Mayapple Press
makes available outstanding work by Michigan and Great Lakes authors.

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Joy Gaines-Friedler (Michigan)
Like Vapor

Poetry. Paper, perfect bound, 64 pp.
$14.95 plus s&h
2008, ISBN 978-0932412-652

In these poems we are assured of humanity, our existence and our eventual extinction, with a grace and comfort that uplifts our spirits and encourages our own consideration of life.

Jane Piirto (Michigan/Ohio)
Saunas

Poetry. Paper, perfect bound, 100 pp.
$15.95 plus s&h
2008, ISBN 978-0932412-645

 From the frozen landscapes of her Finnish forebears to the ice-clear rivers and cold fields of Michigan’s Upper Pennisula, Jane Piirto paints a personal and extraordinary picture. These deeply moving poems are like chants celebrating what sustains us, reminding us of the wonder and mystery in the everyday.

Andy Christ (Michigan)
Philip & the Poet

Poetry. Paper, perfect bound, 28pp.
$12.95 plus s&h
2008, ISBN 978-0932412-607

These humorous, moving and sometimes even philosophical poems revolve around Christ's love for writing, his exploration of faith and knowledge, and above all, his admiration for his audience. An adventurous journey through Christ’s imagination.

Elizabeth Kerlikowske (Michigan)
Dominant Hand

Poetry. Paper, perfect bound, 64 pp.
$14.95 plus s&h
2008, ISBN 978-0932412-584

Dominant Hand is a world filled with the pantomime of love, the trickster coyote, and the conflict between widowed father and concerned grandparents. These poems are set in the seemingly ordinary places of life, but they are not ordinary; here Kerlikowske reveals profound truths that shock and amaze, and put smiles on our faces.

Patricia McNair (Michigan)
Taking Notice

Poetry. Paper, perfect bound, 48 pp.
$13.95 plus s&h
2007, ISBN 978-0932412-560

Patricia McNair’s poems combine an earthy honesty with consistent alertness to the beauty of everyday life, especially in family and nature.  She explores the resonances of her life in a voice which is humorous, comfortably familiar and uncomfortably direct.

Pat's friends and family, click here

James Owens (Indiana)
Frost Lights a Thin Flame

Poetry. Paper, perfect bound, 48 pp.
$13.95 plus s&h
2007, ISBN 978-0932412-553

Owens's poems direct our attention through fantastic metaphor coupled with a kind of precision in language that brings the sounds and sights of his natural and mythological world to the reader’s senses.

Chris Green (Illinois)
The Sky Over Walgreens

Poetry. Paper, perfect bound, 78 pp.
$14.95 plus s&h
2007, ISBN 978-0932412-546

Chris Green is a wonderful poet of contemporary American life.  Compassionate, candid, funny and smart, these poems explore things we know but are often unable to say about our everyday lives. Encountering other poets, books, animals, marriage, family, even the suburban strip mall – the experiences created by these poems are sources of surprise, light and shadow. 

Mariela Griffor (Michigan)
House

Poetry. Paper, perfect bound, 56 pp.
$14.95 plus s&h
2007, ISBN 978-0932412-539

House is a love affair between the poet and and Chile. While making real the struggles of war, becoming an expatriate and the alienation that accompanies the immersion in a new culture, Griffor also conveys the beauty and nostalgia she feels for her home country.  She commands our attention, and we share her sadness, compassion, anger and hope. Influenced greatly by the American lyric tradition, Mariela’s poems play softly and skillfully; the smooth strum lingers in the readers ears.

John Repp (Pennsylvania)
Fever

Poetry. Paper, perfect bound, 36 pp.
$11.95 plus s&h
2007, ISBN 0-932412-52-1 / ISBN+13 978-0932412-522

The poems in Fever sweat through the discontents of a love affair, a childhood, a marriage, a malfunctioning farm, the speaker’s aging father and his own illness.  Dream and the gritty details of life flow together in the hallucinatory and yet grounded language of these short, sharp pieces, which form an integrated sequence with both unity and emotional range.

