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.

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.