{"title":"Hanging Loose Press","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"it-is-as-if-desire","title":"It Is As If Desire","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eIt Is As If Desire\u003c\/em\u003e is a collection of occasional poems (poems written for specific occasions) that examine, deconstruct, disrupt, and celebrate love and friendship. The language of these 10-line poems (which one critic has called \"foreshortened sonnets\") is taut, while their spirit is open and loose. As the title suggests, these poems see love and desire as often conditional, fragmentary states. In this dialectic between life and love, it is up to the poems themselves to provide the ultimate synthesis.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eIt Is As If Desire\u003c\/em\u003e is \u003cstrong\u003eTerence Winch\u003c\/strong\u003e's tenth book of poems. He has also written two story collections, \u003cem\u003eContenders\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eThat Special Place: New World Irish Stories\u003c\/em\u003e, the latter drawing on his experiences as a founding member of the original Celtic Thunder, the acclaimed Irish band. An American Book Award and Columbia Book Award winner, Winch is also the recipient of an NEA Fellowship in poetry and a Gertrude Stein Award for Innovative Writing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"I love this terrific, glowing book, and you will too, at least if you love excellent poetry, and especially if you love excellent poetry about love. Terence Winch shows marriage in all its constancy and bravery, his attachment 'tough as tree bark.' Don't make the mistake of thinking that these poems are simple; they're wild, skillful, and complex in their clear-eyed look at decades of meals, music-making, and wonder. Yes, yes, yes.'\" - \u003cstrong\u003eElinor Nauen\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Wit, warmth, style, passion, ingenuity, acumen, and spirit are poetry's seven cardinal virtues. Terence Winch has them all.\" - \u003cstrong\u003eDavid Lehman\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"This book is a knock-out that will lift your spirits.\" - \u003cstrong\u003eChris Mason\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Hanging Loose Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48652779323709,"sku":"9781934909799","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0477\/8731\/1254\/files\/9781934909799ita.jpg?v=1715026189"},{"product_id":"sundry-abductions","title":"Sundry Abductions","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe poems are \"funny, sophisticated, exacting while sometimes surreal, and an astonishing joy to read.\" \u003cem\u003eSundry Abductions\u003c\/em\u003e is a book full of \"surprises that reveal truths one couldn't have guessed, matching intelligence with beauty that is not easily achieved.\" Readers will find narrative and lyric poems here, both \"spare and theological,\" \"dangerous and witty.\" Maria Dylan Himmelman's poems have appeared in \u003cem\u003eGuesthouse, Plume, Image Journal, Iterant\u003c\/em\u003e, and \u003cem\u003eNew Ohio Review\u003c\/em\u003e, among other journals.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMaria Dylan Himmelman\u003c\/strong\u003e's \u003cem\u003eSundry Abductions\u003c\/em\u003e is winner of inaugural Hanging Loose Press Founders Prize. Her poems have appeared in \u003cem\u003eGuesthouse, Plume, Image Journal, Iterant\u003c\/em\u003e, and \u003cem\u003eNew Ohio Review\u003c\/em\u003e, among other journals. She and her husband divide their time between Los Angeles and the Hudson Valley.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"We each have our own way into the lands beyond death, but it strikes me, reading these poems, that sometimes we can share our paths, or discover a footing from observing the path of another. Maria Dylan Himmelman's poems occupy a borderland, standing at the edge of the quotidian and looking out over other realms—a homely and sometimes comforting surrealism floats her words into forms capable of being witnessed. Throughout, the music of Dylan Himmelman's language enriches the view.\" - \u003cstrong\u003eKyla Houbolt\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c!----\u003e","brand":"Hanging Loose Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48774510313789,"sku":"9781934909751","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0477\/8731\/1254\/files\/9781934909751ita.jpg?v=1716405163"},{"product_id":"i-used-to-be-korean","title":"I Used To Be Korean","description":"\u003cp\u003ePoetry. \u003cem\u003eI USED TO BE KOREAN\u003c\/em\u003e is Jiwon Choi's second full length poetry collection. Hanging Loose Press also published Choi's earlier poetry collection, \u003cem\u003eONE DAUGHTER IS WORTH TEN SONS\u003c\/em\u003e. \"These sharp-tongued poems, often levitating on their own buoyant wit, are full of Jiwon Choi's delightful 'wickedness and dirty humor.' Her work is propelled by New York immigrant energy, which of course makes it quintessentially American.\" --Terence Winch \"'Korea is far away' from the Oyster Bar in Grand Central and many of the other sites mentioned in these poems, yet it (the mother) is ever present, whatever the poet is or 'used to be.' Choi is learned but never academic (she's too nimble and street-smart to be academic), and I love her way of seeing and thinking. \u003cem\u003eI Used to Be Korean\u003c\/em\u003e (a riddle of a title) is a beautiful book.\"--Linda Norton\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eJiwon Choi\u003c\/strong\u003e is a Brooklyn poet, preschool teacher, and urban gardener, her work has been widely published in various online and print publications, including \u003cem\u003ePainted Bride Quarterly, Bombay Gin\u003c\/em\u003e, and \u003cem\u003eHanging Loose\u003c\/em\u003e. She is the author of \u003cem\u003eI USED TO BE KOREAN\u003c\/em\u003e (Hanging Loose Press, 2021) and \u003cem\u003eONE DAUGHTER IS WORTH TEN SONS\u003c\/em\u003e (Hanging Loose Press, 2017).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"These sharp-tongued poems, often levitating on their own buoyant wit, are full of Jiwon Choi's delightful 'wickedness and dirty humor.' Her work is propelled by New York immigrant energy, which of course makes it quintessentially American.\" - \u003cstrong\u003eTerence Winch\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"'Buttering,' bedazzling' 'shellacking,' 'kissing' – in\u003cem\u003e I Used to Be Korean\u003c\/em\u003e, Jiwon Choi's present participles wrestle with the past tense, winning every match through sheer candor and vitality. The poet's 'rosebud power' and honesty are dynamic, as is her grasp of history, family, identity, and eros. Out of keen attention, Choi makes poetry of butchery and blame and pockets empty but for lint. There's something Sapphic—both scorching and tender—in a poem like 'I Ate Your Heart Out,' and something of Robert Frank's vision in Choi's fresh takes on, say, Texas (i.e., 'America'). 'Korea is far away' from the Oyster Bar in Grand Central and many of the other sites mentioned in these poems, yet it (the mother) is ever present, whatever the poet is or 'used to be.' Choi is learned but never academic (she's too nimble and street-smart to be academic), and I love her way of seeing and thinking. \u003cspan style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"\u003eI Used to Be Korean\u003c\/span\u003e (a riddle of a title) is a beautiful book.