Gerry LaFemina (West Virginia/Michigan)
The Book of Clown Baby/Figures from the Big Time Circus Book

Poetry. Paper, perfect bound, 60 pp. Color and b&w illustrations.
$14.95 plus s&h
2007, ISBN 0-932412-50-5 / ISBN+13 978-0932412-508

Special Pop-up Edition $19.95 plus s&h

This is a double collection of playful and surprisingly moving poems on themes of clowning and circus life. The Book of Clown Baby relates the fantastic character of Clown Baby, occupied by visions of trick horses, parades and high-wire acts, to the common reality where he finds himself. Figures from the Big Time Circus Book captures the wonder of the big top, as imagined and recreated in children’s play.

Nancy Botkin (Indiana)
Parts That Were Once Whole

Poetry. Paper, perfect bound, 72 pp.
$14.95 plus s&h
2007, ISBN 0-932412-49-1 / ISBN+13 978-0932412-492

Beautifully honest and heartbreaking, Parts That Were Once Whole boldly exposes the human psyche. Botkin examines questions of mortality, consciousness, and the concept of self. Memories start as solid events and become fragmented over time; Botkin takes those fragments and creates a luminous image of what was once whole.

David Lunde (Oregon formerly Western New York)
Instead

Poetry. Paper, perfect bound, 82 pp.
$14.95 plus s&h
2007, ISBN 0-932412-48-3 / ISBN+13 978-0932412-485

David Lunde's second title with Mayapple Press, Instead, is a collection of the various ways memory is evoked. Lunde finds similarity between a man and his dog-headed cane, the reconstruction of an ancient building and the uneasy integration of two cultures, and his toddler and a communist country. Each memory is provoked by a singular, vibrant image. Lunde's craft is one of images woven together with his uniquely whimsical voice.

Zilka Joseph (Detroit)
Lands I Live In

Poetry. Paper, perfect bound, 42 pp.
$12.95 plus s&h
2007, ISBN 0-932412-47-5

In richly detailed, exuberant poems, Zilka Joseph embraces the vivid passions of her childhood home in Calcutta and the complex hopes and fears implicit in her move to the Midwest.

Johanny Vázquez Paz (Chicago)
Poemas Callejeros/Streetwise Poems

Poetry - bilingual. Paper, perfect bound, 74 pp.
$14.95 plus s&h
2007, ISBN 0-932412-46-7

These sensuous and passionate poems explore one of the many strands of contemporary Latino immigrant experience, dancing the tropical sensibility of Puerto Rico among Chicago's concrete and broken glass. In Spanish and English, with translations by the author.

 

Larry Levy (Midland, MI)
I Would Stay Forever If I Could and New Poems

Poetry. Paper, perfect bound, 60 pp.
$12.95 plus s&h
2007, ISBN 0-932412-45-9

This collection of poems is informed by history and place, by Jewish immigrant parents, by love, loss and baseball - all by a practitioner of rhyme so skillful you hardly notice its presence until it rings again in memory.

Angela Williams (Beulah, MI)
With a Cherry on Top: Stories, Poems, Recipes & Fun Facts from Michigan Cherry Country

Nonfiction with poetry, fiction, photographs.
Paper, perfect bound, 130 pp

$17.95 plus s&h
2006, ISBN 0-932412-41-6

Cherries are to Northern Michigan what oranges are to Florida! In this highly personal view of Michigan's cherry industry, Angela Williams cooks up a delightful confection of reminiscences, poems, recipes, facts and photos. The book features poetry, memoirs and fiction by Michigan writers Anne-Marie Oomen, Norm Wheeler, Conrad Hilberry, Jackie Bartley, Linda Nemec Foster, Gerry LaFemina, David Sosnowski, Mary Ann Samyn and others.

