LADYLAND, A Literary Anthology by American Women

Très cool! The esteemed 13e Note Éditions in Paris recently released (in French) LADYLAND, a 496-page anthology of writing by American women, including frequent contributors to Silver Birch Press anthologies — Rene Diedrich, Linda KIng, Tamara Madison, and Joan Jobe Smith. Learn more at 13enote.com. Find the book at Amazon.fr.

Congrats to all the women who contributed to the collection: Lisa Carver, Antonia Crane, Rene Diedrich, Gina Frangello, Kat George, Veronica Ghostwriter, Fiona Helmsley, Dana Johnson, Linda King, Chris Kraus, Lydia Lunch, Tamara Madison, Cris Mazza, Hulga McSwine, Reverend Jen Miller, Cookie Mueller, Sigrid Nunez, BC Petrakos, Joan Jobe Smith, Mende Smith, Sin Soracco, Michelle Tea, Nichelle Tramble, Sabine Walser, Ann Wood.

Free Kindle Version of Green Anthology through 3/18/14

To celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, we’re offering a free Kindle version of the Silver Birch Press Green Anthology – available through Tuesday, March 18th at Amazon.com. (If you don’t have a Kindle device, you can still read the book — with free reading apps, available at this link.) If you are in the UK, try Amazon.co.uk. The free offer also appears on all the international Amazon sites.

Featuring the work of 72 writers from the U.S., U.K., Canada, Europe, and Africa, the Silver Birch Press Green Anthology includes poetry, short stories, novel excerpts, an author interview, memoirs, and poetic essays that touch on the theme of green in creative, fresh, and compelling ways.

We would appreciate any reblogs, tweets, emails, and facebook posts about this Kindle giveaway!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Free Kindle Version of Green Anthology through 3/18/14

To celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, we’re offering a free Kindle version of the Silver Birch Press Green Anthology – available through Tuesday, March 18th at Amazon.com. (If you don’t have a Kindle device, you can still read the book — with free reading apps, available at this link.) If you are in the UK, try Amazon.co.uk.

Featuring the work of 72 writers from the U.S., U.K., Canada, Europe, and Africa, the Silver Birch Press Green Anthology includes poetry, short stories, novel excerpts, an author interview, memoirs, and poetic essays that touch on the theme of green in creative, fresh, and compelling ways.

We would appreciate any reblogs, tweets, emails, and facebook posts about this Kindle giveaway!

Happy St. Pat’s!

Old Man in the Rain, poem by Michael O’Brien

OLD MAN IN THE RAIN
by Michael O’Brien

Got a copy of Bukowski
from the library.
 
Nice, hard
cover edition; nicer than any of the ones
I’d ever shelled out cash
for.
 
Just noticed that the red dye
from the binding
has bled out a bit
onto the inside
of the dust jacket.
 
Makes me imagine that somebody
along the line
was reading in the rain.
 
Not bad, old
man,
not bad.
 
Still there for us
when we got no place
to hide.

SOURCE: “Old Man in the Rain” by Michael O’Brien appears in appears in the Silver Birch Press Bukowski Anthology – a collection of poetry, short stories, essays, interviews, photography, and art from authors and artists around the world — available at Amazon.com.

ART: “Charles Bukowski portrait, 1994″ by RinaldoZoontjes

The Old Master, poem by Adrian Manning

THE OLD MASTER
by Adrian Manning

I sit at my old typer, at a desk
in my  room.
above me is a shelf full of books
by a writer called Bukowski.
I read the titles and think to myself
if I could only come up with one line
like one of those titles
I could really have something.
there are many books and magazines,
I have not counted them,
and there are possibly more poems in them
than an army of men could produce
and they are mostly very good and
if not very good they are good.
I wish the words were like bees
humming around my head in a storm
of vibrant movement. I could possibly
catch some of them and nail them down
with a Bukowski book.
he sits in a photo, on one shelf,
in his later years, the hard work behind him,
one arm resting on his chair, the other
raised to the temple of his head
and he looks thoroughly unimpressed.
he’s telling me, work it boy, gotta keep going,
you’re nowhere near yet.
I look up at the photo
and tell him you’re right,
you son of a bitch,
you were always right.

SOURCE: “The Old Master” and other poetry about Charles Bukowski by Adrian Manning appears in the Silver Birch Press Bukowski Anthology – a collection of poetry, short stories, essays, interviews, photography, and art from authors and artists around the world — available at Amazon.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Adrian Manning writes from Leicester, England. His poetry and articles have appeared in numerous chapbooks, magazines and on-line sites around the world. He is also the editor of Concrete Meat Press and a massive fan and collector of works by Charles Bukowski.

Cover art: Mark Erickson and Birgit Zartl

The Idea of Housework, poem by Dorianne Laux

THE IDEA OF HOUSEWORK
By Dorianne Laux

What good does it do anyone
to have a drawer full of clean knives,
the tines of tiny pitchforks
gleaming in plastic bins, your face
reflected eight times over
in the oval bowls of spoons?
What does it matter that the bathmat’s
scrubbed free of mold, the door mat
swept clear of leaves, the screen door
picked clean of bees’ wings, wasps’
dumbstruck bodies, the thoraxes
of flies and moths, high corners
broomed of spider webs, flowered
sheets folded and sealed in drawers,
blankets shaken so sleep’s duff and fuzz,
dead skin flakes, lost strands of hair
flicker down on the cut grass?
Who cares if breadcrumbs collect
on the countertop, if photographs
of the ones you love go gray with dust,
if milk jugs pile up, unreturned,
on the back porch near the old dog’s dish
encrusted with puppy chow?
Oh to rub the windows with vinegar,
the trees behind them revealing
their true colors. Oh the bleachy,
waxy, soapy perfume of spring.
Why should the things of this world
shine so? Tell me if you know.