\" - \u003cstrong\u003eLinda Norton\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Here is a poet of suggestion rather than declaration. With personal, cultural, and historical references, in spare, vivid language, both sensory and sensual, she creates her worlds. Emotion and intellect meld and temper each other. You may find yourself experiencing any poem from inside it, instead of from some objective perch.\" - \u003cstrong\u003eHarley Elliott\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"jiwon choi's \u003cem\u003ei used to be korean\u003c\/em\u003e.. is fusion \/ fusion of memory both real and not \/ verbal snapshots and within those snapshots \/ she sees what the rest don't—or may not care to see. \/ the bias of the world \/ the need for human contact both funny and Brutal . oh SHE IS Korean \/ family is here \/ strangers are here \/ first loves \/\/ the angst of childhood \/ and the HUMAN commonality and a lot more ... she is both participant and chronicler .. her words \/ hug \/ ripple \/ stick to the page and bend the mind .....\u003cem\u003eI Used To Be Korean\u003c\/em\u003e is simply WONDERFUL.\" - \u003cstrong\u003eDael Orlandersmith\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c!----\u003e","brand":"Hanging Loose Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48774598852925,"sku":"9781934909683","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0477\/8731\/1254\/files\/9781934909683ita.jpg?v=1716405963"},{"product_id":"let-the-heart-hold-down-the-breakage-or-the-caregivers-log","title":"Let the heart hold down the breakage or the caregiver's log","description":"\u003cp\u003eA hybrid work of poetry and prose journal entries. Maureen Owen's \"caretaker's log\" documents a mother's death and dying. A faithful transcription of a mothers remembered life rendered with true emotion. \"This magnificent work dwells in the struggle between death and dying,\" writes Fanny Howe. \"The poet is the one who balances this weird difficulty. She is the caregiver keeping both alive. Through nights where days of dying begin with tissues, toothpicks, cries, pillows, sheets; the caregiver's offerings to the patient never quite work. The panic of hitting nightfall with its galloping horses, rodeos and racetracks, and the Southwest ranges try to stay as truthful to the mother as they are to the daughter transcribing them, until these darkest of lyrics lie in the realm of the divine.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMaureen Owen\u003c\/strong\u003e is editor of Telephone Books and author of over ten poetry collections, including \u003cem\u003eAmerican Rush\u003c\/em\u003e, a \u003cem\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/em\u003e Book Prize finalist, and \u003cem\u003eAMELIA EARHEART\u003c\/em\u003e, a recipient of the American Book Award. Formerly codirector of the Poetry Project, she now lives in Denver and teaches at Naropa University. Most recently, she is the author of \u003cem\u003eEDGES OF WATER\u003c\/em\u003e (Chax Press, 2013).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"This magnificent work dwells in the struggle between death and dying. The poet is the one who balances this weird difficulty. She is the caregiver keeping both alive. Through nights where days of dying begin with tissues, toothpicks, cries, pillows, sheets; the caregiver's offerings to the patient never quite work. The panic of hitting nightfall with its galloping horses, rodeos and racetracks, and the Southwest ranges try to stay as truthful to the mother as they are to the daughter transcribing them, until these darkest of lyrics lie in the realm of the divine.\" - \u003cstrong\u003eFanny Howe\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"[This book] evokes the real emotion without mentioning the real emotion.\" - \u003cstrong\u003eDale Herd\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c!----\u003e","brand":"Hanging Loose Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48774716424509,"sku":"9781934909720","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0477\/8731\/1254\/files\/9781934909720ita.jpg?v=1716406984"},{"product_id":"the-migrant-states","title":"The Migrant States","description":"\u003cp\u003eThese poems engendered by \"Heart and Memory,\" are hellos and goodbyes, obituaries, salutations, and celebrations addressed to his children, his friends and heroes, his lovers, Walt Whitman, and any other fortunate reader who strays into his orbit.\"—\u003cstrong\u003eTerence Winch\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"In 'Recalling Sundays,' Indran begins, 'I have fought the blues on so many Sundays...'. It locates him immediately: his ear for the language, the jazz of these 'migrant states', and his emotional condition, as one of so many in exile. In powerful poems that testify to the will to live, he intersperses verses he wrote to celebrate Walt Whitman, the keeper of the American Ideal. Indran is of like mind, believing that in the monastery of poetry, in the fields of the imagination, 'the dragon of reality might follow, to be slain'. In \"Beating,\" he writes, ' . . . when this poem goes off the road\/spins wheels in the mud. . . . ' It is with such gifted lines, such joy in the performance of duty, that this poet allows the metaphor its chance to create a Heaven, that reminds the migrant states of the promise they once held, that poetry still holds in its ability to combat the blues.\" —\u003cstrong\u003eMervyn Taylor\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIndran Amirthanayagam\u003c\/strong\u003e is a parolier, a \"speaker of poems,\" who in addition to his prolific body of poetry, also maintains close connection with dance and music, and has recorded two albums with Haitian musicians. With his poems, he has, in his words, \"laid offerings at the altar of the Muse\" in Haitian Creole, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and English. The wide recognition of his work includes his winning of the Paterson Poetry Prize, for his book \u003cem\u003eThe Elephants of Reckoning \u003c\/em\u003e(also from Hanging Loose); and the Guaymas, Mexico Juegos Florales (\"Floral Games\") award for his poem \"Juarez.\" He has received grants and fellowships from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the MacDowell Colony, and the US\/Mexico Fund for Culture.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBorn in Ceylon in 1960, a country that, as he says, \"no longer exists\" (it is now Sri Lanka) Amirthanayagam lives in Maryland, where he edits the \u003cem\u003eBeltway Poetry Quarterly\u003c\/em\u003e, co-directs the translators association DC-ALT, and produces Poetry at the Port, a monthly spoken word series. A.K. Ramanujan called Amirthanayagam's poems \"a welcome addition to the poetry of migration.\"\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Indran Amirthanayagam was born in Sri Lanka but he's certainly American-made. When ideals are shattered, poetry saves; and this book conveys truth from a master storyteller representing the high tradition of poetry with dignity and conviction throughout this powerful collection; and there are no better poems of Walt Whitman than are found here. Amirthanayagam's voice is a sword of light. 'Speak to me. We have\/ little time. Though the sun\/ will explode long after\/ we've disappeared.'