5 Points: Whittling a New Face in the Dark (by DJ Dolack)
1) As you can see the cover of DJ Dolack’s just-released, debut collection of poetry, Whittling a New Face in the Dark (Black Ocean), has no text on the front cover (or the back, for that matter) and this is something DJ fought hard for. And that’s one of the great things about publishing a book through Black Ocean: the back and forth between publisher and author involves friendly fighting.
Yes, I speak from experience when I say that Black Ocean dialogues with authors on things both big and small. And this leads to much improved books.
2) DJ’s wonderful book comes at you, easily, like a parade (or procession) of Edward Hopper paintings rusting in strange twilight. Or the scenes from a moody Western, a northern, winter Western, dark-pale trees, bleak ice—hard-bitten characters staring out from and through the insistent and persistent landscapes.
3) this is page 19
Grandfather is alone in the yellow house
with the flea market pistol. READ MORE >
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October 25th, 2013 / 10:33 pm
October 25th, 2013 / 10:33 pm
Books Without Covers
“The Internet” by Eric Amling
Here are the names of some manuscripts I’m reading with observations about the content of each manuscript and sample poems (the picture above has nothing to do with this post, except that it’s a collage by Eric Amling that I like). It would be rad if other people blurbed about manuscripts they are reading (their own or their friends or whatever). Feel free to share poems from other unpublished manuscripts in the comments. Also, if any publishers would like to contact the poets mentioned in this post in order to read their manuscripts for possible publication, please let me know and I’ll forward your requests to them.
Catch it if you Can: The Sad Meal, by DJ Dolack
I met DJ Dolack for the first time a few weeks before Christmas, at a party. Turns out we’ve both written for Coldfront. So okay, nice to meet you, DJ. Then the next week I’m getting ready to give this reading for Hexed, and notice that I’ll be sharing a bill with–among others–one DJ Dolack. Also, now that I think about it, weren’t me and dude both in the Fall 2008 issue of diode? (Yes.) Weird how much your life can overlap with somebody else’s without either of your even knowing it. Well, anyway, when we were at the reading, DJ gave me a copy of his 2005 chapbook, “The Sad Meal,” which was published by Eye for an Iris and distributed through Black Ocean. It’s a gorgeous little book, on nice paper, about the size of a thank you card (it came in an illustrated envelope) and bound with a single staple. I have no idea how many were printed, or how to get one (Eye for an Iris’s site seems to not have anything on it, and the Black Ocean page for “The Sad Meal” doesn’t exist anymore) but I have one and I think it’s pretty cool.