigan Quarterly Review.
  

  “I want to write and to read poems with this kind of scrappy don’t-fuck-with-me-but-also-gahh-I’m-a-human-ness,” says Chen. // more

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MEXICAMERICANA (Porkbelly Press, 2017)
by Eloisa Amezcua » www.eloisaamezcua.com

• “Watching Underworld, Inc. Episode 3: Human Cargo,” (from Mexicamericana), was selected for Best New Poets 2017.

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The Girl (Porkbelly Press, 2017)
by Donna Vorreyer » donnavorreyer.com

• a review of The Girl is up on Glass! (review by Amorak Huey!)

These are poems to be believed. This experience is real. Fraught and complex and contradictory and imaginative and impossible, naturally, but real nonetheless.

… Vorreyer starts this collection with a bit of a mystery, our heroic girl stopping “mid-stride in the center of a crosswalk.” The world does not know what to make of her, frozen like this, getting in the way of things. The girl’s parents, the police, a priest — all of them are unable to persuade her to move. The poem ends that way: the world freaking out, the girl unflinching. // more

• Best of the Net nomination from Compose for “Because Ignorance is a Country with Many Coasts.”

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Dry Spell (Porkbelly Press, 2016)
by Patrick Kindig » pdkindig.wordpress.com

• new work in Timber Journal.

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Excerpt from Kimberly Ann Southwick’s reviews of three Porkbelly Press titles on Ploughshares blog this month:

Porkbelly Press is a Cincinnati-based press that puts out chapbooks and micro-chapbooks as well as a literary magazines and anthologies. It describes itself as an “indie queer-friendly, feminist press” and produces chapbooks that are hand-stitched. Porkbelly is as diverse as its description claims, boasting titles like Eloisa Amezcua’s Mexicamericana, Billie R. Tadros’ inter: burial places, and Wren Hanks’ Ghost Skin, in addition to those reviewed below, which exemplify the high-quality writing the press values. // more

Titles reviewed include: hiku [pull] by James A. H. White, A Map of the Farm Three Miles From the End of Happy Hollow Road by Amorak Huey, and Haunting the Last House on Holland Island, Fallen Into the Bay by Sarah Ann Winn.

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Porkbelly Press tabled at the Kentucky Fried Zine Fest (Lyric Theater & Cultural Arts Center, Lexington, Kentucky). We met some fab people & scooped up cool stickers, patches, & zines! Thanks for the welcome and all the writing&activism&life conversation, KFZ!

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