\" - \u003cstrong\u003eGrace Cavalieri\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"An activist poet is rooted in revolutionary change as opposed to a 'literary' poet who, like Auden, believes that a poem 'does nothing.' It just survives. Sri Lankan-born Indran Amirthanayagam, who writes poetry in 5 languages (Haitian, Spanish, French, Portuguese and most of all in American-English), is one of the truly great activist poets in these United States. Read this book and I've no doubt you'll agree with me.\" - \u003cstrong\u003eJack Hirschman\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"\u003cem\u003eMigrant States\u003c\/em\u003e is a book where passion and memory meet, a book that calls for open borders of the mind, it is a book that knows that everyone and no one is a foreigner on this planet and that the country of the poets has no customs. With Whitman as his interlocutor, Indran Amirthanayagam takes us on the journey with no return, where our ticket is a moving and beautiful song.\" - \u003cstrong\u003eIlya Kaminsky\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c!----\u003e","brand":"Hanging Loose Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48909565428029,"sku":"9781934909638","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0477\/8731\/1254\/files\/9781934909638ita_1.jpg?v=1718039010"},{"product_id":"jam-sessions","title":"Jam Sessions","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe title poem is cast in the form of a dialogue between Blues and Jazz—two old friends whose paths have repeatedly crossed and diverged over the last hundred-plus years. They chat about their respective histories; about politics; about their music—what they share and how they differ; about race and racism, and the paradoxes of the Harlem Renaissance era. The conversation culminates in a good-natured though competitive card game of their own invention. In the course of the wide-ranging conversation between these friends, the poet pays special homage to, among others, Count Basie and Langston Hughes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the coda to the poem, Blues and Jazz explore the jam session itself as an element of their music that is critical to them both; the talk rises to philosophical heights as they discuss the Platonic ideal of the jam session and whether it has been reached by the work of the great Slim Gaillard.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe presence of music—frequently particular pieces from the canon of the American Songbook—is integral to other poems as well, where it serves often as a way of gathering in and focusing a wide range of what's on the poet's mind: \"My Old Flame;\" \"Imagination,\" \"Send in the Clowns\" . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA section of elegies in the book pays tribute to such influences as Pete Seeger, Clarence Clemons, and the internationally renowned blues singer Big Jack Johnson, with whom Lourie performed for fifteen years.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSax and trumpet player, poet, literary editor since 1966. \u003cstrong\u003eDick Lourie\u003c\/strong\u003e is the author of numerous works most recently \u003cem\u003eJAM SESSION\u003c\/em\u003e (Hanging Loose Press, 2020) and \u003cem\u003eIF THE DELTA WAS THE SEA\u003c\/em\u003e (Hanging Loose Press, 2009). \"Fusion\" and \"Synergy\" are overused terms, but they aptly describe the relationship between music and poetry in Dick Lourie's new book: these poems literally depend on the music for their existence; and the poems in turn have deepened the poet's relationship with the music as he takes to the stage and performs it. The book reflects his professional work over a half-century as both poet and musician.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\" [Jam Session] is . . . a swinging, jazz-inspired book of poems. . . . There's nothing weary about Lourie's sweet blues in the night at a sidewalk café where the patrons are reminded that' jelly can shake but jam spreads over everything.'\" - \u003cstrong\u003eDavid Lehman\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Dick Lourie is a musician's poet and a poet's musician, moving us through the rhythm changes of gigs, friendship, love, and life. Sideman and bandleader, Lourie is the star of this jam session, each poem a reunion of grit and groove.\" -\u003cstrong\u003e Yolanda Wisher\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"I knew Dick Lourie as a saxophone player before I knew he was a poet. I ran into him in a bar in Boston, a church in Cambridge, a backyard in Mississippi; a quiet figure absorbing everything around him and blowing it through his horn. Reading his poetry, I still hear him as a saxophone player, blowing choruses that recall 'old friends and old days' and keep them vibrantly alive.\" - \u003cstrong\u003eElijah Wald\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c!----\u003e","brand":"Hanging Loose Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48940331401533,"sku":"9781934909652","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0477\/8731\/1254\/files\/9781934909652ita.jpg?v=1718214767"},{"product_id":"my-name-is-immigrant","title":"My Name is Immigrant","description":"\u003cp\u003eWang Ping's remarkable history has taken her from farm worker during the Cultural Revolution to an international reputation as a teacher and writer. In her spare time, she climbs mountains and rows the Mississippi. Her energy and courage are both legendary. Internationally acclaimed writer and poet Wang Ping's timely new book of poetry, My Name Is Immigrant is a song for the plight and pride of immigrants around the globe: in the United States, China, Syria, Honduras, Guatemala, Nepal, Tibet and elsewhere. \"Shortly after arriving in the U.S.,\" writes Wang, \"I walked into the wrong class, which turned out to be a creative writing workshop taught by a poet. I decided to stay in the course and wrote my first poem there. It was about my experience in New York as an immigrant. I went on to write more stories about immigrants from around the world, as I discovered we are one giant village of immigration, and as the topic has grown in importance.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBorn in Shanghai and confined to a farm during the Cultural Revolution, \u003cstrong\u003eWang Ping\u003c\/strong\u003e eventually came to the US, earned a doctorate at New York University, and has had a busy career of writing, teaching, and activisim. She is the author of \u003cem\u003eMY NAME IS IMMIGRANT \u003c\/em\u003e(Hanging Loose Press, 2020) and the editor of \u003cem\u003eNEW GENERATION: POEMS FROM CHINA TODAY\u003c\/em\u003e (Hanging Loose Press, 1999).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"'Immigrant Can't Write Poetry' renders a moving argument about language and expression, and about the freedom poetry sometimes claims, the freedom to speak in ways that are obedient to the urgencies and irregularities of life . . . it's moving, and on the surface, simple, and it reminds me that what all poems are truly in search of sits outside the words.\" - \u003cstrong\u003eTracy K. Smith\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Wang Ping's poetry is riddled with surprises that bite and soothe. There's something wise and original in these poems wrung from need.\" - \u003cstrong\u003eYusef Komunyakaa\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Meeting her for the first time in person was an impressive experience and my admiration for her only grew. Her work with rivers and with other aspects of the landscape is totally refreshing, and her broad intelligence, delightful political wit and poetic vision expands understanding of the American nation.