Red Hen Press – förlag

After beating breast cancer in her late forties, Eva Saulitis again faces the shadow, knowing this time the result will not end well. Saulitis revels in the nostalgia and secret pleasures that come from knowing it's all fleeting. She searches for answers from European poets and Buddhist scholars, from women in treatment chat rooms, from family, from routine; she looks out into the wilderness, at the salmon dying in the river without the ease of morphine, at stone structures broken from water freezing, expanding inside. Becoming Earth is the account of a woman living life in the presence of death, trying to make sense of a world that will keep going, even though she won't.

"Welcome to the electrifying underworld of California’s Depression-era taxi dance halls, where a dance could cost you a dime, a chance at romance, or a bullet in your back.”—Rick Bonus, Professor and Chair at the Dept. of American Ethnic Studies in the Univ. of WashingtonBased on a true story, Taxi Dancer is a gripping historical novel by Marivi Soliven that illuminates the hidden world of Depression-era Filipino taxi dance halls, weaving a forbidden interracial romance with a high-stakes murder mystery to explore race, desire, survival, and the Filipino American experience in 1930s California.“If we can’t marry white girls, we can at least dance with them.” In response to Depression-era California laws that criminalized interracial marriage, Filipinos established taxi dance halls where they could mingle with American women. When Filipino farmworker Eli and American taxi dancer Lucinda fall in love, they hope to move to Washington State where they can legally wed. Their plans are derailed when Eli is arrested for the shooting death of a dance hall owner. As Lucinda fights to exonerate Eli, she uncovers a murder conspiracy orchestrated by Mamie Savage, a rival dance hall owner and Sal, her Filipino bartender. The capital punishment trial brings to light abhorrent secrets concealed by the conspirators, the victim, and Lucinda herself. Inspired by true events in San Diego’s Stingaree district.

The first anthology to present the most exciting and unexpected new movement in American poetry—the revival of rhyme, meter, and narrative among poets—Rebel Angels gathers the best work of twenty-five poets who write memorably and movingly in a dazzling variety of forms—some traditional, some newly minted—out of the diverse experiences of their generation.Contributors include Elizabeth Alexander, Julia Alvarez, Bruce Bawer, Rafael Campo, Tom Disch, Frederick Feirstein, Dana Gioia, Emily Grosholz, R.S. Gwynn, Marilyn Hacker, Rachel Hadas, Andrew Hudgins, Paul Lake, Sydney Lea, Brad Leithauser, Phillis Levin, Charles Martin, Marilyn Nelson, Molly Peacock, Wyatt Prunty, Mary Jo Salter, Timothy Steele, Frederick Turner, Rachel Wetzsteon, and Greg Williamson.

“Part mystery, part magical, and completely captivating."—Karen Winn, author of Our Little WorldQueenie Rivers was raised by her grandparents in coastal Los Angeles. As she approaches thirty, her erratic lifestyle is forced back on course by a car accident and her grandmother’s intervention.But her recovery is interrupted by a break-in and Gran’s death. Gran’s last act was to set Queenie up with a job at an upscale seaside bistro with a shady reputation—the owner of which, it turns out, was once a close friend. As Queenie digs into Gran’s past for answers about the break-in, the murder, and the unnerving circumstances surrounding the restaurant and her new boss, she discovers that her grandmother, a Romani Holocaust survivor, kept many secrets, some of them otherworldly—secrets that become hers to unravel when she becomes a suspect in Gran’s murder case.

"This book claims as its territory the indefinite spaces separating us: the ground where we move together and apart, the long curve desire describes and follows. Connection seems tenable as a jet trail, 'a seam, holding together / the two halves of the sky.' Kate [Gale] Harper belongs in the company of Lorna Goodison, Margaret Atwood, Lucille Clifton—all poets who write, with force and directness, what a woman lives. I think the secret of Harper’s strength is this: from the middle of all loss, all bewilderment, her poems aspire to the condition of dancing.”—Angela Ball, Mississippi Review

Natural history, work, queerness, and family collide in Interpretive Work. When they do, a deep stubborn will emerges, a belief in the unexpected beauty of the world "flaws and all. The poems of this collection foreground the role of the viewer" the interpreter "smudging self across what's seen."From neighborhood kids cussing in the cul-de-sac to marbled murrelets calling in Southeast Alaska, the poems of this book reach toward a moment where one finds "this unsettlement, / this beauty applauded at last."Bradfield delivers her bruised truths through a quiet honesty that stands in ardent defense of mainstream normative expectations. A male singer has a woman's high, sweet voice, redefining beauty. A female deer grows antlers. A woman chooses to be child-free without regret. As a whole, these poems furtively suggest that the tourist on the sunset cruise ship misinterprets the cravings of humpback whales in the same way Bradfield's family, neighbors and bureaucratic officials misunderstand love, sexuality and gender.

