New Release: Swallow Dance, A Collection of Poetry Chapbooks

In Swallow Dance — a  278-page collection released on July 1, 2014 — Silver Birch Press has gathered poetry chapbooks by 14 distinguished poets from across the United States. Poets of singular and diverse expression are joined together to celebrate the written word in one voice. The reader is treated to not just one or two poems by each author, but to a generous body of work self-contained in 14 separate and distinct chapbooks. If flight is a common language of birds, Swallow Dance is a celebration of poets on the wing.

The poets and their chapbooks featured in Swallow Dance are:

Lightning Storm by John Brantingham

All Other Time Is Peace by Kirsten Dierking

The Hollywood Catechism by Paul Fericano

Bone Box by Chris Forhan

Her Blue Dress by Jeffrey Graessley

The Democracy of Carbon by Donna Hilbert

Beach House by Ruth Moon Kempher

Four Years in Pocket Change by Steven Kuhn

Out of the Earth by Tamara Madison

Aida by Catfish McDaris

In the Garden by Carolyn Miller

Where the Stars at Night Are Big & Bright by Joan Jobe Smith

Letting Go of Ashes by Rick Smith

Wasn’t Columbus a Bachelor? by Fred Voss

Swallow Dance also features paintings of birds by Japanese master Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858).

Find Swallow Dance: A Collection of Poetry Chapbooks at Amazon.com.

Joy, poem by Chris Forhan

JOY
by Chris Forhan

It seized me—never mind the circumstance: sudden
scent in the breeze like cinnamon, sun silvering
a roof as the unicycle parade began—it seized me
 
as sickness does, wholly, with no mercy,
all of my body obeisant to its law as though none of it
were mine, finally: not the joy or the body.

SOURCE: ”Joy” appears in the Silver Birch Press release Ransack and Dance, a collection of poems by Chris Forhan, available at Amazon.com.

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.

Ransack and Dance, poems by Chris Forhan

In July 2013, Silver Birch Press released Ransack and Dance, a collection of poems by Chris Forhan — one of our favorite all-time poets. We are pleased to nominate Chris Forhan for a 2013 Pushcart Prize.

POEM FROM THE COLLECTION:

JOY
by Chris Forhan

It seized me—never mind the circumstance: sudden
scent in the breeze like cinnamon, sun silvering
a roof as the unicycle parade began—it seized me
 
as sickness does, wholly, with no mercy,
all of my body obeisant to its law as though none of it
were mine, finally: not the joy or the body.

“RANSACK AND DANCE is a book by a poet reaching the heights of his art. Every word is where it is for a reason, and every sound is where it is for a reason. And those reasons add up to surprise and delight. This is the rarest thing for a collection of poems: there is not a line of prose in it!”

THOMAS LUX

“Chris Forhan‘s images and insights . . . seem . . . to spring from the poet’s subconscious to the reader’s, with the vessel of the poem their only necessary medium. I can think of no better reading experience or more that could be asked of the best poetry.” LAURA KASISCHKE, West Branch Wired

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Chris Forhan, born and raised in Seattle, Washington, is the author of three books of poetry: Black Leapt In, winner of the Barrow Street Press Poetry Prize; The Actual Moon, The Actual Stars, winner of the Morse Poetry Prize and a Washington State Book Award; and Forgive Us Our Happiness, winner of the Bakeless Prize. He is also the author of two chapbooks, x and Crumbs of Bread, and his poems have appeared in Poetry, Paris Review, Ploughshares, New England Review, Parnassus, and other magazines, as well as in The Best American Poetry. He has won a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and two Pushcart Prizes and has been a resident at Yaddo and a fellow at Bread Loaf. He lives with his wife, the poet Alessandra Lynch, and their two sons, Milo and Oliver, in Indianapolis, where he teaches at Butler University.

Find Ransack and Dance, poems by Chris Forhan at Amazon.com.

Revision, poem by Daniel Romo

REVISION
by Daniel Romo

           Let’s say we’re seahorses. Let’s say our forgotten birthday candles
have melted into coral. Let’s say the coral is forgotten, too.
         Let’s say the water is repetition. It is high tide. We have washed ashore.
The children scoop us up with plastic shovels.
                       They drop us into half-filled buckets of sandy water
                               hoping to revive us.
Their mothers convince them to throw us back. Our bodies turn to foam.
                                                               We are already dead.
 
Let’s say we’re notorious bank robbers planning our heist from our hideout. 
                            Let’s say our masks are big yellow happy faces.
                            Let’s say we are bad men.
                            Our mothers have written us letters trying to convince us
                                                             to turn ourselves in.
      We rip them up and smile. We were always disobedient children.
                        Let’s say we’re cops who have been tipped off,
                        about to raid the hideout.
                        Let’s say our guns are loaded, and our laughs are loud.
                     
