revised upper montage

Presa Press

"I do not put down the academy but have

assumed its function in my own person..."

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      -Philip Whalen

 

montage of new presa press authors


sss

John Amen, Glenna Luschei, Kirby Congdon, Richard Kostelanetz, Lyn Lifshin, Leslie H. Whitten, Hugh, Fox, Lloyd Van Brunt
Donald Lev, Gerald Locklin, Steven Sher, B. Z. Niditch, Alison Stone, Peter Ludwin, t. kilgore splake
Eric Greinke, Louis E. Bourgeois, Lynne Savitt, Ben Tibbs, A. D. Winans, Harry Smith, Linda Lerner, Stanley Nelson, Kerry Shawn Keys


Poetry Collections
Classic Social Commentary Series
General

Updated Ordering Information

 

For The Living Dead - New & Selected PoemsDangerous Enough    

This Land Is Not My Land  and

Remarks and Reflections
are now available as e-books on amazon.com





Poetry Collections

Coming In 2016

 

       pOETS IN REVIEW COVER IMAGE

Poets In Review

Eric Greinke

140 pages

Perfectbound paperback (ISBN: 978-0-9965026-0-3, $15.95)

Widely published and Internationally acclaimed poet Eric Greinke wrote reviews of his contemporaries in two periods, from 1972 through 1982 and from 2005 through 2015. The book is divided into two sections that reprint the best reviews from each of these periods. Most of the pieces in the first section were first published in Michigan’s second-largest newspaper, The Grand Rapids Press. For many of the poets (i.e. Charles Bukowski), Greinke wrote the first large newspaper reviews of their careers, thus promoting their work to a general audience. The reviews in the second section were originally published in a variety of literary publications, both online and in print. The selections illustrate the progression of Greinke’s ideas about poetry over four decades and his perceptive insights into many of the works of the major American poets of the post-modern period. The book includes reviews of: Robert Bly, Joe Brainard, Charles Bukowski, Jared Carter, Alan Catlin, David Chorlton, Tom Clark, Robert Creeley, Nikki Giovanni, Donald Hall, Linda Lerner, Lyn Lifshin, Ellaraine Lockie, Gerald Locklin, Ed Ochester, Jerome Rothenberg, Hélène Sanguinetti, Lynne Savitt, Diane Wakoski, Barry Wallenstein, and twenty-six other contemporary poets. Recommended for college literature classes.

“Eric Greinke is a rare example of a small press poet who has followed in the tradition of Sydney, Shelley and Pound by addressing the question of what poetry is all about. His ideas are clearly bound to his own practice, and yet he is capable of sufficient generalization to go right to the heart of literature. What are we doing and why? He has come up with his own answers based on a lifetime in the trenches of art, and his testimony is invaluable, if not the last word.”

                                                                                                                                                                                - William Seaton, Home Planet News

 

“Greinke’s clarity lets the reader in to what is being said, making it possible to apply, or at least, relate to these ruminations... ‘Open-mindedness of poets should at least be equivalent to that of musicians and painters. It is imperative for the growth of the poetic art that poets become more tolerant and eclectic readers, in deed.’”

                                                                                                                                                 - Irene Koronas, Wilderness House Literary Review

 

“Readers often mistakenly believe that to be ‘good,’ poetry must be written with exquisite, complex language, almost like the trills and other flourishes decorating Baroque music. However, as prize-winning poet, publisher, essayist, social worker and philosopher, Eric Greinke explains, in poetry, the enchanting, decorative quality of language represents ideas. This is Greinke at his best, advocating at the cutting edge of human growth in consciousness and doing it with poetry.”              - Ann Wehrman, Poetry Now

 

“For decades poet, small press innovator, and critic Eric Greinke has been working in poetry and with poetry, that is to say writing, publishing it, and probably most importantly, questioning the aesthetics that makes up the craft of verse, free or no.”               - Scott Whitaker, The Broadkill Review

 

Zeb Duende cover image

 

Zen Duende - Collaborative Poems

Eric Greinke & Glenna Luschei

64 pages

Perfectbound paperback (ISBN: 978-0-9965026-1-0, $13.95)

Zen Duende is the product of nearly three years of daily collaboration by elder American poets Glenna Luschei and Eric Greinke. They began their exchange following the deaths of their longtime friends, poets Hugh Fox and Harry Smith, with each writing one line a day.In these enigmatic, often humorous poems, two accomplished poets explore the meaning of life and death, memory and attachment. In a wide range of formats, Luschei and Greinke exhibit a flexibility and passion for language that is rare at any age, smiling at mortality, aglow with refreshing joie de vivre. The collection is presented in five contrasting sections that range from long poems to one-liners with titles that bear more than a passing resemblance to Zen koans. The final section contains an excerpt from the poets’ daily correspondence that illuminates the energy source of the poems. In the blending of their personae, Luschei and Greinke have created a unique voice that transcends their individual styles.


 

New In 2015014015i

      winter river flowingng in 2015

winter river flowing - new & selected poems 1979 - 2014

t. kilgore splake

152 pages

Perfectbound paperback (ISBN: 978-9888279-6-7, $21.95)

This book contains the very best poetry of reclusive poet t. kilgore splake, chosen by splake himself at the age of seventy-seven, from all of his published poetry. His progression from long conventional lines, to short, centered lines, and from descriptive narrative to leaping free association, is revealed by the book’s chronological arrangement. splake’s poetry transcends beyond persona into personal mythology.

“There are three kinds of poets. The easily dismissed wannabes. The earnest fine word slingers who for myriad reasons have a hard time using the P Word on themselves. And the brilliantly brazen few who know their life’s mission is to climb the mountain and show the world I AM A POET. Splake is one of the brilliantly brazen few, and his poems never stop proving it.”      -Robert M. Zoschke, Editor of The Lowdown

 

“When the last ingot of copper is pulled from the Cliffs, and the last snowflake melts, Splake’s words will remain etched in the soil of our minds.” - Ed Markowski

 

“TK Splake is an endangered species in this country: a true, dedicated, hands on artist. Whether it is one of his magnificent photographic essays or poetic sequences of the life and times of the last American Beat, Splake is always spot on with an unfailing eye and gift for compressed expression. As a fan of Splake’s for over two decades, I can honestly say, I anticipate each new collection of his and am never disappointed. You won’t be either. -Alan Catlin

The Moon in the Pool

The Moon in the Pool

Gary Metras

68 pages

Perfectbound paperback (ISBN: 978-9888279-7-4, $12.95)

The Moon in the Pool collects twenty-six new poems by Gary Metras. The book is divided into three sections. The first section contains one long poem, Seven Stones for Seven Poems, which uses stones as a metaphor for the poet’s life and philosophy. The second section continues the theme of self-reflection. Metras writes about his family and their impact on his life. In the final section of the book, the focus of the poems expands from the poet’s personal life to meditations on the macrocosm. Metras’ poems find personal and universal meaning from everyday activities and relationships. They are written in a direct, descriptive style that draws the reader into the naturalistic world. Metras appeals to the senses and the humanity that connects us. The Moon in the Pool is a collection that reflects on our relationship to nature and to one another.