Kelly Barth, like many American kids, went to Sunday school, sang songs about Zaccheas, and was tucked in with bedtime prayers. A typical Christian kid, that is, until she developed a searingly deep crush on another little girl playing afterhours in church, and more importantly, until Jesus—a tiny, imaginary Jesus, one that stays "safely tucked behind the baseboard or the petals of a peony"—became her invisible friend and constant companion. Heartbreakingly honest and hilarious, My Almost Certainly Real Imaginary Jesus shows just how easy it can be to fall headlong into fundamentalism, venturing into the very heart of enemy territory and the churchÆs false promises of altar calls and sexual cures. In the spirit of Anne LamottÆs Traveling Mercies, this debut memoir is plainspoken, speaking with candor and insight. Barth particularly addresses the disconnect between the radical and very human Jesus of history and the churchÆs supernatural savior. She asks the question to all in the closet—both closet Christians and closet homosexuals: Which is more difficult, admitting to being Christian or admitting to being gay?An answer is found in her own hard-won journey, a hopeful answer that is an "attempt to leave a record of the early signs of the turning and softening of a collective heart." Giving voice to many who have searched for sanctuary in a church that has largely rejected them, this story pauses at the threshold of one of a growing number of churches which, in opening the door to her and other homosexuals, welcome Jesus back inside as well.

Chopper! Chopper! reflects the lives of Mexican Americans, immigrants, Chicanas/os, and la joter\u00eda—malfloras, jotos, and beautiful rainbow communities. As vividly as Mexican Technicolor, these poems capture life in the barrio: vendors hauling carts with elote, raspados, botes y m\u00e1s. Vatos fighting to exist. Mujeres claiming space. Summer evenings, children playing in the calles of East L.A., El Paso, and bordered tierras everywhere. Reyes’s work exudes the pride, strength, turmoil and struggle of neighborhoods brimming with tradition and invention, estilo a la brava. These homegrown verses reveal the barrio in all its intricate layers. Revering difference, they fight to make room for something new: Marimacha Poetry. \u00a1Y Qu\u00e9!

Light is the preoccupation, vocation, and language of the GAFFER, the debut collection of poems by Celeste Gainey, the first woman gaffer to be admitted to the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), the preeminent craft union in the motion picture industry. These poems vividly depict the gaffer’s terrain from the set of Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, to Sidney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon and The Wiz, to a lighting session with Lucille Ball. In these poems is the quest for identity and synchronicity within the imagined and experimental realm of light and cinema, and the immutable physical world where notions of gender, sex, desire, and ambition are prescribed a priori. the GAFFER deconstructs the idea of outsider as pioneer—then runs with it.

Through these seven narrative poems, Grahn weaves real-life conditions with goddess mythology to construct modern interpretations of lamentation in nine parts. Song and poem lamentations have a widespread history from all over the globe and carry a wealth of forms and a few requirements—they must read well out loud, they must address current pressing issues, and they must make every attempt to be truthful. Here Grahn’s steadfast and rhythmic verse directs our eyes to crucial yet often buried tribulations of our times by critiquing white supremacy, honoring battered women, exalting the powers of menstruation, conflating all labor with birth imagery, and revealing lateral hostilities among potential allies—all in order to arouse a meaningful social critique.

Through these seven narrative poems, Grahn weaves real-life conditions with goddess mythology to construct modern interpretations of lamentation in nine parts. Song and poem lamentations have a widespread history from all over the globe and carry a wealth of forms and a few requirements—they must read well out loud, they must address current pressing issues, and they must make every attempt to be truthful. Here Grahn’s steadfast and rhythmic verse directs our eyes to crucial yet often buried tribulations of our times by critiquing white supremacy, honoring battered women, exalting the powers of menstruation, conflating all labor with birth imagery, and revealing lateral hostilities among potential allies—all in order to arouse a meaningful social critique.

Tree Spirits is an interactive picture book that encourages creativity, social emotional intelligence, and seeing the world with fresh eyes. Encouraging children to develop their imagination, creativity and emotional intelligence. With 25 color photographs of trees, the rhyming text asks, “What DO you see when you look up at this tree?” inviting a child to use their imagination. Turning the page reveals an illustrated overlay of a charming animal inspired by the lines and shapes of the tree bark. Each animal introduces a different emotion helping children to understand their own inner spirit and feelings. For parents and grandparents and friends and family it is a fun book to read with the children in their lives. The book includes 4 sheets of tracing paper to invite them to begin drawing what they see and ends with encouraging children to go out and look at the trees in their neighborhood and keep noticing, “What do I see?” Louise Wannier “Safta” – “Safta” is Hebrew for grandmother and, as of this printing, is very lucky to have five grandchildren. As an artist, Louise is fascinated by observing patterns and loves the discovery of how the camera shifts the focus and emphasis from what our eyes natively see. Beautiful illustrations by talented Graphic Artist April Tatiana Jackson.

