is a small literary press founded in 1978 by poet and editor Judith Kerman. We focus on literature not often celebrated by either the mainstream or the avant-garde. This includes poetry which is both challenging and accessible; women’s writing; the rustbelt/rural culture that stretches from the Hudson Valley to the Great Lakes; the recent immigrant experience; poetry in translation; science fiction poetry. Publications are in both chapbook and trade paperback formats.

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.

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.

Tenea D. Johnson (Florida)
Starting Friction

Poetry. Paper, perfect bound, 38pp.
$12.95 plus s&h
2008, ISBN 978-0932412-621

Johnson's intricate language invites the reader to connect with the images, music, and tastes of a woman vulnerably exposed. Both urban and natural, Starting Friction resounds with a hope for a nation full of complexity and conflict.

Allison Joseph (Carbondale, IL)
Voice: Poems

Poetry. Paper, perfect bound, 36 pp.
$12.95 plus s&h
2009, ISBN 978-0932412-751

This enjoyable collection further demonstrates Allison Joseph’s uncanny grasp of language and image, along with a kind of playful and soulful voice that makes her poetry accessible to all.

Zilka Joseph (Calcutta/Chicago/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.
Keyworth Cover

Suzanne Keyworth (Florida)
Markers

Poetry. Paper, perfect bound, 72 pp.
$14.95 plus s&h
2005, ISBN 0-932412-35-1 

This group of poems grows out of the history and voices of Suzanne Keyworth's ancestors, who came to the new world in the early 1600’s and the early 1700’s, and were active in the history of Florida. The volume includes family trees and drawings of some of the major ancestors whose voices we hear in the poems.

Chosen as a Sept.-Oct. 2005 "Pick" bySmall Press Review

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.

Johanny Vázquez Paz (Puerto Rico/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.

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.

Rhoda Stamell (Detroit)
The Art of Ruin

Novel. Paper, perfect bound, 126 pp.
$118.95 plus s&h
2009, ISBN 0-932412-78-5

Mayapple Press's first novel. Stamell "is a conduit for disparate urban voices, jamming characters who probably should be kept away from each other into situations where interaction is a demand.... The voices of her people are true to the ear and to themselves."

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

Lidia Torres (Puerto Rico/New York)
A Weakness for Boleros

Poetry. Paper, perfect bound, 48 pp.
$12.50 plus s&h
2005, ISBN 0-932412-34-3 

These intense poems echo the music of the poet's two languages, Spanish
and English, and the life of her two homelands, Puerto Rico and New York.

Nominated for the PEN Beyond Margins Award, 2005

Evelyn Wexler (New York)
The Geisha House

Paper, saddlestitched, 24 pp 
$5.50 plus s&h
1992, ISBN 0-932412-05-X

These visionary erotic poems imagine the world of the geisha house with a female client and both male and female geishas.

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 6/3/09