New Issues Releases Two New Poetry Titles

A Million in Prizes by Justin Marks

A Million in Prizes was selected by Carl Phillips as winner of the 2008 New Issues Poetry Prize, an award for a first book of poetry. Phillips, in his judge's citation, writes, "A Million in Prizes seduces in the best possible way: subtly, with a poignant wit, and a sly charm." Marks is the founder and editor of Kitchen Press Chapbooks in New York City and author of the chapbook Voir Dire (Rope-a-Dope Press). More Info

Hilarity by Patty Seyburn

Hilarity is Seyburn's third book of poetry and winner of the 2008 Green Rose Prize, awarded for a full-length collection of poetry by an established poet. Seyburn is an assistant professor at California State University, Long Beach, and co-editor of POOL: A Journal of Poetry based in Los Angeles. Poet David Citino notes that Seyburn's poems are "filled with a strange, ambitious and compelling music made of the mythic, momentous and mundane days of our lives." More Info

WMU: New Issues Reading

Patty Seyburn and Jericho Brown will be reading from their New Issues titles as part of Western Michigan University's Gwen Frostic Reading Series on Thursday April 2 at 8 p.m. in Little Theater.

Patty Seyburn’s third book of poems, Hilarity, won the 2008 Green Rose Prize given by New Issues Press. She has published two books of poems: Mechanical Cluster and Diasporadic, which won the 1997 Marianne Moore Poetry Prize and the American Library Association’s Notable Book Award for 2000. Seyburn grew up in Detroit, earned a BS and an MS in Journalism from Northwestern University, an MFA in Poetry from University of California, Irvine, and a Ph.D. in Poetry and Literature from the University of Houston. She is an Assistant Professor at California State University, Long Beach and co-editor of POOL: A Journal of Poetry, based in Los Angeles.

In a time when there’s little to laugh about, Patty Seyburn’s Hilarity is an epic punch line: sparkling and smart. —Carol Muske-Dukes

Jericho Brown is the author of Please, selected as a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry as well as the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry. He worked as speechwriter for the Mayor of New Orleans before receiving his Ph.D. in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Houston. He also holds an MFA from the University of New Orleans and a BA from Dillard University, and he has served as poetry editor at Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts. The recipient of a Cave Canem Fellowship, two scholarships to the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, and two travel fellowships to the Krakow Poetry Seminar in Poland, Brown is currently an Assistant Professor of English at the University of San Diego where he teaches creative writing.

Fresh, deeply felt, formally adventurous, Please is a stunning debut. —Mark Doty


The 2009 Gwen Frostic Reading Series
Western Michigan University