  Let’s say we’re liars and none of this happened.
            Let’s say we were seahorses.
Let’s say our birthdays were never celebrated.
                       Let’s say we’ve crossed out those times in our lives.
                                    
  Let’s say we’re convenient rough drafts.    

…”Revision” appears in the Silver Birch Press release Romancing Gravity, a collection of poems by Daniel Romo, available at Amazon.com.

Romancing Gravity, poems by Daniel Romo

In May 2013, Silver Birch Press released ROMANCING GRAVITY, a collection of poems by Daniel Romo. The poems in ROMANCING GRAVITY navigate through worlds (and words) nestled in nostalgia, rooted in the uncanny, and primed with pain. Striking language and rich images frame gangbangers, classrooms, and family, while trying to carry the burdens that come with being alive. These are poems of baseball and breathing, of heaven and healing. The speakers of the poems wander from one world and into the next, looking down to find their footing, and looking up for proof that they exist.

FROM THE BACK COVER: 

“In ROMANCING GRAVITY Daniel Romo has written a memoir in poetry. It is the poetry of growing up in Southern California, of childhood games and fear, of adolescent dreams and braggadocio, and a young man’s coming into his own as a man and a poet. There are echoes of popular culture and the poems dance to the beat of an urban pulse. There are hallucinatory prose poems and sometimes the speaker sounds like an Old Testament prophet disguised as a homeless man, calling down curses on our decadent world. Lost children wave to us from the floor of the ocean. Do they wave in greeting or are they taking their leave? Either way, the reader waves back, the reader wants to dance or say ‘Yes!’ to these marvelous poems.” Richard Garcia, author of The Persistence of Objects

“Daniel Romo’s ROMANCING GRAVITY is a terrific collection—at once edgy, comical, and big-hearted. I was immediately drawn to his streetwise grit, his luminous vision of urban America. These are poems that swagger, that ‘boom boom sound’ and leave your ears ringing.” David Hernandez, author of Hoodwinked

“Daniel Romo finds surprising lyricism in school classrooms, TV shows, and yard sales in his southern California neighborhoods. Celebratory, irreverent, and deeply personal, the poems in ROMANCING GRAVITY capture the quotidian in stunning ways and reveal what keeps us earthbound.” Molly Bendall, author of Under the Quick

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Daniel Romo is the author of When Kerosene’s Involved (Black Coffee Press, 2013 — an updated version scheduled for a 2014 release by Mojave River Press & Review). His poetry and photography can be found in the Los Angeles Review, Gargoyle, MiPOesias, Yemassee, Hobart, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte and teaches creative writing. He lives in Long Beach, California. More of his writing can be found at danielromo.net.

Find ROMANCING GRAVITY at Amazon.com. For this inspired collection, Silver Birch Press has nominated Daniel Romo for a 2013 Pushcart Prize.

Ekphrastia Gone Wild: Poems Inspired by Art, edited by Rick Lupert

 

Gerald Locklin, author of the Silver Birch Press release Gerald Locklin: New and Selected Poems (1967-2007), is featured in Ekphrastia Gone Wild: Poems Inspired by Art a new collection from Ain’t Got No Press edited by Rick Lupert. 

Ekphrastia Gone Wild, an anthology of ekphrastic poetry — poetry inspired by other works of art (painting, film, literature, photography, and more) — includes work by Nobel Prize winning poet Wislawa Szymborska along with 87 poets from around the world.

Ekphrastia Gone Wild contributors include: A.J. Huffman, Ackroyd Jackson, Adam Kress, Alan Britt, Alan Price, Alan Wickes, Ann Drysdale, April Salzano, Benjamin Taylor Lally, Brendan Constantine, Brooke Dorn, Bruce Taylor, Carolyn A. Martin, Catherine Graham, Consuelo Marshall, Cynthia Gallaher, Dan Fitzgerald, Daniel Y. Harris, David Chorlton, Deborah P. Kolodji, Desmond Kon, Donald Mulcahy, Doris Lueth Stengel, Douglas Richardson, Dusan Colovic, Elizabeth Iannaci, Ellaraine Lockie, Eric Evans, Eric Lawson, Eric Tuazon, F.J. Bergmann, Farida Samerkhanova, Fern G. Z. Carr, Fiona Curran, Florence Weinberger, Gabrielle Mittelbach, Gene Grabiner, Gerald Locklin, Graham Fulton, Helen Bar-Lev, Iris Dan, James Bell, Jan Chronister, Jerry Quickley, Jim Bennett, John Stewart Huffstot, Johnmichael Simon, Kath Abela Wilson, Kathleen M. Krueger, Kenneth Pobo, Kevin Cornwall, Laurel Ann Bogen, Leland James, Letitia Minnick, M.A. Griffiths, M.J. Iuppa, Maggie Westland, Mantz Yorke, Marie Lecrivain, Martin W. Bennett, Mary Buchinger, Mary Harwell Sayler, Maryann Corbett, Michael Virga, Mick Moss, Mira Martin-Parker, Neal Whitman, Noel Sloboda, Paula McKay, Peggy Dobreer, Peggy Trojan, Perie Longo, Peter Branson, Phil Howard, Robert Wynne, Ron. Lavalette, Rosalee Thompson, Salvatore Difalco, Simon Jackson, Simon Peter Eggertsen, Sonja Smolec, Stanley H. Barkan, Steve Ely, Suzanne Lummis, Timothy Charles Anderson, Tracy Davidson and Wislawa Szymborska.