2006 Pushcart Prize nominee

Lynn Pattison (Kalamazoo, MI)
Light That Sounds Like Breaking

Poetry. Paper, perfect bound, 102 pp
$16.00 plus s&h
2006, ISBN 0-932412-40-8

In these richly sensuous poems, Lynn Pattison explores the natural world, body politics, the life and work of Marc Chagall, Asian cultural influences filtered through an American sensibility and more, within an overall sequence loosely structured as a journey. The book’s stunning imagery and musicality lead us into a world both artistically beautiful and emotionally resonant.

2006 Pushcart Prize nominee

Rhoda Stamell (Detroit)
Detroit Stories

Short Fiction. Paper, perfect bound, 102 pp
$18.50 plus s&h
2006, ISBN 0-932412-38-6

Mayapple Press's first fiction publication. As Charles Baxter says, "All the grit, humor, intelligence and darkness of Detroit" can be found in this collection of stories about people struggling to love and be loved.

2006 Pushcart Prize nominee

Douglas M.Smith, Melody Vassoff and Karen Woollams, eds. (Chelsea, MI)
In Drought Time: Scenes from Rural and Small Town Life

Poetry/art anthology. Paper, perfect bound, 114 pp
$24.95 plus s&h
2005, ISBN 0-932412-37-8 
One of our Best Sellers!

Poems and artwork concerned with rural and small town life in Michigan. Our first publication with interior color artwork.

Diane Shipley DeCillis and Mary Jo Firth Gillett, eds. (Detroit)
Mona Poetica: A Poetry Anthology

Poetry anthology. Paper, perfect bound, 114 pp
$16.50 plus s&h
2005, ISBN 0-932412-36-X

The Mona Lisa is the most famous painting in the history of art. It continues to inspire reproduction, parody and countless theories. We see facsimiles of it everywhere: on buildings and mugs, on computer ads, in cartoons. In honor of her 500th birthday, 2003-2006, Mona Poetica celebrates not only the painting but also inspiration and creativity. This rich and varied anthology includes work by: Stephen Dunn, Grace Bauer, William Blake, Edward Hirsch, Natasha Saje and many others.

Conrad Hilberry (Kalamazoo, MI)
The Fingernail of Luck

Poetry. Paper, perfect bound, 32 pp
$10.00 plus s&h
2005, ISBN 0-932412-33-5 

These poems are based on the spooky ability to make odd, though rarely surreal ,connections. The poems move with quiet authority from the observation of a particular, and of the possibilities surrounding it, to exploration of what might happen next. The miracle is that they do this without arbitrariness.--Henry Taylor

Chosen as a May-June 2005 "Pick" by Small Press Review

John Palen (Midland, MI)
Open Communion: New and Selected Poems

Poetry. Paper, perfect bound, 98 pp
$16 plus s&h
2005, ISBN 0-932412-31-9 

This selection, reaching back twenty years, establishes John Palen's
quiet eloquence in poems which convery a deep, straightforward honesty
about the fumblings, failures and occasional radiance of human life.

Martin Achatz (Marquette, MI)
The Mysteries of the Rosary

Poetry. Paper, perfect bound, 62 pp
$10.00 plus s&h
2004, ISBN 0-932412-28-9 

Based loosely on the Catholic Rosary and other devotional prayers, this collection of poems is quiet and intense, walking the mysterious line between sacramental and sacreligious.

John Repp (Edinboro, PA )
White Doe

Poetry. Paper, perfect bound, 40 pp
$8.50 plus s&h
2004, ISBN 0-932412-27-0 

In these musical poems, John Repp's Zen eye and moral sensibility transform the landscape of American home places and human relationships.

Dennis Hinrichsen (Lansing)
Message to Be Spoken into the Left Ear of God

Poetry. Paper, perfect bound, 42 pp
$8.50 plus s&h
2004, ISBN 0-932412-26-2 

Christine Hume comments:
“For Hinrichsen, paradox is a way of knowing. He enacts this philosophical stance in the quick yet attentive movement of his lines.... Hinrichsen's unhinged singing lets momentum have its way. Yet we are moved in the old sense--by empathy.”

