April’s Good Stuff

News & new things from/with/about poets & writers in the Porkbelly family.

 

Pray, Pray, Pray by E. Kristin Anderson (cover: Nicci Mechler)

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

Love Me, Anyway by Minadora Macheret (cover artist: Sharmon Davidson)

How Darkness Enters a Body by Sarah Nichols

Apples or Pomegranates (cover art: Anita Olivia Koester)

Dry Spell by Patrick Kindig (cover: Nicci Mechler)

Blackbird Whitetail Redhand (cover: Nicci Mechler)

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)

Found Footage by Maggie Woodward (cover: Nicci Mechler)

Dreamland for Keeps by Sarah Nichols (cover artist: Nicci Mechler)

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

• One of Sarah’s Elizabeth Short poems appears in Drunk Monkeys: “Elizabeth Short Visits the Black Lodge.” Interested in more poems like this? Dreamland for Keeps (Porkbelly Press, 2018) has released this month—it’s a whole chapbook of erasure poems.

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Found Footage (Porkbelly Press, 2018)
by Maggie Woodward

• 5 poems are up at inferior planets!
• Anna Sandy Elrod reviews FOUND FOOTAGE over at Real Pants!

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

• Congratulations to Chen Chen on accepting the 2018 – 2020 Jacob Ziskind Poet-in-Residence at Brandeis University!
• Chen’s “I Invite My Parents to a Dinner Party” up at poem-a-day. You can hear him read it here!
• When I Grow Up, I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (BOA Editions) won the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry.

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

• Congratulations to Minadora Macheret on winning the Justin Q. Owens Convention Theme: Creative Writing award from Sigma Tau Delta’s 2018 Convention!

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

• Anita’s manuscript Cartography of Grief was a runner-up in the Dorset Prize (selected by Dana Levin via Tupelo Press).
• “Cartography of a Missing Body” & “Cartography of a Keyhole” (two father poems) in the new issue if Up North Lit.

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Blackbird Whitetail Redhand (Porkbelly Press, 2018)
by Lindsay Lusby » lindsaylusby.com

• Lindsay’s manuscript Catechesis: a postpastoral was a finalist in the Dorset Prize (selected by Dana Levin via Tupelo Press).
• Blackbird Whitetail Redhand was released this month! The chapbook is handbound (Japanese stab binding) and features letterpress covers. » order

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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

• “Captain Picard Teaches My Son to Throw a Football” is up at Beech Street Review.
• Congratulations to Amorak Huey for winning the 2018 Vern Rutsala Prize. His book Seducing the Asparagus Queen is due out in late-summer via Cloudbank Books.

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Dry Spell (Porkbelly Press, 2016)
by Patrick Kindig

• Patrick Kindig reads three poems at The Poets Weave.

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The Girl (Porkbelly Press, 2017)
by Donna Vorreyer

• a new piece, “Painting Which is in Fact Not a Sky” is up in Juxtaprose.

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Pray, Pray, Pray: Poems I wrote to Prince in the Middle of the Night (Porkbelly Press, 2015) by E. Kristin Anderson » www.ekristinanderson.com

• A new essay up at Cotton Xenomorph in their manifestos series: “Anderson’s Rules for Writing Found Poetry.”
• EKA’s essay “Everything Could Never Be This Real” is up at Memoir Mixtapes!

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March’s Good Stuff

Centralia by Sarah Gzemski (cover: Nicci Mechler)

How Darkness Enters a Body by Sarah Nichols

Noor Hindi’s DIARY OF A FILTHY WOMAN (cover artist: Tanya Gonzalez)

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

Ghost Skin by Wren Hanks (cover: Alexandra Eldridge)

Ghost Tongue by Nicole Rollender (Cover art: Susan Yount)

Pray, Pray, Pray by E. Kristin Anderson (cover: Nicci Mechler)

Love Me, Anyway by Minadora Macheret (cover artist: Sharmon Davidson)

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

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Pray, Pray, Pray: Poems I wrote to Prince in the Middle of the Night (Porkbelly Press, 2015) by E. Kristin Anderson » www.ekristinanderson.com

• Three erasures appear in The Museum of Americana!
• a poem appears in the “Little Prince” issue of Nonbinary Review.
• a list of EKA’s (and other members’) recent accomplishments was blogged over at SPECPO (the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association blog).
• New work in issue 3 of bad pony: “Something sad and whimsical.”

