POETRY

RAIN COMES RIDING details poet William Sheldon’s passion for the Great Plains. People loom against the horizon—his family, neighbors, runaways, working men, and also the people who lived in this place before, whose scattered flint tools remain still unchanged. He is a poet who embraces fully the contradictions of simulated realities existing, fragmented, in a timeless universe of flint and bluestem grass. Sheldon is a skilled, smart writer who has much to tell his readers about how to live with good conscience. This second book of the poet shows him creating a new genre of ballad. William Sheldon lives in Hutchinson, Ks., where he teaches. His book Retrieving Old Bones (Woodley), was named a 2002 Kansas City Star’s Noteworthy Book. He has an MFA from Wichita St. Univ. Idyll The dog’s ashes work their way deeper into the garden’s soil. This season I walk alone, The dirt road winding Into darkening sky. The horses no longer come when called, and the wind keens, “Winter is coming on.” The rising moon rattles the dry grass, and below, the dead continue their long work. Many poets of estimable value are called to mind by Bill Sheldon’s book: Kansas poets certainly (William Stafford, Steven Hind, Harley Elliot, Denise Low), and other-state poets with a knowing eye for the land, from the severe poems of Robinson Jeffers, to the more clement naturalism of Mary Oliver, to the savvy, stringent explorations of Wendell Berry. How can one read Sheldon’s “Red” and not think of the poems of Phil Levine, their similar understanding of manual labor and the lives invested in that work? I could go on in this vein, but… Sheldon is finally a practitioner of his own voice and vision—albeit one that takes its place happily in a community of other poets—and Rain Comes Riding, steeped in history and family, in an intimacy of place and sometimes a wry sense of humor, is the rich record of a career in which the world and the word have been lovingly wedded.” Albert Goldbarth, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award. ISBN 978-0-9837995-0-4 Eighty pages. Perfect bound paper. $12.00, $3.00 shipping, publication date Dec. 1, 2011.

GLAMOUR by Jonathan Holden

“Holden talks about his family so that your ears, your brain, your feelings will tingle for days. He has something to say; he says it with force and grace.” W.D. Snodgrass, Pulitzer Prize winner

978-0-9800102-7-5 Joint publication of Center for Kansas Studies of Washburn University and Mammoth Publications 110 pages, perfect bound paper, $12.00. Winner of a Kansas Notable Book Award from the Kansas State Library and Kansas Center for the Book. Denise Low, 2nd poet laureate of Kansas, revives the British tradition of “Broadsides,” convenient flyers as a way to present poetry. This book collects her Ad Astra Poetry Project broadsides. Each entry presents a biography, poem, and commentary about the poem in concise form, easily accessible for readers. Clear discussion of the poems, free of jargon, makes this ideal for sharing with students and friends. Low selects poems that comment, in some way, on Kansas experience. The online version of these broadsides, originally available to arts organizations, schools, libraries, and newspapers throughout the state, also attract a national following. The 3rd Kansas poet laureate, Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, adds discussion questions for those who wish to use this book for classes or other groups. The poets include selected poets with Kansas connections— Gordon Parks, William Stafford, James Tate, Diane Glancy, Albert Goldbarth, Harley Elliott, William Kloefkorn, Jo McDougall, Jonathan Holden, Charles Plymell, Gloria Vando, Ben Lerner, Steven Hind, Linda Rodriguez, and Kevin Young to name a few. The online broadsides are at http://deniselow.blogspot.com

ISBN 978-0-9800102-9-9 perfect-bound, paperback $14.00 ISBN 978-0-9800102-8-2 laminate case, hardback $23.99 108 pages

Cover art by Thomas Pecore Weso. In The Driven World, Diane Glancy creates an original vision of North America, pieced from real and invented historic documents, museum artifacts, and field notes. Language is the transformative tool as at the author imagines herself in the position of both explorers and explored peoples. Glancy uses varieties of language—petroglyphs, Morse code, Cherokee, Inuit, and 19th century English—to describe simultaneously the New World of European Americans and the homeland of Indigenous Americans. Glancy, award-winning author and filmmaker, writes from the viewpoint of a feminist, postcolonial Indigenous American, literary-nationalist, and mainstream Christian.

"Diane Glancy has established herself as one of the country's most versatile and prolific writers. Distinguished by her laconic honesty, she presents Native American life—especially the ways it intersects with non-native culture—in all its complexity and nuance." Jessica Bennett, Univ. of North Dakota

LANDED: POEMS by Caryn Mirriam Goldberg

Reading the Body: Poems by Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg 28 pp. Staple bound. $5.00. isbn 0-9761773-090000.Cover painting by Kathy Hird Wright. This moving suite of poems follows the course of breast cancer, from diagnosis to healing. Mirriam-Goldberg coordinates the Transformative Language Arts program at Goddard College in Vermont. These poems show her teaching and leadership at their best, as she brings the reader into the magic of her spiritual process. The poems commemorate an inter-arts performance with blues singer Kelly Hunt and the Prairie Wind Dancers. Mirriam-Goldberg has published Lot's Wife and Animals in the House with Woodley Press (Washburn University, Topeka). For more information about this poet, see www.carrynmirriamgoldberg.com or www.goddard.edu.

ISBN 978-0-9800102-1-3 6” x 8.75”. Paper wrapper, hand-stitched, 20 pages. $20.00 EDITION: 100 numbered copies signed by the author and artist. Hand printed by Mike Kaylor at the Literary House Press, The Rose O’Neill Literary House, Washington College, Chestertown, Maryland. Type cast by Lead Graffiti, Newark, Delaware. CONTENTS: A dozen poems of autumn texture: about hunting teal and quail; about strands of memory; about the perseverance of seasons.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Robert Day received his MFA in Poetry at the University of Arkansas and taught at Washington College. Besides recent publications in New Letters and North Dakota Quarterly, he is author of The Last Cattle Drive, Speaking French in Kansas: Stories; Four-Wheel Drive Quartet; In My Stead; The ABCs of Enlightenment: Essays. He has awards from the NEA & Fulbright. ABOUT THE ARTIST: Kathryn Jankus Day has exhibited in the United States and France. She is represented by the Strecker-Nelson Gallery of Manhattan, Kansas.

Also available: Color Laser Print edition, $10.00

Performance poet Barry Barnes releases his first full-length book of poems and incantations. He celebrates family and community life. He asks his readers to think about the war, poverty, Washington policies, and racism. He asks readers to live consciously as he evokes the spirit of Langston Hughes. ISBN 978-0-9800102-0-6 $10.00.

POWWOWS, FATCATS, & OTHER INDIAN TALES by E. Donald (Eddie) Two-Rivers

” E. Donald Two-Rivers (1945-2008) is an original Native writer with experiences both as a traditional person (Anishnaabe or Ojibwa from northwestern Ontario) and urban Indian. He moved to Chicago when he was a teenager, where he worked and participated in arts and civil rights movements. He led open-mic poetry readings and performed his own verse. In the 1990s Two-Rivers founded the Red Path Theater Company, for which he acted, directed, and wrote plays. His honors include the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation in 1999 for Survivor’s Medicine and the Iron-Eyes Cody Award for Peace, 1992. He lived in Green Bay, Wisconsin, from 2002 until his death in 2008.