\" - \u003cstrong\u003eGary Snyder\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Her truth telling emerges from a deep well, describing the movement of people and the stories, the hope, and the desire they carry with them across deserts and oceans, over walls and through every barrier. The age-old question remains, with sharp clarity in these pages—who among us decides who is allowed in, accepted, celebrated?\" - \u003cstrong\u003eM.L. Smoker\u003c\/strong\u003e, Montana Co-Poet Laureate\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c!----\u003e","brand":"Hanging Loose Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48940375540029,"sku":"9781934909669","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0477\/8731\/1254\/files\/9781934909669ita_1.jpg?v=1718215503"},{"product_id":"sea-of-broken-mirrors","title":"Sea of Broken Mirrors","description":"\u003cp\u003eAward-winning poet, novelist and translator's new collection \u003cem\u003eSea of Broken Mirrors\u003c\/em\u003e is a book of questions and incantations. Full of lush sonics and surreal yet contemporary imagery, the book offers Medina's take on biblical canticles. His work is grounded in descriptions of Vermont's nature —still beautiful despite the ravages of global warming—as well as memories of his youth and family. Born in Cuba and raised there until the age of twelve, Medina infuses his work with Cuban culture. For him, cultural identity is not a static reality, but a vessel riding the sea into the unknown. The poems explore how the diminishment of self (indeed, its ultimate disappearance) can be a way of engaging with the world, the ultimate essence of which is found in the language of poetry.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePablo Medina\u003c\/strong\u003e was born in Havana, Cuba, and grew up in New York City. He is the author of more than twenty published works, including poetry, fiction, works in translation, and a memoir. Medina is the recipient of numerous honors and awards for his writing and translations, including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation and the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund. He has taught at a number of American colleges and universities, most recently the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers. With poet Mark Statman, Medina translated Federico García Lorca's \u003cem\u003ePoet in New York \u003c\/em\u003e(2008) a translation that John Ashbery described as \"the definitive version of Lorca's masterpiece.\" He divides his time between Williamsville, Vermont, and Cambridge, Massachusetts.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"I'm so heartened by the work of Pablo Medina. So challenged by the formal rigor and deep compassion (and play!) of his poetry and his supple mind and critique. \u003cem\u003eSea of Broken Mirrors\u003c\/em\u003e is a new chapter in an ever shifting and abundant career marked by curiosity, pragmatism, and hope. Yes. Hope. I see it here too. And it makes me want to keep writing. To keep going.\" - \u003cstrong\u003eGabrielle Calvocoressi\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c!----\u003e","brand":"Hanging Loose Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48940727370045,"sku":"9781934909782","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0477\/8731\/1254\/files\/9781934909782ita.jpg?v=1718220550"},{"product_id":"the-mercy-of-distance-new-and-selected-poems","title":"The Mercy of Distance: New and Selected Poems","description":"\u003cp\u003eNew poems and selections from Elliot's ten previous books. His life-long connection to the people and land is a through-line in this book. \"One of the truly gifted poets of our generation\" —\u003cem\u003eNational Public Radio\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"These are genuine poems of the live world\"  —\u003cem\u003eChoice Poetry\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Elliott's work defies narrow classification. His poems reflect a strong connection to the land and open sky of Kansas…the true history of people…[He] is a highly imaginative poet.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cem\u003eThe Kansas Literary Map\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eHarley Elliott\u003c\/strong\u003e was born in South Dakota to a short line of Norski wheat farmers, but has spent most of his time in Kansas. He was awakened to contemporary poetry while attending a reading by Ed Dorn. Since 1971, he has published ten books of poems, a children's book, and a memoir. Not a disciple of specialization, he believes that artistic expression, not the maker, will suggest the appropriate medium. He expresses himself in writing, song, and visual art. This is a collection of expressions which have chosen the form of poetry.\u003cem\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c!----\u003e","brand":"Hanging Loose Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48940835930429,"sku":"9781934909645","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0477\/8731\/1254\/files\/9781934909645ita.jpg?v=1718222460"},{"product_id":"to-a-new-era","title":"To A New Era","description":"\u003cp\u003eJoanna Fuhrman's sixth poetry collection is a fearless blend of the real and the surreal, the political and the personal, all with the marks of her own kind of accelerated dizzying style that nevertheless brings you along with it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Fuhrman's got her own funky brand of blended surrealism and fabulism going on in T\u003cem\u003eo a New Era\u003c\/em\u003e. The poems in this tour de force offer funicular modes of language transport, making it a dizzying, dazzling joy to be a commuter on this collection (see 'Adjunct Commuter' poems). Sentience abounds; metamorphoses are in the poetry's plasma. Formal poems emit a flirty, contemporary spirit of rebellion. Political poems are pissed, hilarious, iconoclastic, in debate with language's complicated connotations, histories, and alternate histories. In \u003cem\u003eTo a New Era\u003c\/em\u003e, Fuhrman toasts to the cyclones that blow through our days and our nights. This collection is one storm of words that will bowl you over! \" -\u003cstrong\u003eMartine Bellen\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eJoanna Fuhrman\u003c\/strong\u003e's work has been published in many journals, in including the \u003cem\u003ePushcart Prize Anthology\u003c\/em\u003e (2011). She writes essays on teaching poetry to young people, and she is the author of six previous full-length poetry collections, five of which have been published by Hanging Loose: \u003cem\u003eFREUD IN BROOKLY\u003c\/em\u003eN (2000), \u003cem\u003eUGH UGH OCEAN\u003c\/em\u003e (2003), \u003cem\u003eMORAINE\u003c\/em\u003e (2006), \u003cem\u003eTHE YEAR OF THE YELLOW BUTTERFLIES\u003c\/em\u003e (2015), and \u003cem\u003eTO A NEW ERA\u003c\/em\u003e (2021). A past winner of the Kenereth Gensler Award, her books have been widely reviewed and praised.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Joanna Fuhrman is the herald of a new era. An era where we eat more grandma slices but drink fewer papaya drinks. An era where the past wears its dirty underwear to every gala. An era where we all bake cakes shaped like the world we want to become. I welcome that world, that new era, because it will include these poems as proof that the world we wanted was not only possible but already here, and wonderful.