Missing Her: Reviewed

Christina Mengert has reviewed Claudia Keelan's new book, Missing Her, for the Constant Critic website. A taste...

"In a world that is increasingly isolated (communicating more and more at a virtual remove), yet increasingly interconnected via the same technology that removes us, I deeply admire work that insists on the importance—perhaps to our survival as a species—of actively remembering the Whole of which we are a part, allowing that to guide us toward meaningful action (as action without reflection is likely to perpetuate violence—and reflection without action has no capacity to intervene). Whatever the myriad roles a book of poems might assume, to encourage critical reflection on the ideas that help us move away from a selfish destruction of a planet, as well as the oppression and degradation of its people, is a worthy endeavor."

Read the whole review here: www.constantcritic.com/christina_mengert/missing-her

Winner of the 2010 Green Rose Prize

The Editors of New Issues Poetry & Prose are pleased to announce the winner of the 2010 Green Rose Prize: Seth Abramson for his manuscript Northerners. Seth wins a $2,000 award and publication of his manuscript in the spring of 2011.

Seth Abramson is the author of The Suburban Ecstasies (Ghost Road Press, 2009) and winner of the 2008 J. Howard and Barbara M.J. Wood Prize from Poetry. His poems have recently appeared in Best New Poets 2008, Poetry, The American Poetry Review, New American Writing, Colorado Review, Gulf Coast, Crazyhorse, and elsewhere. A graduate of Harvard Law School and a former public defender, he received an MFA from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop in 2009 and is currently a doctoral candidate in English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Also accepted for publication: Undone by Maxine Scates, to appear in the fall of 2011, and The Memory of Water by Jack Myers, to appear in the spring of 2011.

The Green Rose Prize is awarded to an author who has previously published at least one full-length book of poems. Winners are chosen by the editors of New Issues Press. Guidelines are available on our website.

Stacie Cassarino on Poetry Daily

"Spoon to the Sky" from Stacie Cassarino's book Zero at the Bone is featured today, January 8, on the Poetry Daily website. Follow this link to read the poem.

360 Main Street Reviews Recent Inland Seas Titles

360 Main Street has reviewed two New Issues book recently published in our Inland Seas Poetry Series, a series by poets living in Michigan or from Michigan."

Talking Diamonds by Linda Nemec Foster
Review by Jeanne Lesinski

"The numinous appears unexpectedly for the protagonist of "Vision," sunbathing on a Hawaiian beach. It takes the form of a man bearing a tattoo of the Virgin and Child, like a holy card, on his front and back. Suddenly, the incongruousness of this vision overwhelms the protagonist:

And you tell yourself this isn't a miracle,
only a tattoo; this isn't anything
extraordinary, only your life,
the crowded beach, the husband and son
waving impatiently for you to just
come on, come on, dive in.

And yet. And yet, the emotional truth rings out in this as in other poems in the collection. Where else should the miraculous happen but in everyday lives, in moments when humans are graced with the extraordinary through enhanced perception."

Beauty Breaks In by Mary Ann Samyn
Review by Gina Myers

"Beauty Breaks In is Samyn's fifth book of poetry, and like those that proceed it, the poems in this collection are brief lyrics. It's a poetry marked by concise language where each word seems carefully chosen and surgically precise. Nonetheless, there is a bubbling energy beneath the surface, a sense of disquiet."

Happy New Year from New Issues

2009 was a fantastic year for New Issues and our authors. We started off 2009 by announcing that Malinda Markham won the 2009 Green Rose Prize and that Marvin Bell picked Judy Halebsky's Sky=Empty as the winner of our first book prize. These books are at the printer and will be released this spring, just in time for the 2010 AWP Bookfair in Denver.


We published seven books of poetry and one novel:

• Zero at the Bone by Stacie Cassarino
• A Million in Prizes by Justin Marks, Winner of the 2008 New Issues Poetry Prize
• Dirt Angels by Donald Platt
• Hilarity by Patty Seyburn, Winner of the 2008 Green Rose Prize
• Talking Diamonds by Linda Nemec Foster
• Missing Her by Claudia Keelan
• Beauty Breaks In by Mary Ann Samyn
• We Agreed to Meet Just Here by Scott Blackwood, Winner of the 2007 AWP Award for the Novel

Here are some of the highlights of 2009:

Myronn Hardy’s The Headless Saints won the 2009 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award from the The Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation.