TREE SPIRITS is an interactive picture book that encourages creativity, social emotional intelligence, and seeing the world with fresh eyes. Encouraging children to develop their imagination, creativity and emotional intelligence. With 25 color photographs of trees, the rhyming text asks, “What DO you see when you look up at this tree?” inviting a child to use their imagination. Turning the page reveals an illustrated overlay of a charming animal inspired by the lines and shapes of the tree bark. Each animal introduces a different emotion helping children to understand their own inner spirit and feelings. For parents and grandparents and friends and family it is a fun book to read with the children in their lives. The book includes 4 sheets of tracing paper to invite them to begin drawing what they see and ends with encouraging children to go out and look at the trees in their neighborhood and keep noticing, “What do I see?” LOUISE WANNIER “Safta” – “Safta” is Hebrew for grandmother and, as of this printing, is very lucky to have five grandchildren. As an artist, Louise is fascinated by observing patterns and loves the discovery of how the camera shifts the focus and emphasis from what our eyes natively see. Beautiful illustrations by talented Graphic Artist April Tatiana Jackson.

AUTHOR OF AWARD-WINNING, TREE SPIRITS Teachers are calling it ‘The Antidote to Screen Time’ TREE SPIRITS AROUND THE WORLD reintroduces readers to Tilly (the curious mouse from Book One: Tree Spirits) and follows her as she searches for kindred spirits across the planet. During this journey, which spans ten different countries and six continents, Tilly helps children explore and appreciate the diversity our planet has to offer, and the spirits that tie us together.With the full-color photographs, each paired with charmingly illustrated overlays, and stiff paperback binding, TREE SPIRITS AROUND THE WORLD’s high-value format makes it highly giftable. Readers can also enjoy drawing with the tracing paper included inside.

Stephen Gibson’s poems are the work of a serious, intent, often appalled tourist. The word might look like a putdown, but his subject is the glamour and horror of history, and when it comes to the past, attentive tourism is the best that any of us can hope for. This tourist’s gaze if focused and fascinated, his tone is even and intelligent (as he has it in one poem, “scared in the headlights, but the brain busy nonetheless”), and his technique is all but flawless (unobtrusively so, a true case of art hiding art). Together the gaze, the subjects on which it alights, and the poet’s superlative skill add up to poems of astute, moving observation and often overwhelming authority.—Dick Davis

Dreams Like Thunder takes place on a small Eastern Oregon farm between Baker and Hells Canyon. The story is set over a couple of days in 1959, but part of the family seems less in touch with the twentieth century than with the myth of their own pioneer past. The myth varies according to who is doing the telling. It is up to Alberta, who is ten years old and heir to both the farm and the myth, to discover some truth behind the stories—a truth that will help her know who she is and what her own future might be.

"In his extraordinary book Memoirs of a Minotaur: From Merrill Lynch to Patty Hearst to Poetry, Robin Magowan (grandson of the founder of Merrill Lynch and nephew of one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century, James Merrill) turns his uncompromising vision and diamond-edged language toward the emotional terrain and the kind of privileged life very few of us have known, and against which he rebels. Unlike many memoirs, this one rewards the reader by enabling us to inhabit the rarefied existence the author both holds at arm’s length and admits into the chambers of his personal memory. Life is seen through a Proustian lens so that the narrative tells us as much about the man Magowan and his journey as it does about an entire world, one that encompasses business as well as social and personal upheaval, and ranges geographically from Manhattan and Southampton to Berkeley in the sixties, to Paris and Greece, and to other distant destinations, including the rarefied altitude of Tesi recognition that is both earned and liberating. Whether or not readers are familiar with Magowan’s stunning prose in his travel writings or with the voyages and discoveries finished by each carefully crafted chapter, Magowan’s writing bears an admirable family resemblance to that of his uncle’s work; for readers of James Merrill’s poetry, this memoir will hold an additional interest."—Helen Houghton and Bill Handley

This book-length poem chronicles a family’s experience from the 1950s through the 1990s. The 1950s section was selected by Donald Hall for inclusion in the Best American Poetry series.The poet’s first full-length collection, Quiet Money's New Edition consists almost exclusively of longer narrative poems, including the title poem about a bootlegger/pilot who flew the Atlantic solo before Charles Lindbergh. This piece is often cited as one of the most important poems of the 1980s and the movement to revive storytelling in verse.