\" - \u003cstrong\u003eSharon Mesmer\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"These poems speak from, of, and ahead of our times. They are the sound of our era's political unconscious—what Fuhrman calls the 'Tootsie Pop Mermaid of History.' This work is trying to wake us up and stir us to action even as 'Every year, our belief in the future is more defunded.' Fuhrman's method is radically original. Rather than speaking above our commodified Pop Art present, she embraces it, turning its tools against itself – 'My tweet\/ is a bullet\/ headed\/ straight\/ into the heart\/ of Capitalism,\/ who is wearing\/ a frayed\/ Cookie Monster\/ costume.' This writing is resilient and exhilarating, showing swagger in the face of daunting odds. Read it for an infusion of satire, wit, and defiance as you grapple with our current version of everyday life.\" - \u003cstrong\u003eElaine Equi\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c!----\u003e","brand":"Hanging Loose Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48940872991037,"sku":"9781934909690","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0477\/8731\/1254\/files\/9781934909690ita.jpg?v=1718223132"},{"product_id":"unveiling-poems-and-paintings","title":"Unveiling: Poems and Paintings","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eUNVEILING\u003c\/em\u003e is a poet and painter collaboration in the New York School tradition. Twenty poems by acclaimed Brooklyn poet Robert Hershon alternating with sixteen paintings by his daughter Elizabeth Hershon, a painter, ceramicist, and poet. Bob Hershon was one of four co-founders of Hanging Loose in 1966; he remained active with the press until his death in 2021. A widely published poet himself and a native Brooklynite, he was part of New York City's poetry scene for more than a half-century. The poems included in this volume include all of his last written work. Bob Hershon also maintained a close connection with the New York art world, counting many painters among his friends. Elizabeth Hershon, Bob's daughter, is a teacher, and the art editor of Hanging Loose. She lives in the East Village, but grew up in Brooklyn. Bob approached her in 2020 with the idea of doing a book together: her paintings and his poems. The result is \u003cem\u003eUNVEILING.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBob Hershon\u003c\/strong\u003e was one of four co-founders of Hanging Loose in 1966; he remained active with the press until his death in 2021. A widely published poet himself and a native Brooklynite, he was part of New York City's poetry scene for more than a half-century.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe also maintained a close connection with the New York art world, counting many painters among his friends. He brought his passion for the visual arts to Hanging Loose magazine—or perhaps he brought the magazine to the visual arts. Each issue presents a portfolio of paintings and cover art by one artist.\u003cem\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eElizabeth Hershon\u003c\/strong\u003e, Bob's daughter, is a painter, ceramicist, poet, teacher, and the art editor of Hanging Loose. She lives in the East Village, but grew up in Brooklyn.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Did You Know That Robert Hershon Is a Major Poet? I cannot think of another contemporary poet who is willing to expose his vulnerability, worry, and pettiness through the lens of humor.\" -\u003cstrong\u003e John Yau\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c!----\u003e","brand":"Hanging Loose Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48940945572157,"sku":"9781934909744","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0477\/8731\/1254\/files\/9781934909744ita.jpg?v=1718224146"},{"product_id":"when-my-mother-is-most-beautiful","title":"When My Mother is Most Beautiful","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eWhen My Mother is Most Beautiful\u003c\/em\u003e is at once a powerful love letter to a mother and to language itself, delving into complex questions of family, communication, culture, and connection. These poems chronicle the difficult art of navigating multiple cultural identities, examining how languages twist and morph across cultures through the imperfect act of translation, how they bind people together and keep them apart, and even how they could be reimagined to make a better world. This book casts its magic through rigorous hybridity of form and genre, inventing itself as the reader plods deeper and deeper into Suzuki's affective reservoir.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRebecca Suzuki \u003c\/strong\u003eis a writer, translator and educator from Nagoya, Japan and Queens, New York. Her writing has appeared in \u003cem\u003eclotheslines, Identity Theory, KBG Bar Lit, Blue Earth Review\u003c\/em\u003e, among others. She is also a translator from Japanese to English. She earned her MFA in Literary Translation and Creative Writing from Queens College, CUNY and is a lecturer of English there.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"In Rebecca Suzuki's \u003cem\u003eWhen My Mother Is Most Beautiful\u003c\/em\u003e, the author charges her read- ers to remember that those lost still echo in the living—whether familial mythology, ancestors, or language. The spell of the bilingual writing in Japanese and English writing systems illustrates how one interrupts the other, asking for the deferral of meaning to summon from beyond the page, the spirit of the reader's understanding. Neither world is complete for Suzuki's speakers without each another. This book casts its magic through rigorous hybridity of form and genre, inventing itself as the reader plods deeper and deeper into Suzuki's affective reservoir. This entire book is a marvel, a summoning, a moon song in the night just when I needed it.\" - \u003cstrong\u003eRajiv Mohabir\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Rebecca Suzuki's book, \u003cem\u003eWhen My Mother Is Most Beautiful \u003c\/em\u003eis one long searing narrative ode to the speaker's mother, a mother the speaker both connects to and one she disconnects from. The gentle declaratives are both arresting and coy, as images barrel across the page. Ultimately, this gorgeous book tries to answer, but cannot, the question related to family, country, race, history: 'How long are we made to contemplate our belonging?'\" - \u003cstrong\u003eVictoria Chang\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"For her memoir \u003cem\u003eWhen My Mother Is Most Beautiful\u003c\/em\u003e, Rebecca Suzuki mixes prose, poetry, drama, translation, haibun (a form that combines prose and haiku) to create a gorgeous hybrid and multivocal collection where even a footnote can read like flash prose. A few lines in 'An Interaction at a [Convenience Store]' reveals how readers will be offered numerous reading experiences: inside the English text, there is Japanese in Japanese, Japanese romanized, and available footnotes. For me, because I understand some Japanese, there are times when I grasp the meaning and immediately become a participant in the scene. More often, I can't read the Japanese and I feel bewildered. Other readers may feel unsure or curious. And afterall, such responses are salutary. It is good for a book to elicit strong feelings. Whatever one's reading experience, Suzuki's powerful debut collection is as intimate as one's breath.