“The words are gifts from an accomplished poet, sure of his words and his mission to deliver his words carefully measured and assured...”           Martin Willits, Hotmetalpress

“Metras’ poems are filled with phrases that want to touch and be felt. They testify. Metras is an unpretentious writer who keeps company with readers...In fact, he’s good company. His voice is direct, simple, uncomplaining and democratic.”
– Daily Hampshire Gazette

“Metras has a natural sense of how to trigger personal and deep meaning out of what is at hand...He simply has the discipline down to an art form.”            -- Small Press Review

 

retrievals

retrievals

Ruth Moon Kempher

88 pages

Perfectbound paperback (ISBN: 978-9888279-8-1, $15.95)

The theme of this new collection of fifty poems by veteran poet Ruth Moon Kempher (b. 1934) is the preservation of memories through imagery. Using the energetic tonal shifts and riffs of jazz, Kempher manages to salvage and preserve what essentially cannot be saved. Old photos, old dogs and old lusts come alive, glittering and gleaming in her poems as if the lines were embedded, like fine Indian cloth, with tiny mirrors. Kempher is a poet’s poet whose work is much admired by her contemporaries. Her work never shies from humor and ambiguity. She delights in every texture, taste, color, shape, sound and aroma, and readers may share the experience through her poems. Ruth Moon Kempher continues to reside in St. Augustine, Florida, where she owns and operates the notable King’s Estate Press. This is her thirty-fourth collection of poems.

“Ruth Moon Kempher delights in every texture, taste, color, shape, sound, and aroma in Nature’s constant, ever-changing busy-ness of evolution. In her poems, the minute and the epic are equally relevant, and all of it shimmers with meaning and magic.”         -Michael Hathaway, Editor, Chiron Review

“Kempher’s work never shies from humor, the twisted meaning; she embraces wordplay, seeks a bit of the contrary to tweak her reader out of complacency. We can be glad that Ruth Moon Kempher prevails against the sea skuzz and the difficulties of remembering, sorting, observing, and writing.”       -Ann E. Michael, in Fox Chase Review

“Ruth Moon Kempher is a poet of ephemera and of the natural world. Using the energetic tonal shifts and riffs of jazz, she manages to salvage and preserve what essentially cannot be saved. Old photos, old dogs, and old lusts come alive, glittering and gleaming in her poems as if the lines were embedded, like fine Indian cloth, with tiny mirrors.”

-Enid Shomer, Editor, University of Arkansas Press

 

where I sit

Where I Sit

Donald Lev

88 pages

Perfectbound paperback (ISBN: 978-9888279-9-8, $15.95)

Donald Lev’s new book collects seventy-four new poems that are deceptively simple yet infused with a subtle irony that gives them a poignant intimacy. He achieves this through his reliance on direct, honest colloquial speech. We get the impression that his writing is essential to his ongoing sanity, and this is the redemption of poetry itself in the hands of a master. While satiric wit is his apparent stance, these poems are infused with subtle depth and angst. Lev elicits easy comparison to Dorothy Parker, Ogden Nash and the later short poems of Robert Frost. At the age of seventy-eight, Donald Lev still has many tricks up his sleeve. His style is aphoristic, observant and reader-friendly, yet these are pithy poems to return to again and again, full of sound philosophy from a life fully lived.

“Donald Lev is supreme cynic lambasting and ridiculing orthodox human existence. Wry, twisted humor, but at the same time not just karateing it out with tradition, but with astro-physics as well. Depth, sardonic overviewings, but also so masterfully written that the ideas and emotions really get to you.”        -Hugh Fox, Small Press Review

 

“Donald Lev writes poems that are deceptively simple yet infused with a subtle irony that gives them a poignant intimacy. He achieves this through his reliance on directness and honesty. For Lev, the writing is easy, compared to all the living that led to it. Yet we get the impression that his writing is also essential to his ongoing sanity, and this is the redemption of poetry itself in the hands of a master.”          -Eric Greinke, Presa

“Writing, crafting poetry that’s lyrical, meaningful and imaginative; that says something about the self and the universe is not as easy as it looks–and I can think of at least two dozen poets who should sit at the feet of Mr. Lev.”

-Phil Wagner, Iconoclast

 

* * * * * * * * * *        * * * * * * * * * *

John Amen
“John Amen pursues a relentless path through memory and dreamscape, between mother and lover, holding a compass below the stars, his surreal imagery unfolding like origami into the complex narrative of a man’s life. A thoroughly human book.”
                                                                             Dorianne Laux

At the Threshold of Alchemy - John Amen

86 pages

Perfectbound paperback (ISBN: 978-9800081-5-9, $13.95)

 At the Threshold of Alchemy is a brutally realistic book of poetry. By immersing himself in the particular details of his most meaningful moments, John Amen transforms hurt into poems that are both imagistic & lyrically expressive. With metaphoric daring and offbeat grace, he guides us through haunting and sometimes violent memories of roving through America’s southland. Includes the major 260 line poem-sequence “Portraits of Mary,” hailed by poet Jared Smith as “perhaps the most complex, intricate, and thoroughly honest love poem in all of contemporary poetry.” Holding a compass below the stars, his surreal imagery unfolds like origami. A thoroughly human book of memorable poems of great intensity by one of our best younger poets.

“John Amen flexes verbal muscles in lively poems filled with metaphoric daring and offbeat grace. He guides us through a haunting and sometimes violent world as he draws mythological and Biblical references, entwined with wild memories of roving through America’s southland. There is a memorable and intense beauty in these poems, and their excitement deserves an attentive audience.”    -Colette Inez

“At the Threshold of Alchemy is a brutally realistic book of poetry, hauled up from the despair of life’s pivotal moments. There are no wasted words or images, with each line cracking like a whip as John Amen distills the impacts of family left behind, lovers lost, open highways, and the sudden death of friends. Yet, unexpectedly, and as miraculously as life, these tragedies open as seeds into flowering and fruit-bearing vegetation, nourishment, and compassion. Immersed within the shadows of these plants and filled with their fragrance and promise is “Portraits of Mary,” perhaps the most complex, intricate, and thoroughly honest love poem in all of contemporary poetry.”     -Jared Smith

 

Alice - Louis E. Bourgeois

40 pages

Chapbook ($6.00)

      "The poetic writings of Louis E. Bourgeois offer an exacting appreciation of personal tragedy and of an infinitely larger world that embraces 'the indifference of llife to all things.'  With unwavering self-awareness, the poet defies universal authority, and challenges the reader's perceptions of passing events.  His work is void of spurious hope, yet taunts us with a lingering sense of individual purpose."           -Laura Qa, Red Dragon Press

 

Kirby Congdon
“A poet like Congdon is a man who binds himself to the mast and sails off determined to miss nothing, record everything, even the siren song that leads everyone finally to the reefs of extinguishment.”              
Joan Colby

 

Remarks and Reflections  (essays)

Kirby Congdon

96 pages

Perfectbound paperback (ISBN: 978-9888279-5-0, $17.95)

These seventeen short essays by Kirby Congdon showcase the unique combination of poetic perception and critical wit that has made his book reviews and essays a mainstay of the Small Press Review and other important independent literary journals. Fundamental literary values are examined such as What Is Poetry?, Who Is A Poet?, Why Write Poetry? and Why Read Poetry?. Other subjects are ‘On’ Laptops, Recognition, Minorities, Publishing Children, Evolution, Competition and Collecting Books. The collection concludes with the substantial essay, Persona In Poetry, in which Condgon addresses personal voice and its relation to narrative, style, ideas and music. With the insights gained from 89 years of living, Kirby Congdon is a bona fide natural literary resource. These essays should be read by anyone who is interested in the ideas behind contemporary poetry.

“...Congdon is a man who binds himself to the mast and sails off determined to miss nothing, record everything...”

                                                                                                                  -Joan Colby

 

Kirby Congdon:  Sixty-five Years of Poetry - A Bibliography of his Poems, Prose Poems and Criticism.

