Paolo Javier, 10/28/2010

New York Book Fair Expo, Sunday 10/10

This Sunday, from 11am to 6pm, Creature Press will be at the Queens Museum of Art, for the New York Book Fair Expo (click for more info). Directions here.

Please stop by if you can---say hello, look at some books, etc. Thanks to Creature Press/Queens Poet Laureate/2nd Ave Poetry personage, Paolo Javier, I will be in rich company, at a table with my elders, as it were: Mark Lamoureux's Cy Gist Press and Eugene Lim's Ellipsis Press.

Introducing: 'Absolute Hist,' by Cecil Church

Creature Press is proud to announce the publication of its fourth chapbook, ABSOLUTE HIST, an enigmatic pamphlet by the reclusive Cecil Church. The book, produced in an edition of 75, is quarto-size; its cover is made of re-purposed material; and the black text within (14 pt. Garamond) is printed on black paper (30 lb. linen). The words, like scratches on a shard of raw coal, are at first difficult to make out, but with dexterity and devotion they are plainly legible. You are invited to investigate.

ABSOLUTE HIST will be for sale at the upcoming New York Book Fair Expo on October 10th (link for the details); they may also be purchased below.

$7 each (includes shipping)

Another News Flash: Tonya Foster Reading- 8/31, The Katrina Project

New York poet Tonya Foster, whose chapbook "Bibliography" Creature Press boasts as one of its inaugural trio of publications, will be reading in Bryant Park this coming Tuesday, August 31st, as part of an event remembering Hurricane Katrina, which hit 5 years ago. As she hails from New Orleans, Foster has an acute connection to the catastrophe and its ongoing aftermath.

Last-minute notification, but please come by if you're available. It should be an amazing reading, and it doesn't even cost a thin dime. Here are the particulars:

Aug. 31:
Katrina Project Presents Poetry
7:00pm – 8:30pm | Bryant Park Reading Room
FREE

Nicole Cooley
Tonya Foster
Yusef Komunyakaa

Rain Venue(s):
*The General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen
20 West 44th Street (between 5th & 6th Avenues)

Tonya Foster's Creature Press chapbook, from which she may read on Tuesday, charts an effort to recover a state where "speech is possible" in the wake of what seems like unspeakable devastation. Foster does this by "taking in her mother / landscape," elaborating a dense abecedarian catalogue of names, things, and phrasings that saturate her experience of that landscape. Read straight through, the book reveals itself as a dizzying litany of the sacred and the mundane, the plain and the obscure, the patently personal and the implicitly political. Its charged act of confrontation---running through alternately poignant, hilarious, and outraged tonal registers---is perfectly channeled by the a priori lexical structure and the small, discrete pages of the book. Come on out to hear Tonya read and to support the Katrina Project.

News Flash: Paolo Javier, Poet Laureate of Queens!

Even though I'm quite late posting this, I still consider it flashing news. One of Creature Press's very own, author of the BOX chapbook "The Feeling is Actual," has recently received a thrilling commendation and charge. Below is an excerpt from the press release, and check out a link to another article underneath that. Congratulations, 'QPLO'! We know you'll rock this new mantle with verve and swagger and magnanimity.
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A “ONCE-GLOBAL NOMAD” WHO FINDS “THE WORLD IN QUEENS,”
PAOLO JAVIER IS NAMED BOROUGH’S FIFTH POET LAUREATE

FLUSHING, N.Y., June 18, 2010 ― Describing himself as “a once-global nomad” who made Queens his permanent home because he has “no trouble finding the world in it,” Paolo S. Javier has been named the fifth Poet Laureate of Queens. His three-year appointment, following a search launched in March, was announced yesterday at Borough Hall by Queens Borough President Helen Marshall and Queens College President James Muyskens.

Queens’ newest poet laureate is an award-winning author of two poetry collections and four chapbooks (short books of poetry), as well as a playwright, film director, college professor, editor, and publisher. A native of the Philippines who has traveled widely and lived in Asia, the Middle East, and North America, Javier moved to Katonah, NY, in 1986, and has been a resident of Sunnyside, Queens, for over a decade.