\" - \u003cstrong\u003eKimiko Hahn\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"With a poet's precision and a warrior's heart, Suzuki weaves a searing story of intergenerational loss and longing through her pages, wielding translation, footnotes, and land- scape to forge beauty out of destruction. The poems in this book play with unanswerable questions about home, identity, belonging, and love, and we watch Suzuki break her own heart over and over again while building a world out of language where mothers become gingko trees and there are rabbits inside the moon.\" - \u003cstrong\u003eKelly McMasters\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c!----\u003e","brand":"Hanging Loose Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48940981223741,"sku":"9781934909775","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0477\/8731\/1254\/files\/9781934909775ita.jpg?v=1718224682"},{"product_id":"the-balloonists","title":"The Balloonists","description":"\u003cp\u003ePoetry. \"Eula Biss writes in spare brushstrokes that evoke an emotional universe, by turns funny, scary, dreamlike, haunting. These prose poems are shards of gleaming observation, fragments of intimacy and illusion. Here we find our families and ourselves, our words and our silences\"-Martin Espada. \"With deceptively quiet, unflinching compassion, Eula Biss records the perceptual wedges that cleave the self from its origins. The family history refracted here is mutable, notable, more gravid than grave. \u003cem\u003eTHE BALLOONISTS\u003c\/em\u003e holds a fresh line on confession, biography, and the formal uses of information in poetry\"-Rebecca Wolff.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Eula Biss writes in spare brushstrokes that evoke an emotional universe, by turns funny, scary, dreamlike, haunting. These prose poems are shards of gleaming observation, fragments of intimacy and illusion. Here we find our families and ourselves, our words and our silences\" - \u003cstrong\u003eMartin Espada\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Hanging Loose Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49298756927805,"sku":"9781931236072","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0477\/8731\/1254\/files\/9781931260701ita.jpg?v=1724962288"},{"product_id":"reconnaissance","title":"Reconnaissance","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMark Pawlak\u003c\/strong\u003e is the author of eight previous collections of poems and the editor of six anthologies. His latest books, from which selections appear here, are \u003cem\u003eNatural Histories\u003c\/em\u003e (Červená Barva Press, 2015) and \u003cem\u003eGo to the Pine: Quoddy Journals 2005-2010\u003c\/em\u003e (Plein Air Editions\/Bootstrap Press, 2012). His work has been translated into German, Polish, and Spanish, and has been performed at Teatr Polski in Warsaw. In English, his poems have appeared widely in anthologies such as \u003cem\u003eThe Best American Poetry, Blood to Remember: American Poets on the Holocaust\u003c\/em\u003e, and in the literary magazines \u003cem\u003eNew American Writing, Mother Jones, Poetry South, The Saint Ann's Review\u003c\/em\u003e, and Solstice, among many others. He is retired from the University of Massachusetts Boston, where he supported his poetry habit by teaching mathematics. He lives in Cambridge.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"You may learn a lot about botany when you read Mark Pawlak's Reconnaissance, his newest volume of verse. 'No way!' you say. Continue, dear reader. Pawlak's book is actually four books in one: 'In Transit' (poems about traveling on Boston's MBTA), 'Pine Pillow Book' (poems, impressions, and found poems in and around northern Maine), 'Natural Histories' (where there's botany), and 'Go to the Pine' (more poems largely about Maine, but with a slightly different slant).Pawlak's travels on the subway remind me of Dante's Purgatorio. It's not exactly hell; what he encounters there is not actually torment, but dislocation and confusion in the denizens of the underground (and barely overground). A West Indies man hunches over a bible and preaches 'to all of us sinners and to no one in particular.' A white bearded mannequin' hold up a cardboard sign that reads 'H-E-L-P.' There is something notable about everyone he meets, like the Korean street musician who sings John Denver's 'Take Me Home, Country Roads,' 'her tongue wrestling to enunciate the 'l's, the 'r's.' Or his overhearing two teens talking about why they have to learn about something as small as electrons. These poems are so vivid, have so much felt life to them, that you can't help thinking, these people aren't imaginary....\" - \u003cstrong\u003eWalter Tulip\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Pawlak's work succeeds in eliminating an undiscriminating 'I' for an observant and non-occlusive 'eye' that sees objectively and in seeing presents the image, the visual and sensory experience, as the focus of the poetic impulse. In Pawlak's work the poet gains, by removing himself, a remarkable understanding of the natural world and his—and thus our—presence in it, thereby achieving a consistency of vision and linguistic vigor I can only marvel at and applaud. Pawlak is among the very best poets working today.\" - \u003cstrong\u003ePablo Medina\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"[Pawlak's] writing has been incisive and perspicuous from the start; during the past fifteen years . . . his work—quietly but firmly experimental—has developed in original ways that fuse the traditional concerns of American poetry with those of daily recording. . . . I don't know any poets whose work has the same flavor, including complexity, as Pawlak's.\" - \u003cstrong\u003eCharles North\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Hanging Loose Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49298790056253,"sku":"9781934909836","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0477\/8731\/1254\/files\/9781934909836ita.jpg?v=1724963050"},{"product_id":"on-the-imperial-highway-new-and-selected-poems","title":"On the Imperial Highway: New and selected Poems","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eJayne Cortez\u003c\/strong\u003e (1936-2012) was the author of eleven books of poetry and performer of her poems with music on nine recordings. Her voice was celebrated for its political, surrealistic, dynamic innovations in lyricism, and visceral sound. Cortez presented her work and ideas at universities, museums, and festivals around the world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Cortez has been and continues to be an explorer, probing the valleys and chasms of human existence. No ravine is too perilous, no abyss too threatening for Jayne Cortez.\"—\u003cstrong\u003eMaya Angelou\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Jayne Cortez's poems are filled with images that most of us are afraid to see.\"—\u003cstrong\u003eWalter Mosley\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"If you haven't read Jayne Cortez, you're missing some of the best that life has to offer. A compellingly original voice of fire and freedom.