Adrienne Lewis (Saginaw, MI)
Coming Clean

Poetry. Paper, perfect bound, 30 pp
$8 plus s&h
2003, ISBN 0-932412-21-1

The poem as a form of prayer is one of poetry's earliest traditions. In the lyric poems of this strong first book, Adrienne Lewis explores the nexus of faith and sexuality as experienced in the dilemmas of marriage and family life.

Pamela Miller (Chicago)
Recipe for Disaster

Poetry. Paper, perfect bound, 66 pp
$12 plus s&h
2003, ISBN 0-932412-19-X

A collection of tough, extremely funny poems by a woman whose imagination never runs dry. Quirky, edgy, sometimes poignant and sometimes uproarious.

Gerry LaFemina (WV, formerly Roscommon, MI)
Zarathustra in Love
Prose-poems.
Paper, perfect bound, 44 pp
$8.50 plus s&h

2000, ISBN 0-932412-18-1

Taking on everything from Persian prophets to Bigfoot, Jim Nabors to UFO's, Berlitz tapes to the George Forman grill, these prose-poems elevate the notion of unpredictability and delight.

Helen Ruggieri (Western NY)
Glimmer Girls

Poetry. Paper, saddlestitched, 40 pp.
$8 plus
s&h
1999, ISBN 0-932412-16-5

Poems that evoke the author's blue-collar, rock 'n' roll young womanhood. Sharp, gritty, honest and well-crafted.

Skip Renker (Midland, MI)
Sifting the Visible 
Poetry. Paper, saddlestitched, 36 pp
$6.50 plus
s&h
1998, ISBN 0-932412-13-0

Skip Renker's poems are grounded, quiet and elegant, reflecting the thoughtful, humorous and meditative style of the man himself.

Strata Hugh Fox (Lansing)
Strata
Poetry. Paper, saddlestitched, 28 pp 
$5.50 plus
s&h
1998, ISBN-0-932412-12-2

"The poetry of Hugh Fox suggests a sort of mythical exploration of experience, how a particular moment can serve as a coming together of the eternal -- cross cultural and cross experiential...” -- Mahlon Coop

Staying Intact John Palen (Midland, MI)
Staying Intact
Poetry. Paper, saddlestitched, 28 pp
$6 plus
s&h
1997, ISBN-0-932412-11-4

These poems, as with any real poetry, make us see in new and deeper ways. Most of the works involve common feelings or occurances that we do not normally deem significant or beautiful. John's elegant use of words brings out that beauty (not always a pleasant beauty).

Territories Judith McCombs (MD, formerly Detroit)
Territories, Here & Elsewhere
Poetry. Paper, saddlestitched, 28 pp 
$6 plus
s&h
1996, ISBN-0-932412-10-6

“This poetry full of living detail, and within the detail is an ongoing motif of adventure, risk and survival. McCombs is a pleasure for me to read.” --Alicia Ostriker

vision Al Hellus (Saginaw. MI)
a vision of corrected history with breakfast
Poetry. Paper, saddlestitched, 24 pp 
$5 plus
s&h
1995, ISBN 0-932412-08-4

These are edgy, raunchy, funny and powerful poems.

Blues

David Lunde (Oregon, formerly Western New York)
Blues for Port City

Poetry. Paper, saddlestitched, 24 pp 
$5 plus s&h
1995, ISBN 0-932412-07-8

Science fiction poems which are truly science fiction and truly fine contemporary poetry, "written" by an inhabitant of the demimonde of a space station. Includes Rhysling-award winner "Pilot, Pilot."

Letters Judith Minty (Muskegon, MI)
Letters to My Daughters
Poetry. Paper, saddlestitched, 24 pp 
$5 plus
s&h
1981, ISBN 0-932412-04-3

This collection of poems by a leading Michigan poet explores, through the daily life of women, the relationship between a poet/mother and her two daughters.


All works and poems posted on this homepage and subsidiary pages are copyrighted to the authors. All rights reserved. Works may be downloaded or copied only for personal or classroom use. All other use requires prior written permission (email inquiries accepted).

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

 Updated 2/29/08