In addition to the three collections available for AWP that I talked about on Monday, Coconut will be publishing six other new books in 2012-2013. Maybe more! I’m going to be working with a new printer and distributing through SPD, so hopefully the books will be easier to get while still looking just as nice. As I mentioned in a facebook post a couple of months ago, the goal of a poetry small press is always to makes sure financial losses don’t get TOO out of control—shifting printers and distribution while increasing the number of titles was a budgetary necessity for me. My previous model was too expensive.
I’ve already mentioned two poets whose books will be out around the end of 2012—Hanna Andrews and Christie Ann Reynolds. Hanna is one of the founders of Switchback Books and a really amazingly smart and sweet and dynamic person. I couldn’t believe it when I learned her first book, Slope Move, was still available! I posted one of her poems (or, more specifically, an excerpt from a sequence) yesterday. I met Christie Ann at AWP, then heard her read (brilliantly!) at Steven Karl’s terrific backyard reading series in Brooklyn. Christie Ann’s poems are so explosively untidy—I think you’re going to love both of these new books. (I posted one of Christie Ann’s poems on Sunday). (If you can’t wait any longer, Christie Ann has a rockin’ chapbook out with Ben Fama’s awesome SuperMachine. You can buy both!) (And Switchback titles too!)
Around the same time Coconut will publish Emily Toder’s first full-length book, the title of which is still to be determined. I haven’t yet met Emily in person, but she’s wonderfully sweet and brilliantly unconventional on the phone. Here’s her poem “On Sequins”:
Sequins are mites of goodness lacking in the eyes.
I personally have no experience with sequins.
The history of sequins is that they were invented
in 6th century Arabia for good reason.
The etymology of sequins lies in the Arabic sikka
meaning coin or die.
In the 13th century the local public mint
of the Republic of Venice was called la Zecca
and produced 3.5 gram gold coins called zecchino.
Repeating this word excessively they founded
what we know today as the sequin.
Today we know the sequin is made of traditional
and nontraditional materials both.
Traditionally sequins were chisels of foil.
Nontraditionally they are the postconsumer
plastic eyes of small mammals.
That is nearly all we know about them.
And that they were hot in the Reagan years.
I have seen a sequin melt
although that is a separate meaning
I realize. I have seen a separated
sequin I realize. Sequins are little
entrepreneurs but globalization
has been hard on them.
There have been rumors they are made
with gelatin which is hard to pull off
in a globalized world. I would suggest
sequins are not generally well looked upon
in fact. They are hardly ever gazed at
because it is uncomfortable
and unnecessary. No one goes out
looking for them. No one has taken out
a patent on them. Compare this
with Tofurky.
I have heard it said the sequin cheapens.
It has been told to children.
Children must be told some things.
Children must be dressed slowly.
They must form a peer group.
I used to be a sequin. Now I am like a bead.
I don’t want to talk about it.
We were flung from the hips
and now we are confetti.
The history of confetti is much simpler.
Confetti first arose in Paris
in 1891 and was made out of casino parts.
The etymology of confetti is confection.
Today confetti is nontoxic.
I wish confetti was my real name.
My real name reveals very much about me.
Richard.
I’m really, really excited about Jenny Boully’s collection of non-prose poems, to be published by Coconut in the fall of 2012. Jenny is of course author of The Body, plus two awesome books from Tarpaulin Sky. Here’s a poem of Jenny’s that appeared in Coconut Two way back in 2005 (sans footnotes—forgive me, Jenny), called, “Actually, she is telling about how a dwelling becomes empty when she moves in.”
It would be wrong. It would be wrong because the promise told would never be the promise given. And so, the life that she thought she could have, the one of sea breezes, of peeling paint, of something sweet smelling from the back porch each day, of lazy cats and bad coffee, would never make itself real for her. The days of leisure, of wondering, of reading and writing, of dreaming would soon be over, replaced by a waitress apron, a jar of barely enough. And when the weariness, when the tiredness sets in, then so too does the hate, so too does the spite. (And so, do you see? Do you see what I gave up to be with you?) And years later, when trees were no longer birch and sycamore, but other trees that did not seem to sprout from mythical books, she would remember a certain picture she took before it all went wrong, in that irreproachable promise of something different. She would remember an orange boat tied to a dock, a dock that she wanted, and know that it wasn’t him but the water she was in love with.
I’m also really excited that Amber Nelson’s first book, In Anima: Urgency, will come out from Coconut in 2013! If you know Amber’s work through her chapbooks (I mentioned her earlier in the week in her role as editor of Alice Blue), this book is a little different. Here’s one (untitled) poem:
to bear bears fallow
such farrow:
pink seeds in the mud
pinking a cool pinch
all nipples blossom—flush
Another forthcoming Coconut book is currently a secret. But I’m also going to hold two contests—one for a first book and one for any level of experience. I’m going to be the judge, all submissions will be non-blind, and there will be no reading fee. Plus an anthology is coming too!
Tomorrow: Well, I’m not yet sure what I’m going to talk about tomorrow.
Love, Bruce
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