\"—\u003cstrong\u003eFranklin Rosemont\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Hanging Loose Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49298823283005,"sku":"9781931236904","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0477\/8731\/1254\/files\/9781931236904ita.jpg?v=1724963594"},{"product_id":"face","title":"Face","description":"\u003cp\u003ePoetry. Fiction. Native American Studies. In this first full collection in nine years,\u003cstrong\u003e Sherman Alexie\u003c\/strong\u003e's poems and prose show his celebrated passion and wit while also exploring new directions. Novelist, storyteller and performer, he won the National Book Award for his YA novel, \u003cem\u003eThe Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian\u003c\/em\u003e. His work has been praised throughout the world, but the bedrock remains what \u003cem\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/em\u003e said of his very first book: \"Mr. Alexie's is one of the major lyric voices of our time.\" Face is filled with the humor, cleverness, and Alexie-vulgarisms that one comes to expect from this Spokane. His fans won't be disappointed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Sherman Alexie is one of the funniest writers you've probably never heard of. That's too bad, because he's like a Native American Richard Pryor, his stripped down lines ringing with truth and dripping with punchlines. (It's no surprise that in addition to paying tribute to Emily Dickinson, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, he also rejoices in the comedy king of the 70s and 80s.) And there's the pain, too. Plenty of pain. Not to mention anger at the inherent unfairness of life, human or otherwise. We mourn for our dead fathers and fear for our young sons. We fall victim to addiction, and our spouses fall victim to us. We crush bugs, call them pests . . . separate families of birds by moving their nests. Are we really better than them because we're bigger? Are we all really all different, or more or less the same? All the while, Alexie balances pain and anger with humor -- some might say of a sophomoric nature. Sometimes, though, as Alexie's work contends, the best response to death and despair is a good old fashioned dick joke. Let's step back for a moment. I can't claim to be an Alexie expert (though I wouldn't mind becoming one), but I have read Flight (a novel from 2007), a couple short stories from The Toughest Indian in the World (2000), and now Face, his latest book of poems published in April. His work, if I can generalize, tends to revolve around issues of sex, maturity, masculinity (or lack of all of these), and what it means to be Native American.\" - \u003cstrong\u003eJ T Brandt\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Hanging Loose Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49298854674749,"sku":"9781931236706","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0477\/8731\/1254\/files\/9781931236706ita.jpg?v=1724964283"},{"product_id":"seer","title":"SEER","description":"\u003cp\u003eIndran Amirthanayagam's \u003cem\u003eSeer\u003c\/em\u003e is a multi-lingual, multi- coastal, multi-dimensional poetic record of a time in our collective history when our potential human demise loomed large and when the only way to save ourselves seemed to be separation and isolation. In this new collection, Amirthanayagam documents—with his evocative imagery and generous lyricism—our fears, hopes and dreams during a dark time. Through gustatory cellular tableaus, questions and meditations, this language soars, challenges and invites.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Hanging Loose Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49464454512957,"sku":"9781934909812","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0477\/8731\/1254\/files\/bf500eaf978547c850be80b133770207.jpg?v=1728413156"},{"product_id":"well-you-neednt","title":"WELL YOU NEEDN'T","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eWell You Needn't\u003c\/i\u003e, Joel Lewis's seventh volume of poetry, gathers his poems about the music that has occupied him since his teenage years. The prose memoir \"My Life as a Jazz Fan\" weaves its way through the book as the background story to his particular obsession. He has taught at an assortment of places, organized reading series along (or below) the Hudson Palisades and curated lectures at the Poetry Project for two seasons. As a staff writer at the New Jersey performing Arts Center Newark, he wrote program notes and was able to interview many of his jazz heroes. Kim Lyons has noted of his poetry: \"There is no one writing quite like him. As if Charles Olson and Susie Timmons had a baby.\" He shares his Hoboken garret with his wife, film theorist Sandy Flitterman-Lewis, who tolerates the poet's Cecil Taylor albums blaring from his alcove workspace.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Hanging Loose Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49572358259005,"sku":"9781934909805","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0477\/8731\/1254\/files\/b294e67887a08d633f4ce430787a60b7.jpg?v=1731372620"},{"product_id":"the-becoming-game","title":"The Becoming Game","description":"\u003cp\u003eAfter the frightening results of the 2016 election, Paula Cisewski adopted a new writing practice and coping mechanism. She would invite a friend over for tea and a tarot reading. Later she would share with them the first draft of a poem inspired by the cards, the conversation, and whatever of the world had leaked in. The practice made space for meaningful communication in an uncertain time.\" Precise, furious, political, controversial, paradoxical, provocative, confessional, intimate, friendly, honest, metric, exuberant, crazy, subdued poetry,\" Grzegorz Kwiatowski wrote in praise of The Becoming Game. \"Everything here contradicts and collides because this poetry contains many voices, many styles, many stories, but they all belong to one author. \"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Hanging Loose Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50172180169021,"sku":"9798991337724","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0477\/8731\/1254\/files\/2006a9e718c1f14fe550e46fff7f7f99.jpg?v=1743437676"},{"product_id":"portable-city","title":"Portable City","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePortable City\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e is primarily a travelogue composed of introspections on movement through both the physical world and nonlinear timelines. 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With generous curiosity, she documents life's transient beauty in this wondrous travelogue that moves as easily through time as space.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Hanging Loose Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50172182331709,"sku":"9798991337748","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0477\/8731\/1254\/files\/a6d0f022161251b71a61a4dc2603bf35.jpg?v=1743437712"},{"product_id":"girlfriend-1","title":"Girlfriend","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eGirlfriends\u003c\/i\u003e is a celebration of women's friendships in poetic prose, including mentors, characters and authors whose writing was important to her. One by one, the story emerges of a working-class women who loses her mother as an adolescent and becomes a mother herself, as well as a poet, a novelist and a professor. In Henning's friendship world--the bohemian communities of Detroit and New York City--one meets artists, poets, fiction writers, literary critics, activists, mothers, yoga practitioners and teachers, among many others.