The Island begins with a haunting 1848 journal entry from a man jailed on Spike Island in Ireland: “Gazing on gray stones, my eyes will grow stony.” Nearly 150 years later, Rosemary Canavan, a poet and painter, teaches literacy at the prison on Spike Island. How do her painter’s eyes and poet’s spirit meet the stony gray of prisoners’ eyes? Throughout these poems, and especially in her long sequence “The Island,” Canavan explores with tenderness and pathos the plight of the incarcerated. With lyrics that seem to be written in primary color, Canavan also celebrates love and children, her struggles as a working mother, and the emerging, vibrant feminist consciousness of a new generation of Irish women.

This book is about Latina identity, a timely subject in today's America. The author’s journey begins as she, full of love for Mexico and its culture despite her closest blood connection being her bisabuela, boards a bus. She starts out determined: “Yes foreign is a word for fear. Yes I am coming home.” But then, because “it is afraid, staying in a language where you were not born,” she retreats, hiding first behind we, then behind masks. But when it becomes clear that the masks are her true self, she loses her fear, and barrels ahead as I, fully committed, all the way to the end.

“Lola Haskins’s range is broad; her perceptions are always surprising. Natural objects surpass themselves and episodes of women’s history are rewritten in this lively, adventuresome collection.”—Maxine Kumin“ . . . Hunger is a cabinet of crystals each one with a cutting edge. It’s a wonder.”—Beloit Poetry Journal“She knows we are rooted to the earth but long for the stars. . . . And she’s wise enough to know that love searches us out. Dazzling.”—Northwest Arkansas Times“[The poems] richly present the experience of women, as the complexity of their material, emotional, and imaginative lives presses against the constraints of their assigned roles. . . wonderfully evocative.”—The Hudson Review“. . . Convincing and exquisitely visual. It plays off a painterly use of visualization and technique even as it enacts the limits of such artistry in the face of real feeling. . . . It is the clarity of Haskins’s poems and (her speakers’) observations, combined with the sometimes elegant, sometimes searing restraint with which the observations are made, that gives these poems their impact.”—Colorado Review

Frederick Feirstein's tenth book, Time's Refugee, is chock-full of some of his best lyric and dramatic poems.They are passionate, wise, and totally accessible to the general public. The diction is colloquial and the form excels in meter and rhyme.

A Walled Garden in Moylough demonstrates the ultimate gift of Joan McBreen’s poetry: her ability to distill the essence of a moment. She does this with an effortless elegance, a sure touch, and a lyric voice which is attuned to the inward echoes of the psyche.

Structured like the movements of a New Orleans jazz funeral, this all-sonnet collection deals with death, loss, war, disaster, the binding power of community, and the celebratory spirit that reemerges after all. In the words of poet and critic David Mason: “Part elegy for a city and a way of life, part meditation on mortality and grace, this book is wonderfully, defiantly alive.”

The forty poems in this first book by an Irish writer explore a variety of traditional and contemporary themes that combine to create the modern Irish consciousness. Beginning with poems that look back forty years or more on a childhood spent in the fabled country of Sligo, the book moves effortlessly to present-day issues of raising a family and making sense of the political turmoil unique to the country. Throughout the collection, McBreen also grapples with the contemporary Irish woman’s fight to assert her independence, asserting her own generous autonomy in the process. McBreen’s readers will quickly recognize the foundations of one of the world’s great oral traditions behind these evocative lyrics, and they will come away knowing much more about everyday Irish life than they did before.

"The presiding spirit behind Ginger Andrews first book, An Honest Answer, must be William Carlos Williams. When he said he wrote in the speech of Polish mothers, he could have included the American working class anywhere. The sinewy resilience in Andrews’ individual poems honors the tradition of his free verse lyrics. She listens for the poetic measure in American speech and reproduces it in unique forms. I would venture to say that the poetry of Ginger Andrews is as close to the tradition of Williams as American free verse has ever been. . . . As for the voice speaking to us in these poems, it is as fresh as Ray Carver seemed twenty-five years ago. Another poet who comes to mind is her fellow Northwesterner Vern Rutsala, himself a descendent of Williams, who, like Williams, has kept his eye on the working poor throughout his career. Andrews is working class, born again in Sappho, an Ahkmatova who cleans houses and teaches Sunday school. These figures come to mind not for the sake of hyperbole, but to help understand the originality of this new and remarkable poet."—Mark Jarman

Scene of the Crime exposes the poet’s inner criminality, where matricide and mother tongue engage in diabolic discourse. Confessing her outlaw sexuality, Ransom grapples with feminist theory and disembowels postmodern philosophy. Delighting in the multiplicity of self, language and desire, Ransom fires puns dead-aimed to riddle any interpretive reduction.