“I am delighted to approve my panel of judges’ recommendation of Paolo Javier as the next Poet Laureate of Queens,” said Marshall. “Mr. Javier is an up-and-coming poet as well as a filmmaker who has a clearly articulated vision of how to promote a love of poetry among our diverse youth through multimedia programming. We are very excited to collaborate with him over the next three years.”

“Paolo Javier is truly a 21st century poet who is recreating poetry as a dynamic literary art form that draws from theater, new media, sound art, and international cinema,” said Muyskens. “His unique, multidisciplinary approach will surely engage our diverse communities.”

Javier is the author of the forthcoming The Feeling Is Actual (Creature Press) and Megton Gasgan Krakoom (Cy Gist Press), as well as LMFAO (OMG Press), Goldfish Kisses (Sona Books), 60 lv bo(e)mbs (O Books), and the time at the end of this writing (Ahadada Books), which received a Small Press Traffic Book of the Year Award in 2005.

http://www.leaderobserver.com/pages/full_story/push?article-Paolo+Javier+is+Queens-+poet-+and+he+knows+it%20&id=8014541&instance=home_news_right

New Books! (read below for the details)

It is my great pleasure to introduce:

B O X E S: poetry ready-to-hand.

3 new chapbooks, each consisting of 20 loose pages in a small cardboard box:

• Yuko Otomo, "A Voice That Crawls in the Sky" SOLD OUT!
• Paolo Javier, "The Feeling is Actual"
• Tonya Foster, "Bibliography"

Carry them with you! Mix-and-match the loose leaves! Throw away the ones you don’t like! Save your favorites! Collect all three boxes! Use the pages to jot notes! As tokens to send with letters! To practice origami! To wipe up messes!
………………………………

These, we hope, are books that aren’t quite books, that disrupt expectations but in a good-faith manner, that gently dictate a fundamental shift in reading practice, while also inviting/daring more radical, more promiscuous approaches to the object(s): shuffling pages within a box; exchanging pages between different boxes; folding, crumbling, discarding certain pages; using pages for other purposes, practical or capricious.

Here are the specs for each BOX-BOOK, the dimensional facts of the vehicle each writer worked with and within:

• 20 unbound, unnumbered rectangular pages (4 ¼" x 4 ½").
• Fixed margins on all 4 sides, leaving exactly 15 lines-worth of space for 12 pt. Franklin Gothic Medium, the uniformly employed typeface.
• Office-pink paper, standard 20 lb.
• Thin, brown chip-board box housing [4 ¾ square]; an exoskeleton in place of the standard endoskeletal spine that structures most books.
• Each work’s title is hand-stamped in black capital letters on the exterior face of the box, and the author’s name is stamped in lowercase below the title.

Each chapbook has been produced in an edition of 50. Some of these will be available directly from the authors, and the rest may be purchased via this website or in select bookstores. Details forthcoming; email Felix for more information. OR, if you want a first-hand look-see and a chance to snag one or more books, consider visiting Creature Press at the CUNY chapbook festival, info right underneath these words!

Creature Press Debut: CUNY Chapbook Festival

ANNUAL CHAPBOOK FESTIVAL

Monday May 3 &Tuesday May 4, 2010

The Festival celebrates the chapbook as a work of art and as a medium for alternative and emerging writers and publishers. Now in its second year, the festival features a two-day bookfair with chapbook publishers from around the country, workshops, marathon poetry readings, and a closing-night reading of prize-winning Chapbook Fellows. At the CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue and 34^th Street, NYC.

Co-sponsored by The Office of Academic Affairs, The Center for the Humanities, The Graduate Center and MFA Programs in Creative Writing of the City University of New York, The Center for Book Arts, Poets House, Poetry Society of America, and Poets & Writers

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Schedule of Events

Bookfair

11:30am to 7pm both days (May 3-4)

in the Proshansky Auditorium Lobby, C Level

Free and open to the public

MONDAY, MAY 3, 2010

Workshops

C Level Breakout Rooms

Free registration required. To attend workshops, please register by e-mailing abozicevic@gc.cuny.edu

10 – 11:30am

Producing Chapbooks: A Workshop for Poets
Brenda Iijima (Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs) and Rachel Levitsky (Belladonna*), and Lonely Christopher (The Corresponding Society)