SOURCE: “The Idea of Housework” by Dorianne Laux appears in Sweeping Beauty: Contemporary Women Poets Do Housework, edited byPamela Gemin (University of Iowa Press, 2005). The 212-page collection, which features work by over 80 poets, is available at Amazon.com.

BOOK DESCRIPTION: Thankless, mundane, and “never done,”  contemporary women poets are still writing the domestic experience — sometimes resenting its futility and lack of social rewards, sometimes celebrating its sensory delights and immediate gratification, sometimes cherishing the undeniable link it provides to their mothers and grandmothers. In Sweeping Beauty, a number of these poets illustrate how housekeeping’s repetitive motions can free the imagination and release the housekeeper’s muse. For many, housekeeping provides the key to a state of mind approaching meditation, a state of mind also conducive to making poems. The more than eighty contributors toSweeping Beauty embrace this state and confirm that women are pioneers and inventors as well as life-givers and nurturers.

Free Kindle Version of Green Anthology through 12/21/13

To celebrate the Yuletide season, we’re offering a free Kindle version of the Silver Birch Press Green Anthology – available through Saturday, Dec. 21st at Amazon.com. (If you don’t have a Kindle device, you can still read the book — with free reading apps, available at this link.) If you are in the UK, try Amazon.co.uk.

Featuring the work of 72 writers from the U.S., U.K., Canada, Europe, and Africa, the Silver Birch Press Green Anthology includes poetry, short stories, novel excerpts, an author interview, memoirs, and poetic essays that touch on the theme of green in creative, fresh, and compelling ways.

We would appreciate any reblogs, tweets, emails, and facebook posts about this Kindle giveaway!

Free Kindle Version of Green Anthology, Dec. 17-21, 2013

To celebrate the Yuletide season, we’re offering a free Kindle version of the Silver Birch Press Green Anthology — available from Tuesday, Dec. 17th through Saturday, Dec. 21st at Amazon.com. (If you don’t have a Kindle device, you can still read the book — with free reading apps, available at this link.) If you are in the UK, try Amazon.co.uk.

Featuring the work of 72 writers from the U.S., U.K., Canada, Europe, and Africa, the Silver Birch Press Green Anthology includes poetry, short stories, novel excerpts, an author interview, memoirs, and poetic essays that touch on the theme of green in creative, fresh, and compelling ways.

We would appreciate any reblogs, tweets, emails, and facebook posts about this Kindle giveaway!

Editor’s Notes: Silver Birch Press NOIR Erasure Poetry Anthology

Silver Birch Press NOIR Erasure Poetry Anthology

Released: December 7, 2013

Size: 122 pages (5.5 x 8.5″)

Available in paperback for $10.60 at Amazon.com

EDITOR’S NOTES

WHY: As a longtime fan of hardboiled detective fiction and film noir, and an aficionado of found poetry, I wondered what would happen if the two were combined. A call for submissions on the Silver Birch Press blog, as well as requests from our contributing editors to their colleagues resulted in a wide range of submissions, including those featured in the Silver Birch Press NOIR Erasure Poetry Anthology. 

WHAT: So just what is an erasure poem? Take a page from any book, cross out or whiteout some of the words and the remaining words constitute the erasure poem. The Silver Birch Press Noir Erasure Poetry Anthology pays homage to noir authors—including genre founders Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, as well as other authors of crime fiction whose work served as source material.

WHO: My thanks to the 46 poets represented in the collection (find their names in this post), as well as the 16 noir authors whose writing served as inspiration. A special thank you to contributing editors Jenni B. Baker, Catfish McDaris, james w. moore, and Gerald So—accomplished poets and authors who encouraged their writing colleagues to participate in the collection. Thanks, too, to Guy Budziak for his stunning cover art. (View more of the artist’s work at filmnoirwoodcuts.com.)

DEDICATION: Noir and erasure poetry are a perfect match—stark, pared down, elemental, bare bones.  As the author who invented L.A. Noir and elevated prose to poetry, we dedicate the Silver Birch Press NOIR Erasure Poetry Anthology to Raymond Chandler.

WHERE: Find the Silver Birch Press NOIR Erasure Poetry Anthology — an interesting, unique (and inexpensive) holiday gift for lovers of crime fiction (and poetry!) — at Amazon.com.

Final Free Day: Monday, 11/11/13, Silver Birch Press Silver Anthology

We’re celebrating the first anniversary of the Silver Birch Press Silver Anthology (Silver Birch Press, November 2012) with a free gift — and feel free to spread the word by reblogging this post or emailing your friends.

On Monday, 11/11/13,  download a FREE Kindle version of the Silver Birch Press Silver Anthology –  a 240-page collection of poetry & prose from over 60 established and up-and-coming writers in the United States and United Kingdom. Get your free Kindle version of the Silver Birch Press Silver Anthology at Amazon.com.

If you don’t have a Kindle, download free reading apps at this link.

If you are in the UK, find  at Amazon.co.uk.

Other countries, check your local Amazon site — the Kindle version is available for free there, too.