Ray C. Longtin/Roseanne Ritzema, Editors

132 pages

Perfectbound paperback (ISBN:978-0-9888279-0-5, $20.00)


      “...Kirby’s contributions to the concept of “The Poet,” was more than just the publication of some 300 separate poems, with reprints in magazines and anthologies making a total of over 780 poems published to date. Indeed, his life and his contributions, in both poetry and prose, have become a living symbol of a chosen vocation, that of the vision of the Poet as a philosopher of the human condition.
      True, his poems remain his first concern, but the reader of this bibliography will find that Kirby Congdon was not just a writer of poetry, he was also a student and a judge of poetry and its place in today’s world.”

                                                                        -Ray C. Longtin, from his “Introductory Remarks”

 

Athletes - Kirby Congdon

52 pages

Perfectbound paperback (ISBN: 978-9831251-0-5, $9.95)

The poems in Kirby Congdon’s new collection Athletes showcase the sinuous, lyrical intensity he is known for. Each of the poems is about a different type of athlete, such as Swimmers, Joggers, Acrobats, Daredevil and Discus Thrower. Although he attended Columbia University with Ginsberg and Kerouac, and has contributed a major study of Corso, Congdon is wrongly considered a Beat poet. His work is contemporaneous with the Beats, but hearkens back to modern masters such as Stevens, with a Baudelairian strain, mixed together with colloquial speech. Though the focus of the collection is on the correlation between the physical and the ethereal, the pleasure of these poems emanates primarily from their impressive musicality. Congdon uses lyric techniques such as assonance without strain or stretch. At the age of eighty-six, Congdon is a national treasure. He is the American answer to William Butler Yeats, as great a musician as a poet can be without going over the top.

"Athletes is a collection of poetry from Kirby Congdon, focusing on the fragility of the human form, with a healthy dose of spirituality.  Athletes is an excellent read and pick, highly recommended."        -James A. Cox, The Midwest Book Review

“Kirby has not been in the mainstream of his time, but he has been very much a part of the avant-garde and a creative but independent force as poet, editor and critic. He deserves, and will some day get, the attention that he merits.

                                -Ray C. Longtin, Professor Emeritus of English, Long Island University

“Congdon’s work bears much in common with that of metaphysical poets such as John Donne and Andrew Marvel, concerning itself with time, human mortality and decay, and employing metaphysical conceits ranging from the ancient to the modern, the recognizable to the unfamiliar.”              -JoSelle Vanderhooft, The Pedestal Magazine

                                   

Selected Poems & Prose Poems - Kirby Congdon

84 pages

Perfectbound paperback (ISBN: 0-9772524-0-X, $15.00)

The best of 50 years from an independent press legend, selected by the author.  Congdon's work addresses universal themes in colloquial yet lyric language. His poetry combines neo-classical, musical elements, contemporary language & imagistic detail.

"Kirby Congdon's poems are a hybrid mix of existential angst & neo-classical tonality.  They pose metaphysical & moral questions in ironic spaces, like Mozart played uptempo by a cool jazz combo."    -Eric Greinke

                          

“He (Congdon) is enough of a story painter to invoke Dunsany in his prose pieces and enough of a musician that, no matter where you find yourself in his work, you can hang like a happy spider of a webwork of wordplay and internal rhyme and rhythm.”     -Rattlesnake Review

                                     


Blood Cocoon - Selected Poems of Connie Fox - Hugh Fox
72 pages
Perfectbound paperback (ISBN: 0-9740868-9-4, $15.00)


In these poems, Connie Fox explores the ancient theology/philosophy of the Great Goddess world-view where the Earth itself is literally the Earth Mother & everything is dominated by a sense of female sexuality/fertility. The Dream of the Black Topaz Chamber, Oma, & Nachthymnen highlight this primordial femininity with lush imagery & rich language. 10 170 & Babicka link the past with the present & provide a glimpse into Connie’s experiences, sensuality, & awareness of the life-death cycle. This increased awareness of death & aloneness permeates the imagery in Our Lady Of Laussel & Entre Nous. Fox identifies & identifies with the history/anthropology/philosophy of female sexuality & portrays it with courage, sensitivity, & intelligence. This poetry is a kind of Jungian-Freudian Id-history of Connie’s life & relationships from childhood to adulthood.

“I have read (The Dream of the Black Topaz Chamber) a number of times and have been confused by its ofttimes obscurity, amazed at its complexity, overwhelmed by the breadth of its content, and amazed at its colloquial simplicity.”
                                                                                                                                               -Laurence F. Hawkins, Jr. in Dog River Review

Our Lady of Laussel...a totally different cup of tea...genuinely powerful imagery...difficult to identify with or even understand but strangely also very compelling...very readable...”    -Ore
                                    
“ ...the writing, (10 170) a 12 section epic chant for the dead and dying, is a hypnotic confessional flow filled with wise, true psychobabble and real-life folks...Connie Fox is like an old woman rattling and knitting, only she uses guts instead of yarn.”
                                                                                                                                                                        -Ken Sutherland in Mockreviewsz

“If Walt Whitman had been a woman, all of nature would have been reconfigured to a different time zone and place. That is what Connie Fox’s poetry makes me believe. And it’s Whitman who this free verse of gorgeous and engorging poetry reminds me of most. I love this book.”   -Lo Galluccio in The Cambridge Alewife
                                    

“The poems in Blood Cocoon will amaze in thie complexity and overwhelm in their content.   I suggest this book to those readers who prefer poetry with a bite, for these writings are soaked with an intensity that will not soon be forgotten by those who choose to take the journey.”   -Rattlesnake Review
                                    

“A marvelous collection/concoction, this selection from prior books is a must for ever Connie Fox fan.”
                                                                                                                                                                                                            -Small Press Review

 

Time & Other Poems - Hugh Fox

44 pages

Chapbook ($6.00)

He (Fox) examines the meaning of his existence continually, & never settles for easy answers.  His personal relationships, his memories, his perceptions are all fodder for his well-aimed cannon.  These poems are intimate & true.  They occupy a space somewhere between autobiographical journalism & Jungian dreamwork.  Fox transfers so much of himself into these poems, that he defies time & mortality.  He takes us through the halls of myth & art, spanning all of human existence & beyond, into the cosmos of being itself.  Reading these poems creates an emotional tide effect, satisfying & sweet, boundless & brave as the expanding universe.

 

"Reading Hugh Fox's poems is a bit like getting on a bus with a ticket you've no idea to where, you are jostled, take some wild curves, have breath-taking vistas, get to where you'd never expected, sometimes dazed, shaken up, sometimes laughing, never bored, always a little different than when you began."    -Lyn Lifshin

                                     

"Like Charles Ives, like Herman Melville, Hugh Fox is an American original, an (almost) divinely inspired crackpot.  There is no one else like him writing today."      -Richard Morris

                                  

"Fox succeeds in keeping the reader's attention through a day to day existence that is never dull or tedious.  There is no self-pity in this journey.  Fox is never angry, never pathetic, just seeking answers to questions that really have no answer."

                                                      -A.D. Winans

“This collection is a roller coaster ride between life and death, and as Ferlinghetti put it 'a Coney Island of the mind'.”

                                      -Ibbetson Update

“The poet searches for something else eternal beyond...and it is in Time and in the language of Time if it is anywhere.”