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

• Donna reviews Judy Jordan’s Hunger (Tinderbox Editions, 2018) via Connotation Press.

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Ghost Tongue (Porkbelly Press, 2016)
by Nicole Rollender » www.nicolerollender.com

• New work in issue 3 of bad pony: “Second Sight.”

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Ghost Skin (Porkbelly Press, 2016) & gar child (Porkbelly Press, 2018)
by Wren Hanks » tumblr

• New work in issue 3 of bad pony: “The Tin Boy as Lover You Don’t Have to Love,” “A Lamb Expressed Flourescence and Made it to Market or the Tin Boy’s Gone Real Emerald City.”
• His contributor interview is up at New Delta Review blog! He discusses his love of Oz and building his speakers, the pliability of language, and the value of transformation. » see also: Wren’s two poems in New Delta Review.
• We’re pleased to say we’ve acquired Wren’s manuscript gar child (Porkbelly Press, 2018).

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

• Love Me, Anyway (Porkbelly Press, 2018) released this month!

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Diary of a Filthy Woman (Porkbelly Press, 2018)
by Noor Hindi

• Diary of a Filthy Woman (Porkbelly Press, 2018) released this month!

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

“The Blessings of the Guns” appears in Five:2:One.

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Centralia (Porkbelly Press, 2015)
by Sarah Gzemski » sgzemski.com

• Sarah’s collaborative chapbook released this year: Nexus (In Sight II #12) (Four Chambers Press, 2018).

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Feeding the Dead (Porkbelly Press, 2016)
by M. Brett Gaffney

• “Stations of the Cross” is up at Psaltery & Lyre. 

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February’s Good News & Good Reads

(News, reviews, happenings, and readings from our Porkbelly poets & authors)

Ghost Skin by Wren Hanks (cover: Alexandra Eldridge)

Pray, Pray, Pray by E. Kristin Anderson (cover: Nicci Mechler)

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

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

The Autobiography of a Love Not Mine, Hilda Weaver

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

How Darkness Enters a Body by Sarah Nichols

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

Love Me, Anyway by Minadora Macheret (cover artist: Sharmon Davidson)

Bodies in Water, P. Andrew Miller (special edition cover)

My Own Strange Beast by Melissa Atkinson Mercer (cover art by Danial Powers)

Vein of Stone, Sarah McCartt-Jackson (special edition cover)

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Pray, Pray, Pray: Poems I wrote to Prince in the Middle of the Night (Porkbelly Press, 2015) by E. Kristin Anderson » www.ekristinanderson.com

• EKA’s poem “Jumping the Fuck Shark” appears in the new Tinderbox Poetry Journal.
• another erasure, “The light fell in,” appears in Cotton Xenomorph.
• Come As You Are (Anomalous Press, 2018), an anthology of 90s pop culture, edited by EKA, is just out!
• Her new chapbook, Seventeen XVII (Grey Book Press, 2018), is available.
• Other achievements, including a chapbook, are listed in her latest blog post!

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The Autobiography of a Love Not Mine (Porkbelly Press, 2014)
by Hilda Weaver

• a recent micro-review of Hilda’s The Autobiography of a Love Not Mine (Porkbelly Press, 2014) via Christine Brandel’s 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

• Two of Amorak’s poems appear in Tinderbox Poetry Journal: “God, the Father” & “Putting the Fun in Fungible.”

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Ghost Skin (Porkbelly Press, 2016)
by Wren Hanks » tumblr

• Wren’s poem “Dear Ozma,” appears in Pittsburgh Poetry Review.
• Wren’s chapbook The Rise of Genderqueer was selected by Brain Mill Press for the Mineral Point Poetry Series (series editor: Kiki Petrosino). His chapbook is due out in August 2018!

