First Book – serie

“Whether her subject is mental illness, the oppression of one human being by another, or the constantly-cast shadow of our mortality, Marsha de la O’s resilient, unpretentious, sharply intelligent and unsentimental voice speaks to us of what we need to know. This is a disturbing and memorable book.”—Chase Twichell, from the foreword

Sama Alshaibi: Sand Rushes In , the first book by this rising artist, presents work from Silsila , a video and photographic installation that premiered at the 2013 Venice Biennale, as well as other series. Alshaibi’s lyrical multimedia work explores the landscape of conflict: the ongo - ing competition for land, resources, and power in the Middle East, and the internal battle for control between fear and fearlessness. Additional material, selected from the artist’s series Negative’s Capable Hands, Collapse, and Thowra, is presented in the context of Silsila , meaning “chain” or “link” in Arabic. The artist uses the desert, borders, and the body as over - arching symbols of the geopolitical and environmental issues and histories, linking the Arab- speaking world. Alshaibi operates between the United States, western Asia, and North Africa. Much of her work is inspired by and shot onsite in distinct natural landscapes, from the Western Sahara of North Africa to the eastern Arabian Desert on the edges of Iraq—highlighting the jarring contrast between desert and fertile oasis. Alshaibi is often a protagonist in the work, taking on the guise of distinct yet interrelated characters. Edited by Isabella Ellaheh Hughes, a writer and curator based in Abu Dhabi and Honolulu, this book includes an interview between Hughes and Alshaibi, a foreword by Salwa Mikdadi, and an essay by Alfredo Cramerotti.

These poems say that the world is one fire, but only the steadiest and most masterful hand can show us the burning. Kevin Cantwell's poems blend poise and intimacy in a style that is his own and built for the ages.

Kevin Clark's 'In the Evening of No Warning charts the late twentieth century life of a man who swings back and forth between the elegiac lyric and the urgent rant. Divided into three distinct sections, the book considers the ecstasies and exigencies of romantic love, an homogenising American culture, and secular mortality.

In this, her first book, Martha Serpas succeeds brilliantly in fulfilling the calculations of the alchemists, those great hermetic artists of medieval Europe. Côte Blanche deliberately and beautifully weds the secular to the divine in poems which, steeped in the Cajun landscape of Serpas’s Louisiana, prickle with exhilarating sensuality. Through its votive offerings to a God who is all too aware of the longings and aspirations of humankind, Côte Blanche becomes a testament to a new, personal belief that is simple yet breathtaking in its reach.

Please explores the points in our lives at which love and violence intersect. Drunk on its own rhythms and full of imaginative and often frightening imagery, Please is the album playing in the background of the history and culture that surround African American/male identity and sexuality. Just as radio favorites like Marvin Gaye, Donny Hathaway, and Pink Floyd characterize loss, loneliness, addiction, and denial with their voices, these poems’ chorus of speakers transform moments of intimacy and humor into spontaneous music. In Please, Jericho Brown sings the influence soul culture has on American life with the accuracy of the blues.