                                      -Jared Smith

“The poems included in this collection are as genuine as anything written by Ginsberg.   These are poems of human history, which cry out to be heard and read by many.”    -Rattlesnake Review

 

For The Living Dead - New & Selected Poems

Eric Greinke

160 pages

Perfectbound paperback (ISBN: 978-9888279-2-9, $15.95)

Critically-acclaimed American poet Eric Greinke has selected 109 of his best poems for this extensive collection. The poems date from 1969 through 2012, and include thirteen new poems and his prize-winning long poems For The Living Dead and Beyond Our Control (with Hugh Fox). The poems were originally published in a wide variety of top literary magazines such as Abraxas, The New York Quarterly, the California Quarterly, The South Carolina Review and the Paterson Literary Review.  Greinke’s poetry has been praised for its thought-provoking, multi-leveled, often dreamlike imagery and his creative, stylistic range. Although he employs several divergent compositional processes, his work is sustained by a distinctive and recognizable voice. His tones range from ironically humorous to elegiac, sometimes in the same poem. Many poems, such as Flood Tide, April and Persona, show a strong lyrical presence. New poems such as the award-winning Shooting Lessons, exhibit Greinke’s unique use of lyric devices within an autobiographical narrative.

“Greinke seamlessly weaves together the vibrance of the naturalist with the unsettling images of dream worlds and mimes. His collection of work from more than four decades establishes him as an accomplished poet, seeing both worlds seen and unseen.”              David Wheeler, PoetsWest

“I highly recommend Greinke’s new collection of deceptively simple poems that will lead seeking, perceptive readers to the edge of a dream, perhaps, to a new level of consciousness.”                    Ann Wehrman, Poetry Now

“Greinke is a spacious poet of Soul. There is an easy flow, an unstrained lucidity, a surreal exuberance about his poetry. The marvel of Greinke is the ‘open window’ he has sustained throughout a long career of letters. Let us revere this great man of letters in lionlike Age; he gives us so much.”        Charles Thompson, Various Artists (U.K.)

“Each poem is a cathedral of actuality, of thought, of inspiration. He has the rare talent to walk with our environment, to bring us a profound lesson that nature often has if we listen to the ice crystals or growing green. He takes our hand and shows us what we have forgotten to look at.”     Irene Koronas, Boston Area Poetry Scene


“Greinke writes across a rather broad spectrum. He knows nature intimately, and he’s not afraid to let his imagination float and flutter and soar. That boldness takes a certain kind of courage. His lines are written with vigor and thought, a pretty potent combination.”
          John Berbrich, Barbaric Yawp

 

Conversation Pieces - Selected Interviews - Eric Greinke

100 pages

Perfectbound paperback (ISBN:978-0-9831251-6-7, $15.95)

This selection of interviews with the author of The Potential Of Poetry represents the poet’s poetic philosophy over a thirty-five year period, from 1977 to the present. The written-conversational format is entertaining yet informative, and the incisive questions of the interviewers elicit perceptive replies, showing how Greinke’s ideas have grown from early basic seeds into a forest of poetic and social insights. Conversation Pieces adds another dimension to the ideas of one of America’s most influential poets.

 

The Potential Of Poetry - Eric Greinke

88 pages

Perfectbound paperback (ISBN: 978-9831251-1-2, $11.95)

The Potential Of Poetry collects seven recent essays by critically-acclaimed poet Eric Greinke that assert the value of poetry in human progress. Greinke examines our basic assumptions about poetics, social stratification in the literary world, accessibility and related issues with unique insight and humor. Together, these essays build a strong case for poetic freedom and eclecticism.

Indie Groundbreaking Book: The Potential Of Poetry
“This little poem (Life) is part of a little essay, in a little book, released by a little publisher, that had a BIG impact on me. It’s an 88-page paperback book of essays. Like the little poem, it doesn’t need to be BIG to be GREAT. The Potential Of Poetry is one of those books that you know is important, even if you’re not sure why.”

- Jim Barnes, Independent Publisher, Jenkins Group

“This is Greinke at his best, advocating at the cutting edge of human growth in consciousness and love, and doing it with poetry. Reading his essays in The Potential Of Poetry, one can easily recognize the maturity, idealism, experience, and wisdom he has wrung from life. I highly recommend Greinke’s book of profound essays on the nature and role of poetry that will lead seeking, perceptive readers to the edge of a dream, perhaps to a new level of consciousness.”
        - Ann Wehrman, Poetry Now

“Poetry’s presence in the mainstream has been waning in recent years, but there is still much in its purpose. Simple and profound work with plenty to muse on literature and art in general, The Potential Of Poetry is a choice addition to literary studies collections.”        - James A Cox, The Midwest Book Review

“Greinke’s The Potential Of Poetry is a devastatingly revelatory overview of the civil wars going on in the U.S. viz a viz contemporary poetry. Not just objective, academic analysis, but personal, revelatory history of where he is personally coming from. Another must-read from Greinke.”      - Hugh Fox

 

Kerry Shawn Keys
“Good word-slinging - rich sense of music, metaphor, image, melody - color and flavor...”       
          Gary Snyder

Night Flight - Kerry Shawn Keys

96 pages

Perfectbound paperback (ISBN:978-0-9831251-3-6, $15.95)

In his fourth collection of poetry from Presa Press, Kerry Keys demonstrates once again why he is considered a poets’ poet. In poems such as “Tennessee Williams Comes To Mulberry Street,” Keys accomplishes in a few stanzas what other writers take hundreds of pages to invent and develop. He demonstrates his mastery of poetic compression and lyrical expression in poems such as “Dog” and “Experience” and “Springtime at the Edge of Paradise.” Several of the poems are reprinted from international journals such as Inclusions, Literatura irmenas and The Other Voices International Project. These fifty-seven new pieces by Kerry Keys will satisfy both veteran Keys’ fans and new readers alike with their inventiveness, subtle humor and fresh use of the English language. The best book so far from a special voice.

“When I read Kerry Shawn Keys’ work, I note immediately how much I enjoy his phrasings, the unpredictable turns and twists of a line where each new word comes as surprise, and yet all are deeply satisfying when one re-reads them: “I knew Kathy Leonard in the nightsoiled, chiseled guilt” or “tonight, you will drown in the unattended glossary of your dreams” or “ragged seams of coal share the flute-like warble / of a high-C in her voice” or “If all mornings could be like this whispered shower / of sunlight and rain” – this gorgeous language that wants to stay in the mouth, one wants to toss the line this way and that, in memory.”       -Ilya Kaminsky

“I find Keys’ poetry lucid, lyrical, and broad-ranging. It is also lush and often absurd (unusual for an American), and delves into psychological, spiritual, and cultural areas – a deep involvement with Brazil and India – that few others are gifted by experience and ability to touch.”          -Tomaž Šalamun

 

Transporting, A Cloak of Rhapsodies - Kerry Shawn Keys

112 pages

Perfectbound paperback (ISBN: 978-9800081-8-0, $15.95)

Award winning poet, translator and international multi-media artist Kerry Shawn Keys presents his most recent collection of poetry - Transporting, A Cloak of Rhapsodies. These lyrical poems hypnotize the reader with the rhythm and tonality of their long lines. Imagery, language and cadence meld into a symphony of sound and sight that excites the imagination with its possibilities.