Jericho Brown's book Please continues to heap up honors. Most recently, he was named a winner of the 30th Annual American Book Awards, a rare if not exceptional accomplishment for a writer of a first book, placing him this year alongside such national treasures as Jack Spicer and Linda Gregg. Jericho Brown also received the 2009 Whiting Writers’ Award. Please, released in October of 2008, has become a New Issues best seller, needing to be reprinted twice already.

Katie Peterson (This One Tree, 2007) and Jericho Brown (Please, 2008) each were awarded a Bunting Fellowship from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and are spending the 2009/2010 academic year at Harvard working on their poetry.

Justin Mark’s A Million in Prizes (Winner of the 2008 New Issues Poetry Prize) was featured in Poets & Writers’ fifth annual Debut Poets Roundup.

Sandra Beasley, whose debut poetry collection Theories of Falling won our 2007 New Issues Poetry Prize, had her second book of poetry (I Was the Jukebox, Norton, April 2010) chosen by Joy Harjo as the winner of the 2009 Barnard Women Poets Prize and her memoir (Don't Kill the Birthday Girl) purchased by Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, for a 2010 publication.

Our first annual Fundraiser Gala exceed our expectations. The Eccentric Café of Kalamazoo’s own Bell’s Brewery hosted the event, which brought many of our authors, friends, and supporters together for an afternoon of music, poetry, and art auctions.

On Deck for 2010:

In a few weeks we expect to announce the winner of the 2010 Green Rose Prize. In April, judge Linda Gregerson will pick a first book to win our 2010 New Issues Poetry Prize.

February: Toads’ Museum of Freaks and Wonders by Goldie Goldbloom will be released. This novel, winner of the 2008 AWP Award for the Novel, selected by Joanna Scott, is set in the Australian outback during WWII and introduces us to the character of Gin Toad, a truly original voice.

We'll see everyone in April at the 2010 AWP Conference and Bookfair. Come by our table for book signings and to see three newly released poetry books:

• Sky=Empty by Judy Halebsky
• Having Cut the Sparrow’s Heart by Malinda Markham
• Tocqueville by Khaled Mattawa

In the fall of 2010, New Issues will publish the following poetry collections:

• Vivisect by Lisa Lewis
• Reliquary Fever: Selected & New Poems by Beckian Fritz Goldberg
• Pima Road Notebook by Keith Ekiss

And check our website soon to see a complete redesign. It's almost done, I swear!

Peter Covino 2010 Readings

Peter Covino, author of Cut Off the Ears of Winter
Winter/ Spring 2010 Reading Schedule

January 25, 2010, Monday, 7:00 PM, Barnes & Noble 82nd & Broadway - It's Not You, It's Me: The Poetry of Breakup with Jerry Williams, Patricia Smith and Peter Covino, Broadway, New York, NY 10024

February 25, 2010, Thursday, 7:00 PM, Cornelia Street Café - It's Not You, It's Me: The Poetry of Breakup with Jerry Williams, David Lehman, Martha Rhodes and Peter Covino, 29 Cornelia Street, New York, NY 10014

March 6 & 7, 2010, Saturday & Sunday - Mi Alma, Italian Cultural Arts Festival, Sunset Junction, Los Angeles, CA—details to follow

March 27, 28, 2010, Saturday & Sunday - Colrain Poetry Manuscript Conference, Colrain, MA, with Martha Rhodes, Ellen Dore Watson, and Joan Houlihan.

April 10, 2010, 1:30 – 2:45 - S170. Writing Intimacy, Writing Sex. Mary Cappello, Alexander Chee, Barrie Jean Borich, Peter Covino, James Morrison; part of AWP Conference, Colorado Convention Center, Denver CO—other events to follow.

April 14, 2010, 7pm, Reading, Department of English, St Joseph’s College, W. Hartford, CT—details to follow