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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June’s Crispy Bacon

Poems for Ivan by Sara Adams (cover: Nicci Mechler)

Everything I Own by Angela Just (cover: Nicci Mechler)

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

Rooed by Thirst // Tina Mozelle Braziel (cover art: Kathleen Piercefield)

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

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

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

All the good news (we’ve heard about) from our contributors:

Poems for Ivan (Porkbelly Press, 2016)
by Sara Adams // kartoshkaaaaa.com

• “But You Haven’t,” an erasure of pages from The Old Man and the Sea, is up over on Nostrovia! Tavern.
• Poems for Ivan was released 11 June 2016!

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Ghost Skin (Porkbelly Press, 2016)
by Jennifer Hanks

• Jennifer’s chapbook Prophet Fever (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2016) was just released. (Her chap from Porkbelly is forthcoming as of this writing.)

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

• hiku [pull] was released 24 June 2016!

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Everything I Own (Porkbelly Press, 2016)
by Angela Just

• Everything I Own was released on 7 June 2016!

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Rooted by Thirst (Porkbelly Press, 2016)
by Tina Mozelle Braziel

• a blog interview at Live Your Poem with Irene Latham, in which she says things like “We plan to burn lines of poetry into walls of our house.” Yesssss.

Emerson claims that “Colleges and books only copy the language which the field and the work-yard made.” That rings true to me, especially when I discover words like “rock-bar” and “squarings” that feel so invigorating. Lately, I’ve been thinking about the term “sistering” which means nailing one board against another for additional strength. Such concepts and words recalibrate my perspective of what makes a home, what it means to claim a place as our own. And that feeds my writing. // more

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My Heart in Aspic (Porkbelly Press, 2016)
by Sonya Vatomsky // @coolniceghost

• Sonya interviews Kate Litterer at Cosmonauts Avenue.

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Set the Garden on Fire (Porkbelly Press, 2016)
by Chen Chen // chenchenwrites.com

• “I am reminded via email to resubmit my preferences for the schedule” is part of the American Academy of Poets poem-a-day series at poets.org.
• Four poems (with audio!) at Infoxicated Corner: 2016 Spotlight Series via Thethe Poetry.

“Except let’s not hold off on the giant cake. & let’s not hold off on being

irreversibly in love. Happiness needs no preparation or warrantee
or reason. I’m ready to say that. I’m ready to watch any romcom/action
combo where two people topple tyranny, fall in love. I’m ready
for the movie where four people topple tyranny, fall in love,

& make consensual arrangements to keep it open.
Or six people just stay in & become best friends. Or seven
billion people befriend themselves…” | more

• Episode 55 of the SAFTAcast features Chen Chen. (SAFTAcast is a Sundress Academy for the Arts production.) This is a podcast pretty much about everything but writing, though they do sneak in a little bit about the art of translation.

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Pray, Pray, Pray: Poems I wrote to Prince in the middle of the night (Porkbelly Press, 2016)
by E. Kristin Anderson // @ek_anderson

• EKA’s poem “Between 50 and 64% of rats will self-administer diazepam” is up at The Boiler!

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