“I find Keys’ poetry lucid, lyrical, and broad-ranging. It is also lush and often absurd (unusual for an American), and delves into psychological, spiritual, and cultural areas – a deep involvement with Brazil and India – that few others are gifted by experience and ability to touch.”        -Tomaž Šalamun

“What I love in Keys’ poetry is language, indeed the marvelous language, and the exoticism, and the craziness, and the wonderful sane humor, and the mixture of time and persons, and the originality and inventiveness, and the newness and the excitement.”        -Gerald Stern

“Kerry Shawn Keys’ poetry fulfills the unsuspected accents that Lorca spoke of in his essay on duende where ‘through the empty arch comes an air of the mind that blows insistently over the heads of the dead.’”        -Paulo Cesar da Luz


The Burning Mirror - Kerry Shawn Keys           

92 pages
Perfectbound paperback (ISBN 978-0-9772524-9-7, $14.95)

Avant-garde, boom-generation poet, translator and international multi-media artist Kerry Shawn Keys presents a new volume of his surrealistic poetry.  His poems are imagistic, lyrical vehicles that express Keys' personal observations of the natural world, contrasted to the artificiality of man's world.

                                                                                   

“Not only a poet of the mind, but a wisdom poet and allegorist.  Keys is a nature poet both in his closeness to and his terrific knowledge of the things of the natural world, and in his deliberate and absurdist anthropomorphization of those things.  A Kind of deconstructionist, a scholar, and existentialist...and all of them with great passion - singing...and humming to his own carefree energy.”   -Gerald Stern

“The body of Kerry Shawn Keys' true subject in 'The Burning Mirror' is the expanse of the history of the planet and the history of philosophy and poetry; granted to us in notes of the sublime and real shards of a very real world.  From fate gambler to devout shapeshifter to archeologist of the word and ethnoclast, the organizing psyche in these poems never loses sight of his main shamanistic and psychosexual thinking body, an organism that is equal parts god killer and worshipper...indeed, 'St. Paul and Venus polished into one body by the sea'.”      - Sam Witt

“...the work seems to exude like sap from a sugar maple or ants from a hill.  What an incredible wealth.  The sort of poet people dream about when they dream about poets.”      - Robert Bringhurst

 

PO/EMS - Richard Kostelanetz

40 pages
Chapbook ($6.00)

Words within words by the foremost experimental poet of our time.

“Just when you think you're totally soaked in the possibilities in modern art, music, poetry, drama, dance, etc., along comes Richard Kostelanetz and you've got to start all over again.”      -Hugh Fox in Small Press Review

 

More Fulcra Poems - Richard Kostelanetz

48 pages
Chapbook ($6.00)

“By breaking up words into their components, he sheds new (and often humorous/ironic) light on their meanings and relationships.”         -Phil Wagner, The Iconoclast

 

Purling Sonnets - Richard Kostelanetz

32 pages
Chapbook ($6.00)

“Kostelanetz challenges our perceptions, ideas of what a poem can offer. I except his punctuation, his deconstruction; he influences many contemporary poets, including myself.”           -Irene Koronas, Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene


Only Wings - 20 Poems of Devotion - Donald Lev

28 pages

Chapbook ($6.00)

Donald Lev’s new collection shows him at his deft best: simultaneously simple & profound. These little poems offer big wisdom, expanding everyday language & experience into elegant metaphysical clarity.

 

“Donald Lev’s poetry is sublime. It catches you off guard. Though seemingly so simple and direct—it goes on to awaken depths in us all.”       -Bob Richards

“The poet…achieves a unique brand of humor about the strange ache we call the human condition. He blends marvelously active images with feelings of dread, abandonment, and intellectual frustration. But his readers don’t weep - they’re more likely to laugh ruefully.”         -Shirley Powell

“Don is serious, funny, free associative, formal—each cartoon, vignette, dialog, and rumination stamped with his quick-change imprint. He’s full of surprises. You might go in here, but will you come out there?”      -David Gershator

 

In Mirrors - Lyn Lifshin

84 pages

Perfectbound paperback (ISBN: 0-9772524-3-4, $15.00)

A new book from one of our most important poets.  Lifshin gives us her most reflective work to date.  Lifshin's mirror poems may be taken individually & as a suite.  Few poets can extend a metaphor in so many directions.  Her poetic power is evident in these imagistic variations on the theme of insight.

"No one is more precise, focused, as deftly impressionistic as Lifshin..."    -Hugh Fox

"Lyn Lifshin's mirror poems may be taken individually & as a suite.  Few poets can extend a metaphor in so many directions. Lifshin's poetic power is evident in these imagistic variations on the theme of insight."  -Eric Greinke

“There are many crisp images in this collection.  If you are a fan of Ms. Lifshin's work, you will enjoy her latest authoring.”          -Rattlesnake Review

 

Lost Horses - Lyn Lifshin

36 pages
Chapbook ($6.00)

In Lost Horses, poet-dynamo Lyn Lifshin presents us with twenty new poems inspired by her dreams. Lifshin excavates universal archetypes from our shared unconscious & evokes primal feelings in her poems.  These night mares will haunt her readers in their pure artistic honesty.

“Lifshin is one of those rare talents that you come by once in a lifetime, and she should be a starting poet for many young womant writers.  Shes is the quintessential personal poet, a poet whose lifetime commitment to poetry as a way of ilfe is u nmatched by many.”       -B. L. Kennedy

 

Gerald Locklin
“I have never been let down. I have been picked up, lifted up, tossed into that rare area: excellent writing with verve, writing that laughs, writing that reads easy yet says something. That’s a good package.”
                                  Charles Bukowski

From a Male Perspective - Gerald Locklin

32 pages

Chapbook ($6.00)

"The male spirit in him remains honest, bighearted, sentimental, generous, gentle, vulnerable, but sassy in the face of adversity - qualities that could be applied to as few American poets as to presidents."       -Edward Field

 

Deep Meanings: Selected Poems 2008-2013 - Gerald Locklin

132 pages

Perfectbound paperback (ISBN:978-0-9831251-9-8, $15.95)

“...Gerald Locklin’s lack of pretension is complimented by an acute sensitivity, a sense of humor, and a casual style that combines to produce a vision that is deep and unusually candid.”        - Gerald W. Haslam, from “He Pushes Limits, But

Gently...” (Gerald Locklin:  A Critical Introduction. Ed. by Michael Basinski.)

“His poems are about real people and places that ‘illustrate’ with ‘common’ language the classic themes of love, envy, honesty, integrity, etc...”         - Marvin Malone, Publisher of The Wormwood Review

 

Rumors of Fallible Gods - Peter Ludwin

108 pages

Perfectbound paperback (ISBN:978-0-9831251-8-1, $15.95)

"With Rumors of Fallible Gods, Peter Ludwin establishes himself as a citizen of the poetic imagination, availing readers of the intricate relationships between  the geopolitical and the personal worlds we create and shape every day."    

                 -William O'Daly

"Here in the undermind is the poetry of Peter Ludwin -- mythic, strange, amazing. This book is a key or a map or even an entrance itself to the way...down."     

                                                                                                                                       -Tony Barnstone

"Here we find an artist at the peak of his powers, where vision and craft conjoin "to inhabit the transparent pearl, the drop/in perpetual motion that spells a history."  When you pick up Peter Ludwin's book, put on your traveling shoes -- you're going on a journey."       -Joseph Stroud

 

Glenna Luschei
"Glenna Luschei's poems are always lively, brave, sometimes biting as lime juice - written by an enchanting mind."    Robert Bly

 

Leaving It All Behind - Glenna Luschei

104 pages

Perfectbound paperback (ISBN: 978-0-9831251-2-9, $15.95)

In her 24th collection of poems, Glenna Luschei achieves the perceptual immediacy promised in her critically-acclaimed previous work. Luschei’s poems somehow keep their feet in two worlds at once. They are constructed of equal parts of both impressionism and expressionism. In poems such as Chocolate Labrador and the title poem Leaving It All Behind, the poet’s maturity of vision shines through with great clarity. Her special ability is to synthesize the external and internal worlds, to reconcile them with life experiences which we all share. This universality finds its poetic form in her strikingly authoritative and sensitive use of language, both spare and luscious. This collection testifies that a poet may continue to hone her craft well into her seventies. Leaving It All Behind is her best collection to date, the crowning achievement of a long life spent seeking and serving the Muses.

