New & Noteworthy Books

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Posted on 5 January 2012

(T)ravel Un(t)ravel

Poetry by Neil Shepard

Mid-List Press, November 2011

ISBN-13: 978-0922811885

Paperback: 96pp; $13.00

This fourth collection of poetry by Neil Shepard is about travel and stasis, journeying to such far-flung places as French Polynesia, Indonesia, and China, as well as in more familiar environs such as England, France, and Spain. As the parentheses of the title suggest, it's also about the unraveling of identity as a traveler crosses boundaries and loses his cultural bearings, Finally, it's about the reintegration (or raveling) of identity, as the traveler stops long enough in some foreign place to regain his bearings, integrate new cultural information, and make it feel like some semblance of 'home.'

Essayists on the Essay

Montaigne to Our Time

Anthology Ed. Carl H. Klaus, Ned Stuckey-French

Univ of Iowa Press, March 2012

ISBN-13: 978-1-60938-076-2

Paperback: 256pp; $19.95

The first comprehensive collection of its kind, Essayists on the Essay is a pathbreaking work that is nothing less than a richly varied sourcebook for anyone interested in the theory, practice, and art of the essay. This unique book includes a selection of fifty distinctive pieces by American, Canadian, English, European, and South American essayists from Montaigne to the present—many of which have not previously been anthologized or translated—as well as a detailed bibliographical and thematic guide to hundreds of additional works about the essay.

In the Time of the Feast of Flowers

Fiction by Tina Egnoski

Texas Review Press, January 2012

ISBN-13: 978-1933896694

Paperback: 144pp; $18.95

Small-town Florida, 1976. Life is squeaky-clean. Nothing ever happens here and if it does, the only response is a polite smile. Sensible Abby Newman is best friends with free-spirit Dana Massey. Seventeen and restless, they set out to defy the town motto: Hear, Speak, See No Evil. They smoke, drink, push the boundaries of sexual exploration, and break into neighborhood houses. When Dana steals an expensive object, their innocent prank turns into a crime. Soon the theft comes to light, along with other secrets, and the strength of their friendship is challenged. In the land explorer Ponce de Leon named Pascua Florida—Feast of Flowers—Abby learns about loyalty, betrayal, and the power of forgiveness.

Living With You

Poetry by Barbara Blatner

NYQ Books, March 2012

ISBN-13: 978-1-935520-37-5

Paperback: 112pp; $14.95

Written in the first years of the poet’s marriage, inspired by a magical yard at their first apartment, the poems in Living with You explore mysteries of beauty and decay, love and sex, ecstasy and temporality. Abstract in texture, specific in their music, these images probe the world we see and touch and the world we do not see but sense deeply.

Repeat the Flesh in Numbers

Poetry by Kris Bigalk

NYQ Books, March 2012

ISBN-13: 978-1-935520-54-2

Paperback: 108pp; $14.95

Daring, contemplative, witty, and moving, the poems in Kris Bigalk’s debut collection Repeat the Flesh in Numbers unflinchingly examine human frailty from multiple perspectives, and ultimately arrive at a place of generosity, regeneration, and grace.

Scared Text

Poetry by Eric Baus

Univ Press Colorado, November 2011

ISBN-13: 978-1-885635-18-1

Paperback: 76pp; $16.95

Winner of the Colorado Prize for Poetry. Eric Baus's other books include Tuned Droves (Octopus Books), The To Sound (Verse Press/Wave Books, Winner of the 2002 Verse Press), and several chapooks.

This Country of Gale-Force Winds

Poetry by Eileen Hennessy

NYQ Books, November 2011

ISBN-13: 978-1-935520-52-8

Paperback: 104pp; $14.95

The poems in This Country of Gale-Force Winds present what may at first glance seem in fact to be a multiplicity of countries. Here are poems about the country of our here-and-now: the places we share with our ancestors who built them and with our descendants who will build other places, already dimly foreseen. Here are poems about that country called the family, every family a world unto itself. Here are poems about the countries we build in our minds, the strangest and most unfathomable of all worlds. These poems are also about what our countries have in common: the winds of change that blow endlessly across them, changing their landscapes and the connections among them.

Woolgathering

Nonfiction by Patti Smith

New Directions Books, December 2011

ISBN-13: 978-0811219440

Hardcover: 80pp; $18.95

A great book about becoming an artist, Woolgathering tells of a youngster finding herself as she learns the noble vocation of woolgathering, “a worthy calling that seemed a good job for me.” The new autobiographical piece “Two Worlds” (which was not in the original 1992 Hanuman edition of Woolgathering), and the author’s photographs and illustrations are also included.

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