ABOUT THE EDITOR: Rick Lupert is the author of numerous collections of poetry and founder of Ain’t Got No Press. He also edited the Ain’t Got No Press titles A Poet’s Haggadah: Passover Through the Eyes of Poets and The Night Goes on All Night: Noir Inspired Poetry. He created and maintains The Poetry Super Highway, an online publication and resource for poets and writers, and since 1994 has hosted the weekly Cobalt Cafe reading series in Southern California. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, son, three cats, and a frog and works as a Jewish Music teacher for local synagogues and as a freelance graphic designer for print and web for anyone who would like to help pay his mortgage. Contact him at rick@poetrysuperhighway.com.

Ekphrastia Gone Wild: Poems Inspired by Art is available at Amazon.com.

Tune in to the Ekphrastia Gone Wild Virtual Publication Party, Sunday, September 15th at 2:00 p.m. (PDT) to hear poets featured in the book read their work on a special Poetry Super Highway Live broadcast right here.

Revision, poem by Daniel Romo

REVISION
by Daniel Romo

           Let’s say we’re seahorses. Let’s say our forgotten birthday candles
have melted into coral. Let’s say the coral is forgotten, too.
         Let’s say the water is repetition. It is high tide. We have washed ashore.
The children scoop us up with plastic shovels.
                       They drop us into half-filled buckets of sandy water
                               hoping to revive us.
Their mothers convince them to throw us back. Our bodies turn to foam.
                                                               We are already dead.
 
Let’s say we’re notorious bank robbers planning our heist from our hideout. 
                            Let’s say our masks are big yellow happy faces.
                            Let’s say we are bad men.
                            Our mothers have written us letters trying to convince us
                                                             to turn ourselves in.
      We rip them up and smile. We were always disobedient children.
                        Let’s say we’re cops who have been tipped off,
                        about to raid the hideout.
                        Let’s say our guns are loaded, and our laughs are loud.
                     
  Let’s say we’re liars and none of this happened.
            Let’s say we were seahorses.
Let’s say our birthdays were never celebrated.
                       Let’s say we’ve crossed out those times in our lives.
                                    
  Let’s say we’re convenient rough drafts.    

…”Revision” appears in the Silver Birch Press release Romancing Gravity, a collection of poems by Daniel Romo, available at Amazon.com.

Joy, poem by Chris Forhan

JOY
by Chris Forhan

It seized me—never mind the circumstance: sudden
scent in the breeze like cinnamon, sun silvering
a roof as the unicycle parade began—it seized me
 
as sickness does, wholly, with no mercy,
all of my body obeisant to its law as though none of it
were mine, finally: not the joy or the body.

…”Joy” appears in the Silver Birch Press release Ransack and Dance, a collection of poems by Chris Forhan, available at Amazon.com.

New Release: Ransack and Dance, poems by Chris Forhan

Silver Birch Press is pleased to announce the publication of Ransack and Dance, a collection of poems by Chris Forhan — one of our favorite all-time poets. We are honored to welcome Chris to Silver Birch Press.

RANSACK AND DANCE is a book by a poet reaching the heights of his art. Every word is where it is for a reason, and every sound is where it is for a reason. And those reasons add up to surprise and delight. This is the rarest thing for a collection of poems: there is not a line of prose in it!” THOMAS LUX

“Chris Forhan‘s images and insights . . . seem . . . to spring from the poet’s subconscious to the reader’s, with the vessel of the poem their only necessary medium. I can think of no better reading experience or more that could be asked of the best poetry.” LAURA KASISCHKE, West Branch Wired

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Chris Forhan, born and raised in Seattle, Washington, is the author of three books of poetry: Black Leapt In, winner of the Barrow Street Press Poetry Prize; The Actual Moon, The Actual Stars, winner of the Morse Poetry Prize and a Washington State Book Award; and Forgive Us Our Happiness, winner of the Bakeless Prize. He is also the author of two chapbooks, x and Crumbs of Bread, and his poems have appeared in Poetry, Paris Review, Ploughshares, New England Review, Parnassus, and other magazines, as well as in The Best American Poetry. He has won a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and two Pushcart Prizes and has been a resident at Yaddo and a fellow at Bread Loaf. He lives with his wife, the poet Alessandra Lynch, and their two sons, Milo and Oliver, in Indianapolis, where he teaches at Butler University.

Find Ransack and Dance, poems by Chris Forhan at Amazon.com.