“Luschei empties her voice onto the page and lets the reader hear verses steeped in a message which declines an invitation. We meet the poems head on without frills or foolish rambling. The dance of words is infectious and the poet’s personal freedom opens each page.”      - Irene Koronas, Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene

“Ms. Luschei is a distiller: her poems are boiled down to the very essence of life - and even when she’s sad, there’s an irrepressible enthusiasm and sense of wonder in love with natures, history, and the sheer plentitude of existence.”

    - Phil Wagner, Iconoclast

“Along with the gorgeous symbolism that forges into the realm of metaphysical poetry, note also that the speaker is not passive here when facing down death. In this sense, Luschei’s juxtaposition of poems in which she travels, dreams, and, ultimately lives, serve as a reminder that life, for the living, does not stop and should not stop even when it has been flooded with grief. Given Luschei’s sharp, precise, and pointed verse, she is undoubtedly an important voice in contemporary English poetry - and, I think, one who has not received the full recognition she deserves.

-JoSelle Vanderhooft, The Pedestal Magazine

Sprouts - Glenna Luschei

28 pages

(Chapbook)  $6.00)

       "These are spare, elemental poems that contain deep stirrings."     -Pamela Hart, Home Planet News

        "There is a pristine quality to her verse. Her view of the natural world is not hindered by messy, weedy words."

-Doug Holder, Ibbertson Update

     

Witch Dance - Glenna Luschei

84 pages

Perfectbound paperback (ISBN: 978-9800081-7-3, $13.95)

In this collection, poet Glenna Luschei responds to the death of her husband Bill with a special kind of poetic magic. Walking through the live oak forest of her memory, we share in her poignant transformation from grief to a life affirming joie de vivre.

“In Witch Dance, Glenna Luschei marries a light touch to penetrating clarity. Poem after poem is easy to read, easy to love, hard to forget. A highly recommended collection.”      -Ronald Koertge

 

Total Immersion - Glenna Luschei

96 pages
Perfectbound paperback (ISBN 978-0-9800081-0-4, $15.00)

Total Immersion is a landmark collection of poems by the legendary literary activist, poet/editor Glenna Luschei. In her mature later poems, Glenna Luschei joyfully celebrates the organic cycle of life. People & landscapes reflect & parallel each other in their birth, growth, decline & death, but the poet opts for a life-affirming, maternal world-view. It takes more than mere life to discourage her pioneer spirit. Glenna Luschei, Ph.D., has been active in the small press for 40+ years as a past president of COSMEP (Committee of Small Magazine Editors & Publishers), the publisher of Solo Café, as a teacher, as a translator & as a philanthropist to American literature.


“The language of these poems is reminiscent of the Zen Buddhist poets, who journey into the mountains or forests or the river valley and return with scrolls of verse that sing of what they have seen and learned.”
  -Donald Lev in Home Planet News


“Luschei isn’t merely a poet but a subtle impressionistic prophet whose work immediately begins to change your whole world-view.”
         -Hugh Fox

Limbos For Amplified Harpsichord - Stanley Nelson

144 pages
Perfectbound paperback (ISBN 978-0-9772524-8-0, $17.95)

"Anyone who thinks the age of experimentation in the arts is over hasn't read the poems of Stanley Nelson. Nelson has taken free verse places where it had never been before."        -Guy Gautier

"Here is a poet who crosses the line without fear of label.  His experimental writings and verse lend freely to all areas of literature.  Nelson is a writer whose rapture is deeply embedded in his craft."     -Rattlesnake Review

 

City of the Sun - Stanley Nelson

126 pages
Perfectbound paperback (ISBN 978-0-9800081-2-8, $15.95)

"One of the most innovative poets of our time.  In the realm of experimental visual form, Nelson is a worthy successor to Appollinaire and Cummings, and he is unique in his major music."       -Small Press Review

"...Nelson's epic is concerned with a desperately eternal theme:  the search for meaning and beauty that has led centuries of men and women to push physical, mental and spiritual boundaries to exhaustion."       -The Pedestal Magazine

 

Captive Cities - B. Z. Niditch

36 pages

Chapbook ($8.00)

“B. Z. Niditch transcends place and time in his new poems, with the emotional and verbal intensity that has earned him a reputation as one of America’s most beloved (and published) poets. Alternating between geographical and deeply personal remembrances, Niditch has created a world within a world, one that endears and captivates us.”     -Eric Greinke

“The places and things B. Z. writes about are not only in Massachusetts, they’re everywhere, universal. You’ll find them right outside your door, in the words of your last letter, in the mirror. It’s a rare writer who can take what’s been sitting invisibly in front of you all along and give it size and solidity and a heartbeat.”         -Patrick Carrington

 

Steven Sher
“Steven Sher manages to transform the anomalies of daily living into something as rich and dense as a tapestry.”   

                           John Ashbery

 

Grazing On Stars - Selected Poems - Steven Sher

84 pages

Perfectbound paperback (ISBN:978-0-9831251-7-4, $15.95)

Steven Sher’s poems are rooted in Brooklyn, New York, where he grew up, and in the places across America where he has lived including Iowa, Kansas, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Oregon’s Willamette Valley and North Carolina. He has studied with John Ashbery, and his precise use of words shows it. This selection of poems offers a varied sampling from his first thirty years of writing poetry. The poems appear in three sections, each one covering roughly a ten-year period beginning in 1975. The poems in this collection first appeared in many of the best international literary magazines and subsequently in the following books by Steven Sher: The House of Washing Hands, The Skipping Stone, At the Willamette, Thirty-Six, Flying Through Glass, Traveler’s Advisory, Trolley Lives and Caught in the Revolving Door. Richly textured word tapestries infused with emotional invocations, Sher’s poems seek to transcend beyond the everyday into the spiritual realm.

“Steven Sher manages to transform the anomalies of daily living into something as rich and dense as a tapestry.”

                                                                      -John Ashbery

“There are tremors of realization...a strong feeling of location...a gust of feeling as I read.”         -William Stafford

“Unabashedly emotional, this is poetry of the deepest sentiment, as full of moving truths as it is full of invention...”

            -Barry Wallenstein

 

Little Things - Harry Smith

78 pages

Perfectbound paperback (ISBN: 978-9800081-3-5, $13.95)

Little Things contains fifty-two new poems by the venerable literary activist/publisher/poet Harry Smith, selected by the poet at the age of seventy-one. The collection is divided into two sections of poems. The first, Modern Ballads, celebrates common objects of nature and experiences, based in narrative. The second section, Olden Lyrics, contains a wide variety of lyric poems that are simultaneously both deft and expansive. Smith’s work displays a level of humor and philosophy seldom encountered in contemporary literature. Highly recommended for all collections of current American poetry.


“Harry Smith’s poetry can summon a Whitmanesque majesty and scope...and like Walt, bears witness to the movement of the giant wheel of culture and history.”           -Phil Wagner in The Iconoclast

“Harry Smith uses the projective form to convey patterns of consciousness, & melds metrical poetry with prose to objectify experience in a stylistic synthesis. He believes that poets have the primary responsibility for the description of history.”           -Roseanne Ritzema in Inside The Outside

"Harry Smith is indeed a master poet who sculpts his words with a careful eye and focus of a hawk. The book is divided into two sections and both make a fine read for those lovers of poetry who can never seem to get enough of the printed word. If this weren’t a mini-review, I’d go into a larger discourse of the importance of these poems...”

