Mayapple Press
is a small press established in 1978 by poet and editor Judith Kerman. We specialize in contemporary literature, especially poetry and works that straddle conventional categories: Great Lakes, women, Caribbean, translations, science fiction poetry, recent immigrant experience, Judaica. Publications are in both chapbook and trade paperback formats.

Please support contemporary literature by buying a small press book.

Calling All Writers:

  • Are you an experienced writer looking for an egalitarian, professional summer workshop? Check out Rustbelt Roethke, an intimate professional peer workshop coordinated by Mayapple Press publisher Judith Kerman.
  • Remember those wonderful black notebooks "real poets" used to carry around? They're springback binders, and we have found a supplier! Click here to order!

Mayapple Press is pleased to announce the 2008 publication of:
 

Joel Thomas Katz (California)
Away

Poetry. Paper, perfect bound, 42 pp.
$12.95 plus s&h
2008, ISBN 978-0932412-638

In these snappy and unique poems, Katz views the world from some slanted perspective most of us aren’t careful enough to see. Katz imagines Emily Dickinson rolling dice in an Indian casino and a man in a car pondering the possibility of honking himself back to childhood. Humorous, lyrical and touching, Katz’s poems take the reader along for the ride.

 

Tenea D. Johnson (Florida)
Starting Friction

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

Tenea D. Johnson's poems are uniquely observant. Her 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.

 

Brian Aldiss (United Kingdom)
A Prehistory of Mind

Poetry. Paper, perfect bound, 76 pp.
$14.95 plus s&h
2008, ISBN 978-0932412-614

Award-winning SF author Brian Aldiss ventures into new territory with this, his first, full-length poetry collection. Whether you’re a current or potential Aldiss fan, you’ll enjoy the range, vigor and intimate self-portrait of these poems.

“[Aldiss’] voice is assuredly his own, and his style is elegant,
 sometimes elegiac, always carefully honed, never affected.”
Willis E. McNelly

 

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.

 

Jayne Pupek (Virginia)
Forms of Intercession

Poetry. Paper, perfect bound, 102 pp.
$15.95 plus s&h
2008, ISBN 978-0932412-591

Ghostly and energetic, Jayne Pupek’s poems range in content through an ambivalent abortion, a lover’s abandonment, childhood abuse, a bad case of the flu, and her own longings. Each poem’s graceful and intense meditations connect to the reader’s own world.

 

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.

 

Marilyn Jurich (Massachusetts)
Defying the Eye Chart

Poetry. Paper, perfect bound, 120 pp.
$15.95 plus s&h
2008, ISBN 978-0932412-577

Defying the Eye Chart reaches beyond time to bring the mythic into our contemporary world. The poems in this collection focus on different ways of seeing, or not seeing, the fantastic in reality.

Mayapple Press 2007 publications:
 

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.

 

Kathryn Kirkpatrick (North Carolina)
Out of the Garden

Poetry. Paper, perfect bound, 76 pp.
$14.95 plus s&h
2007, ISBN 0-932412-51-3 / ISBN+13 978-0932412-515

In a dark world of loss, betrayal and regret, Kathryn Kirkpatrick powerfully reveals experiences that we find recognizable yet surprising. These poems weave together the obsessions of a woman’s mind with the physical passion she experiences.

Finalist, 2007 SIBA (Southern Independent Booksellers Association) Book Award.

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)
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 (Michigan)
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.

Mayapple Press 2006 publications:

Christine Hamm (New York)
The Transparent Dinner

Poetry. Paper, perfect bound, 90 pp
$15.95 plus s&h
2006, ISBN 0-932412-44-0

Christine Hamm’s poetry brings the reader into a fairy tale world of dark and dangerous secrets, where a mother is a pile of sticks, a husband can be wished into a cat and a movie can be made from adolescent sexual experiences. Within the imaginative world of The Transparent Dinner, Hamm reveals truths about a woman’s intimacies and relationships.

Kathleen Tyler (Los Angeles)
The Secret Box

Poetry. Paper, perfect bound, 74 pp
$14.95 plus s&h
2006, ISBN 0-932412-43-2

Dark yet beautiful, The Secret Box unveils the mysterious and dangerous world in which we live. Tyler’s craft is provocative, sharp and graceful; she courageously explores images of erotic and passionate love, a destroyed marriage, childhood abuse and family death. Cecilia Woloch compares this book to the “flickering intensity of film noir.” The Secret Box dares you to open it, then leaves you in awe of its enduring truths.

Rachel Eshed (Israel)
Little Promises

Poetry. Bilingual edition (Hebrew/English) transl. David Cooper
Paper, perfect bound, 104 pp

$16.00 plus s&h
2006, ISBN 0-932412-42-4

In its Hebrew original, this collection of intense erotic poetry won the 1992 AKUM prize in Israel. Novelist Tsipi Keller says, "It is hard to speak of Rachel Eshed’s poetry without mentioning 'fire' – her poems virtually burn on the page, and David Cooper’s renditions not only do justice to the original but magnify its richness."

Angela Williams (Michigan)
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 (Michigan)
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

Lorraine Schein (New York)
The Futurist's Mistress

Poetry. Paper, perfect bound, 44 pp
$13.00 plus s&h
2006, ISBN 0-932412-39-4

Enid Dame says, "Playful, anarchic, often hilariously funny glimpses of the world we know from a skewed, sophisticated angle."

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

Mayapple Press books are also available through Small Press Distribution, Partners Book Distributing and Baker & Taylor, and on Amazon.com.


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 3/24/08