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

• Chen Chen in conversation with Francesca Ekwuyasi at Winter Tangerine: “I Forget Myself When I’m Not In Conversation with Other Minds.”
• “The School of Song,” “Elegy While Listening to a Song I Can’t Help But Start to Move to,”  and “One Year Later: A Letter,” and “Summer” appear in Winter Tangerine‘s A LINEAGE OF MIRRORS.
• Work in Come As You Are (Anomalous Press, 2018), an anthology of 90s pop culture edited by E. Kristin Anderson.

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

• Minadora’s poem “Baba Yaga: Her Almost Origin Story” from Bramble & Thorn (Porkbelly Press, 2017) is nominated for a Rhysling Award.

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

• Feeding the Dead (Porkbelly Press, 2017) is nominated for an Elgin Award.

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

• Work in Come As You Are (Anomalous Press, 2018), an anthology of 90s pop culture edited by E. Kristin Anderson.

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

• Work in Come As You Are (Anomalous Press, 2018), an anthology of 90s pop culture edited by E. Kristin Anderson.

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My Own Strange Beast (Porkbelly Press, 2017)
by Melissa Atkinson Mercer

• Kanika Lawton interviews Melissa about her new collection, Knock (Half Mystic Press, 2018).
• Featured on Sundress Publications’ The Wardrobe!

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Bodies in Water (Porkbelly Press, 2014)
by P. Andrew Miller » pandrewmiller.com

• Transforming Harry: The Adaptation of Harry Potter in the Transmedia Age (Wayne State University Press, 2018), edited by John Alberti & P. Andrew Miller, is freshly pressed and will be available for order in May!

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Vein of Stone (Porkbelly Press, 2014)
by Sarah McCartt-Jackson » sarahmccarttjackson.com

• Sarah’s chapbook Calf Canyon was selected by Brain Mill Press for the Mineral Point Poetry Series (series editor: Kiki Petrosino). Her chapbook is due out in November 2018!

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Says the Forest to the Girl (Porkbelly Press, 2018)
by Sally Rosen Kindred » sallyrosenkindred.com

• We’ve accepted Says the Forest to the Girl, a chapbook of poetry, for our 2018 line of chaps!

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Never Leave the Foot of an Animal Unskinned (Porkbelly Press, 2018)
by Sara Ryan » sararryan.com

• We’ve accepted Never Leave the Foot of an Animal Unskinned, a chapbook of poetry & creative nonfiction, for our 2018 line of chaps!

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Light Experiments (Porkbelly Press, 2018)
by Madeleine Barnes » madeleinebarnes.com

• We’ve accepted Light Experiments, our very first chapbook of photography, for our 2018 line of chaps!

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2018 Chapbooks!

Our complete 2018 line of chapbooks is listed below; we’ve added three chaps to previously selected works. The first two titles are selected from our January pool of submissions, and we’ll also be publishing our first photographic chapbook (Light Experiments).

Says the Forest to the Girl by Sally Rosen Kindred (poetry)

Never Leave the Foot of an Animal Unskinned by Sara Ryan (poetry & CNF)

Light Experiments by Madeleine Barnes (photography)

Dreamland for Keeps by Sarah Nichols (erasure poetry)

Love Me, Anyway by Minadora Macheret (poetry)

Two of our 2017 books were moved to 2018:

Blackbird Whitetail Redhand by Lindsay Lusby (poetry)

Found Footage by Maggie Woodward (erasure poetry)

Congratulations to our new poets & writers & artists!
We can’t wait to work with you to bring your books into the world.

Thank you to everyone who submitted. Thank you for your patience in awaiting our reply—we took a bit longer to read this year than usual. Once again, we were given the pleasure of making some very difficult decisions. We had to say no to some books we’ll be buying when they’re released from other presses. We’re quite sure they’ll be picked up soon.

You can pre-order any combination of three, five, or all of the 2018 line, and we’ll send them as they’re finished on the binding table.

(All of our titles are individually printed, collated, trimmed & bound by hand.)

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)

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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