B.L. Kennedy in Rattlesnake Review

“With a full range of forms, Smith gives us haiku-like glimpses through the nature of his experiences... He is a story teller poet with an emphasis on small personal truths.”             Irene Koronas in Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene

 

ghost dancer's dreams - t. kilgore splake

68 pages

Perfectbound paperback (ISBN:978-0-9831251-4-3, $12.95)

In his crystalline new collection of poems ghost dancer’s dreams, t. kilgore splake captures and blends his personal history/memories with the public events of his seventy-five years of life into a tour de force of existential and poetic clarity. Varying in length from spare, haiku like gems to the major long poem trout dancing sonata, splake blends the impulses and energies of youth with the hard-earned wisdom of age. His unique poems ring true in a way that only a determined dedication to personal growth can produce. Unadorned and original poetry by a lifelong searcher. At the age of seventy-five, he’s still a dynamo.

“Splake’s poetry is straight from the heart. His poems are both personal and accessible. A shaman who invites you inside his heart and down life’s road, and he does it in an unpretentious way. Treat them as you would a gourmet meal served up by a master chef.”          - A. D. Winans

 

Alison Stone
“Stone is not a ‘literary’ poet (there are enough of them). Her text does not depend on other texts. She is interested in a woman’s truth, and has something hard won (but won) to give her readers. This is strong poetry.”   

                                  Allen Grossman

Dangerous Enough

Alison Stone

80 pages

Perfectbound paperback (ISBN: 978-9888279-3-6, $15.95)

In her third collection, Alison Stone presents us with forty-two poems of struggle and redemption. Her style is crisp and unencumbered by literary pretense. Stone evokes the raw emotions that inspired her poems with a rare honesty and clarity. Although her main theme is femininity and maternal love in a dangerous world, she takes her readers into the shared common experiences that bind us together as humans. The torment of AIDS, memories of drug abuse and the loss of loved ones provide imagistic mirrors to all human suffering in her poems. Simply put, they connect to real experience transfigured into language as experience in itself. These poems saw original publication in the best literary magazines, including Barrow Street, Poet Lore, Poetry, The Paris Review and Ploughshares. Stone’s work has received the 2003 Many Mountains Moving Poetry Award, Poetry’s Frederick Bock Prize and New York Quarterly’s Madeline Sadin Award.

“Stone understands that poems, as Robert Lowell encouraged, must be events in themselves and not merely records of events. Whether psychological or philosophical, or advancing the intensity of raw emotion, Stone’s poems are urgent and dramatic, put themselves and by extension the reader, at risk."         -Thom Ward

 

“Stone offers lean and sparkling poetry that invites us to join with it - poems that are, in their way, multi-faceted spaces to explore, discovering what we may, and grafting what we bring.”              -Timothy McLafferty, Verse Wisconsin

 

A. D. Winans
“We’re fortunate to have a poet who gives us a first-person account of the unspeakable human sacrifices to the gods of American “democracy”: Profit and Property.”      Harold Norse

This Land Is Not My Land

A. D. Winans

60 pages

Perfectbound paperback (ISBN: 978-9888279-4-3, $14.95)

Considered by many to be his best work, This Land Is Not My Land is a series of poems written by a young A. D. Winans when he was a Military Policeman stationed in Panama during the U.S. occupation of that country. In these short narrative poems, Winans depicts scenes of ordinary poor people sacrificed to the forces of corporate greed and power. Though these are not ‘political’ poems per se, they are slices of reality compressed into thumbnail sketches that give the reader a sympathetic view of the lives of third world citizens and the inequities between rich and poor nations. Originally published in 2005 as a Presa Press chapbook, This Land Is Not My Land was given the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Literary Achievement Award. The new edition has eight new poems contributed by A. D. Winans at the age of 78.


“...an important book for anyone interested in powerful poetry and its expression.”         -J. Wesley Clark, Bogg

“This is a small, concise book, but like a burning match, your mind has to handle it with care and caution. The words scorch the page.”             -Kirby Congdon, Home Planet News

“Honest, scathing, important poems.”     -Vince Gotera, North American Review

Wind On His Wings - A. D. Winans

44 pages

Chapbook ($8.00)

"As a poet, A. D Winans is one of the best writing in the U.S. today. His work is powerful, human, humane and deals with primary issues."        - Hugh Fox

“Winans’ work has an elegant simplicity and clarity. His poems are heartfelt expressions of a wise observer, powerfully honest and uncompromised by literary fashion. One of our best poets.”         -Eric Greinke

    

The Other Side Of Broadway: Selected Poems 1965 - 2005 - A.D. Winans

132 pages
Perfectbound paperback (ISBN 978-0-9772524-5-9, $12.00)

71 poems selected by the author, at the age of 70.  His poems are heartfelt expressions of a wise observer, powerfully honest and uncompromised by literary fashion.

“Here is a word-slinger, A.D. Winans, a poet of clarity, an artful man who makes it all seem easy.  He remains a captive within his home port, San Francisco, a voice nailed onto the soil of his native land, writing as he speaks.”

                                                                                                                                          -Neeli Cherkovski

“A.D. Winans is a man in search of his soul.  He has great heart and compassion for people and his native city, San Francisco.   I like his uncompromising spirit.  He pulls no punches.”       - Jack Micheline

“He seems to me, quite simply, a natural writer of extraordinary talent.  By this, I mean that everything I read by him fills me with pleasure because of a beautifully natural and easy use of language.”       - Colin Wilson

“And while the poet is no longer young, no longer spry, or the man he once may have been, he offers an assessment of his life in the final poem of this excellent collection, an epitaph of a kind, both brutal but to the point.”

                                                                                                                      - Alan Catlin in The Pedestal

“The poems in this book are succinct and each line pulls you into the next and it is a pleasure to read for the drama and the descriptive use of the language.”     

    - Kirby Congdon in Small Press Review                                                                 

 

                                                                                                               


Classic Social Commentary Series

Self-Reliance – Ralph Waldo Emerson
44 pages
Chapbook ($6.00)


Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson contains the essence of transcendental philosophy. Emerson reflects upon human potential & encourages us to listen to the voice within. He explores & illuminates the concepts of idealism, individualism & spiritualism. His belief in determining one’s values from personal insights rather than conforming to societal judgements remains pertinent today. Emerson has inspired classical writers from Thoreau, Whitman & Nietzsche to contemporary authors such as D. H. Lawrence, William Carlos Williams & Ernest Hemingway.

 


Civil Disobedience – Henry David Thoreau
44 pages
Chapbook ($6.00)

Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau has been one of the most historically significant & influential essays ever written. Since its initial publication in 1849 it has inspired resistance movements from the Danish WWII underground in the 1940's to the South African anti-apartheid movement at the end of the 20th century. Seminal leaders from Mahatma Gandhi to Martin Luther King have found encouragement & enlightenment in Thoreau’s words.