10 – 11:30am

Do-It-Yourself Chapbooks: Make and Distribute Your Own
Mary Gannon and Jean Hartig (Poets & Writers Magazine), Emily Goodale (Brave Men Press), Matvei Yankelevich (Ugly Duckling Presse), and Adam Robinson (Publishing Genius)

11:30am – 1pm

Producing Chapbooks: A Workshop for Publishers
Jan Heller Levi (Hunter College), Rachel Levitsky (Belladonna*), and Marshall Webber (Booklyn)

11:30am – 1pm

Chapbooks as Art Objects
Roni Gross (Roni Gross Design), and Jeremy Thompson (The Autotypograph), with Sarah Nicholls (Center for Book Arts)

Chapbook Poets: A Marathon Reading

2 – 7pm, C Level Breakout Rooms
Poets from participating presses read. Full lineup to be announced at www.chapbookfestival.org soon.
Free and open to the public.

Opening Reception

7 – 8pm, Proshansky Auditorum Lobby

TUESDAY, MAY 4, 2010

Workshops

C Level Breakout Rooms

Free registration required. To attend workshops, please register by e-mailing abozicevic@gc.cuny.edu

10 – 11:30am

Producing Chapbooks: A Workshop for Poets
Sommer Browning and Tony Mancus (Flying Guillotine Press), Jill Magi (Sona Books), and Daniel Lin (Love Among the Ruins)

10 – 11:30am

Do-It-Yourself Chapbooks: Make and Distribute Your Own
Mary Gannon and Jean Hartig (Poets & Writers Magazine), Emily Goodale (Brave Men Press), and Anna Moschovakis (Ugly Duckling Presse)

11:30am – 1pm

Producing Chapbooks: A Workshop for Publishers
Jan Heller Levi (Hunter College), Andrew Levy (CRAYON Magazine), Sueyeun Juliette Lee (Corollary Press), and Charmaine Wheatley (Booklyn)

11:30am – 1pm

Chapbooks as Art Objects
Roni Gross (Roni Gross Design) and Jeremy Thompson (The Autotypograph), with Sarah Nicholls (Center for Book Arts)

Chapbook Poets: A Marathon Reading

2 – 7pm, C Level Breakout Rooms
Poets from participating presses read. Full lineup to be announced at www.chapbookfestival.org soon.

Free and open to the public.

PSA Chapbook Fellowship Reading

7pm, Martin E. Segal Theatre
Alice Quinn with judges Mark Doty, Linda Gregg, and Arthur Sze, and winners Jocelyn Casey-Whiteman, Haines Eason, Heidi Johannesen Poon, and Stephanie Adams-Santos. Followed by reception.

Free and open to the public.

On Wednesday, May 5, The Center for Book Arts will host printing and bookbinding workshops, from 10-1 and 2-5. To sign up, call 212-481-0295. For more information, visit their website.

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Participating publishers

2nd Ave Poetry
Bateau Press
Belladonna*
BOOK Works

Booklyn
BookThug
Cervena Barva Press
Concrete Wolf Chapbook Press
Corollary Press

CRAYON
Creature Press
Cy Gist Press

CUNY Lost & Found
DoubleCross Press
Dusie Kollektiv
Etched Press

Factory Hollow Press
Finishing Line Press
Five Spice Poetry
Flying Guillotine Press
Forklift, Ohio
Greying Ghost Press

H_NGM_N
Instance Press
Kissena Park Press
Little Scratch Pad
Love Among the Ruins
Magic Helicopter Books

Minutes Books
Noemi Press
Open Thread Publications
Pen Press
Plan B Press
Pleasure Boat Studio: A Literary Press
Poets Wear Prada
Poinciana Paper Press
Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs

PresShop
Rain Taxi
River Poets Journal/Lilly Press
Sarabande Books
Seven Kitchens Press
Slapering Hol Press
Small Anchor Press
Sona Books
Spire Press
sunnyoutside
Tarpaulin Sky Press
The Physiocrats
Toadlily Press
Ugly Duckling Presse
Upset Press
X-ing Press/Agriculture Reader
and others!