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Hanging Loose Press","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":50233341903165,"sku":"9798991337700","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0477\/8731\/1254\/files\/9798991337700ita_86e4361b-13f8-4346-bdd4-b2f52bb2d566.jpg?v=1745434433"},{"product_id":"the-other-steve-schrader-new-and-selected-writing","title":"The Other Steve Schrader: New and Selected Writing","description":"\u003cp\u003ePublishing the book just two weeks after his ninetieth birthday, Schrader-a lifelong New Yorker- offers a vivid memoir in vignettes that captures both the arc of his own life and the portrait of a shifting 20th century New York. Schrader's autobiographical sketches reveal a writer processing the evolution and moments of resonance in his life, and the changing of a city and world around him.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRich with autobiographical sketches that will recall those of Annie Dillard in \u003ci\u003eAn American Childhood\u003c\/i\u003e and Tobias Wolff in \u003ci\u003eThis Boy's Life\u003c\/i\u003e, Schrader traces his journey from a daydreaming child of the 1930s Upper West Side to the anxieties and desires of a postwar adolescence, to the tensions of a creative impulse and a drive to prove himself to his father and brother amid the family clothing business. Schrader crafts an intimate portrait of his tangled relationship with the creative impulse, the making of money, and his family.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe stories Schrader unearths—told with hilarity, tenderness, and an incredible eye for detail—surprise and delight. Readers are treated to memories ranging from the surprising (watching his teenage brother spar with the son of gangster Meyer Lansky at the boxing gym-and then pulling on his legs to help him get tall enough to be admitted to West Point), to the unfortunate (he describes the lifelong regret of having left a 1961 Greenwich Village folk show just before a young Bob Dylan took the stage), to the tender and the heartbreaking. \"Even now my neck turns red at the memory,\" he says of an elementary school incident in which he fails to stand up for a bullied classmate.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"This book was a life and death thing-to get these stories recorded,\" Schrader said. \"This project gave me some hope that I could explain myself to me, and that someone reading it might see themselves in it as well.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDrawing upon moments across his nine decades of experience, Schrader quilts a memoir of resonance, tenderness, and wit. \u003ci\u003eThe Other Steve Schrader\u003c\/i\u003e is a remarkable testament to memory and connection.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Hanging Loose Press","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":50734212481341,"sku":"9798991337731","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0477\/8731\/1254\/files\/9798991337731ita.jpg?v=1757615827"},{"product_id":"the-witness-of-nina-mvungi-and-other-stories","title":"The Witness of Nina Mvungi and Other Stories","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Witness of Nina Mvungi and Other Stories\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e is the first full-length book of fiction by award-winning contemporary Tanzanian author Esther Karin Mngodo. Its seven stories, translated from Swahili, range in style from lyrical realism to speculative fiction and Afrofuturism. The stories all share a distinct voice and focus on the feminine, and some are linked not just thematically but in terms of plot. Whether depicting a world of spirits behind the proverbial curtain, a dystopian future in which the sun is about to expire, or a sweltering-hot present-day fish market, Mngodo’s tantalizing fiction pushes beyond allegory and didacticism into the rich ambiguity of lived experience. 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Without creative interference, without mistranslation, language to her is history's 'cracked' thorax, a resented 'dictation,' and a constant personal embarrassment. Her poems are 'islands without flags,' 'the ocean a slate gray\/ along the wolf-hued sand.' TRANSLATING MO'UM is striking both for its stabbingly original, vinegary images and its ruthless honesty: Hong being that rare thing, a poet as rigorous in her self-scrutiny as in her cultural confrontations\"-Calvin Bedient.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Hanging Loose Press","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":51172492738877,"sku":"9781931236119","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0477\/8731\/1254\/files\/9781931236119ita_42f34c78-7b8b-4729-ace0-d9ac8c6b1642.jpg?v=1765922000"},{"product_id":"another-attempt-at-rescue","title":"Another Attempt at Rescue","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eANOTHER ATTEMPT AT RESCUE\u003c\/i\u003e is the first collection by M.L. Smoker, whose work has been influenced by John Steinbeck, James Welch, and Philip Levine. 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Smoker earned a BA at Pepperdine University and an MFA at the University of Montana, where she received the Richard Hugo Memorial Scholarship.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs Smoker noted in a From the Fishouse audio recording, \"[B]eing a poet allows me to interact and observe and be a witness to so many things that go on in the world around us, large things that go on in our community but also things that happen in our day-to-day lives, and I'm very honored to have the chance and the opportunity to slow down occasionally and pay attention to those things that can sometimes get lost in the greater scheme of things and in our lives.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Hanging Loose Press","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":51208835727677,"sku":"9781931236515","price":14.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0477\/8731\/1254\/files\/9781931236515ita.jpg?v=1767129190"},{"product_id":"affidavit","title":"Affidavit","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eWinner of Hanging Loose Press's annual Founders Award for a first book of poetry, Affidavit\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003ecaptures the passionate intensity of motherhood and custody battles within the constraining shape of bureaucratic legal forms. Presenting us with the horrors of incarceration and the wonders of birth, these poems testify to the power of parental love even amidst the suffocating apparatuses of the courtroom. Formally and emotionally complex, \u003ci\u003eAffidavit\u003c\/i\u003e pays attention to what happens when private lives are forced into public arenas of judgement. May-lee Chai described Starr Davis as \"A writer whose work inspires both hope and rage, leaving me eager to read more of this singular voice.\"\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Hanging Loose Press","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":51761904353597,"sku":"9798991337717","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0477\/8731\/1254\/files\/9798991337717ita.jpg?v=1779994977"}],"url":"https:\/\/itascabooks.com\/collections\/hanging-loose-press.oembed?page=3","provider":"Itasca Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}