 


General


 



Updated Ordering Information

Available to the trade through wholesalers.  (Baker & Taylor, The Book House, Coutts Information Services, Eastern Book Company, & Midwest Library  Service)

Available in Europe through Gazelle Book Service Ltd., White Cross Mills, Hightown, Lancaster, LA1 4XS, United Kingdom or www.gazellebooks.co.uk

At the Threshold of Alchemy
John Amen

ISBN: 978-09800081-5-9, perfectbound paperback, 86 pgs., $13.9

Alice

Louis E. Bourgeois

Chapbook, 40 pgs.; $6.00

Remarks and Reflections (essays)
Kirby Congdon

ISBN: 978-0-9888279-5-0, perfectbound paperback, 96 pgs., $17.95

Kirby Congdon - 65 Years of Poetry - A Bibliography of his Poems, Prose Poems and Criticism
Edited by Ray C. Longtin/R. Ritzema
ISBN: 978-0-9888279-0-5, perfectbound paperback, 132 pgs., $20.00

Selected Poems & Prose Poems
Kirby Congdon
ISBN: 978-0-9772524-0-4, perfectbound paperback, 84 pgs., $15.00

Blood Cocoon - Selected Poems of Connie Fox
Hugh Fox
ISBN: 978-0-9740868-9-4, perfectbound paperback, 72 pgs., $15.00

Time & Other Poems
Hugh Fox

Chapbook, 44 pgs., $6.00

Poets In Review

Eric Greinke

ISGN:  978-0-9965026-0-3, perfectbound paperback, 140 pgs., $15.95

 

For The Living Dead - New & Selected Poems
Eric Greinke
ISBN: 978-0-9888279-2-9, perfectbound paperback, 160 pgs., $15.95

The Potential Of Poetry
Eric Greinke
ISBN: 978-0-9831251-1-2, perfectbound paperback, 88 pgs., $11.9

Conversation Pieces - Selected Interviews
Eric Greinke
ISBN: 978-0-9831251-6-7, perfectbound paperback, 100 pgs., $15.95

retrievals

Ruth Moon Kempher

ISBN: 978-0-9888279-8-1, perfectbound paperback, 88 pgs., $15.95

Transporting, A Cloak of Rhapsodies

Kerry Shawn Keys

ISBN: 978-0-9800081-8-0, perfectbound paperback, 112 pgs., $15.95

The Burning Mirror

Kerry Shawn Keys

ISBN: 978-0-9772524-9-7, perfectbound paperback, 92 pgs., $14.95

Purling Sonnets
Richard Kostelanetz
Chapbook, 32 pgs., $6.00

More Fulcra Poems
Richard Kostelanetz
Chapbook, 36 pgs., $6.00

PO/EMS
Richard Kostelanetz
Chapbook, 40 pgs., $6.00

Where I Sit
Donald Lev

ISBN: 978-0-9888279-9-8, perfectbound paperback, 88 pgs., $15.95

Only Wings - 20 Poems of Devotion
Donald Lev
Chapbook, 28 pgs., $6.00

Lost Horses
Lyn Lifshin
Chapbook, 48 pgs., $6.00

In Mirrors
Lyn Lifshin
ISBN: 978-0-9772524-3-5, perfectbound paperback, 84 pgs., $15.00

From a Male Perspective
Gerald Locklin
Chapbook, 32 pgs., $6.00

Deep Meanings: Selected Poems 2008-2013
Gerald Locklin

ISBN:  978-0-9831251-9-8, perfectbound paperback, 132 pgs., $15.95

Rumors Of Fallible Gods
Peter Ludwin
ISBN:  978-0-9831251-8-1, perfectbound paperback, 108 pgs., $15.95

Leaving It All Behind
Glenna Luschei

ISBN: 978-0-9831251-2-9, perfectbound paperback, 104 pgs., $15.95

Sprouts
Glenna Luschei

Chapbook, 28 pgs., $6.00

Witch Dance - Selected Poems
Glenna Luschei

ISBN: 978-0-9800081-7-3, perfectbound paperback, 84 pgs., $13.95

Total Immersion
Glenna Luschei

ISBN: 978-0-9800081-0-4, perfectbound paperback, 96 pgs., $15.00

The Moon in the Pool
Gary Metras

ISBN: 978-0-9888279-7-4, perfectbound paperback, 68 pgs., $12.95

Limbos For Amplified Harpsichord
Stanley Nelson

ISBN: 978-0-9772524-8-0, perfectbound paperback, 144 pgs., $17.95

City of the Sun
Stanley Nelson

ISBN: 978-0-9800081-2-8, perfectbound paperback, 126 pgs., $15.95

Captive Cities
B. Z. Niditch

Chapbook, 36 pgs., $8.00

The Drunken Boat & Other Poems From The French of Arthur Rimbaud

Arthur Rimbaud
American Versions by Eric Greinke
ISBN: 978-0-9772524-7-3, perfectbound paperback, 108 pgs., $15.95

Grazing On Stars - Selected Poems
Steven Sher

ISBN: 978-0-9831251-7-4, perfectbound paperback, 84 pgs., $15.95

winter river flowing - selected poems 1979 - 2014
t. kilgore splake

ISBN: 978-0-9888279-6-7, perfectbound paperback, 152 pgs., $21.95

 

ghost dancer's dreams
t. kilgore splake

ISBN: 978-0-9831251-4-3, perfectbound paperback, 68 pgs., $12.95

Dangerous Enough

Alison Stone

ISBN: 978-0-9888279-3-6, perfectbound paperback, 80 pgs., $15.95

This Land Is Not My Land
A. D. Winans

ISBN: 978-0-9888279-4-3, perfectbound paperback, 60 pgs., $14.95

Wind On His Wings
A. D. Winans
Chapbook, 44 pgs., $8.00

The Other Side Of Broadway - Selected Poems
A. D. Winans
ISBN:978-0-9772524-5-9, perfectbound paperback, 132 pgs., $18.00

Self-Reliance
Ralph Waldo Emerson
ISBN:  978-0-9740868-2-8, Chapbook, 44 pgs., $10.00

 

Civil Disobedience
Henry David Thoreau
ISBN:  978-0-9740868-1-1, Chapbook, 44 pgs., $10.00

 

CURRENT UNAVAILABLE TITLES

Charles Baudelaire

The Rebel - Poems by Charles Baudelaire - American Vrns by Leslie H. Whitten, Jr.

Guy R. Beining

nozzle 1-36

Kirby Congdon

Athletes

Hugh Fox & Eric Greinke

Beyond Our Control - Two Collaborative Poems

Eric Greinke

Selected Poems 1972 - 2005

Wild Strawberries

Traveling Music

Kerry Shawn Keys

Book Of Beasts

Night Flight

Arthur Winfield Knight

High Country

Champagne Dawns

Ronnie  M. Lane

Morpheus Rising

Linda Lerner

Living In Dangerous Times

Glenna Luschei

Seedpods

Stanley Nelson

Pre-Socratic Points & Other New Poems

Roseanne Ritzema

Inside The Outside - An Anthology of Avant-Garde American Poets

Lynne Savitt   

The Deployment Of Love In Pineapple Twilight

Harry Smith

Little Things

Harry Smith & Eric Greinke

Up North

t. kilgore splake

coming home

beyond the ghosts

Ben Tibbs

Poems

Lloyd VanBrunt

Delirium

Marine Robert Warden

Beyond The Straits

 






    



Prices effective 1/1/09.

DISCOUNTS TO THE TRADE

Bookstores
perfectbound paperbacks: 50%, no minimum
hardcovers: 20%, no minimum
saddle-stitched paperbacks: 20% discount 1-10 copies; 50% discount 10+ copies

Return Policy: Our books are collector’s items & are non-returnable.

Libraries
10% discount 1-5 copies
20% discount 6+ copies


Presa Press
PO Box 792
Rockford, MI 49341
[email protected]