African American Studies. Straddling fiction and poetry, Renee Gladman's writing operates on the level of the sentence, constructing suprise and oblique meanings at every turn, and somehow managing the supremely difficult trick of both engaging and pushing the reader. "THE ACTIVIST begins in the middle of a revolution....There is a bridge that may or may not have been bombed. People speak in nonsense and cannot stop themselves. In the mids of all this, the language of news reports mixes with the language of confession. The art of this beautifully written book is in how it touchingly illustrates that relations between humans and cities are linked in a more complex interface than most realize"--Juliana Spahr.

    Now on her own and with bills to pay, she works at the Butterball Turkey Emergency Squad, fielding phone calls from folks in desperate need of turkey-prep advice. As she faces another Thanksgiving, estranged from her family and pining after her married best friend, she receives a series of calls that force her to confront the reality of her deepening loneliness.With turns both humorous and heartbreaking, Butterball explores one woman’s hopeful attempts to connect during the holidays.

    Beauty Was the Case That They Gave Me is Mark Leidner's first full-length collection of poems. A collection of poems that might make you feel like a flower, like a black hole, like punishment meted out at night by a giant tractor, like you have to get on fire, then slowly walk around your old neighborhood, like the town was real, like she thinks swoon is a funnier word than mulligan, and he thinks swoon is a funny word too, but no way in hell is it funnier than mulligan, like he's searching for the Holy Grail and she has little Holy Grail-shaped pupils, like an effusion of steam, like what's cool changes, like hemisphere paint, like a blue flower, like the house you have lived above forever.

    “Leah Horlick’s For Your Own Good may be the best book of poetry to come out of Canada this year.” –Michael Dennis“Sometimes it feels as though there are Poems About Important Issues and Good Poems, and the two camps rarely meet. For Your Own Good is a startling combination of the two, skillful poems both defiant and self-aware, and close to my femme heart. We need this book.” –Zoe WhittallIn the canon of contemporary feminist and lesbian poetry, For Your Own Good breaks silence. A fictionalized autobiography, the poems in this collection illustrate the narrator’s survival of domestic and sexual violence in a lesbian relationship. There is magic in this work: the symbolism of the Tarot and the roots of Jewish heritage, but also the magic that is at the heart of transformation and survival.These poems are acutely painful, rooted in singular and firsthand experiences. But Horlick also draws from a legacy of feminist, Jewish and lesbian writers against violence: epigraphs from the works of Adrienne Rich and Minnie Bruce Pratt act as touchstones alongside references to contemporary writers, such as Daphne Gottlieb and Michelle Tea.In this reflection on grief, silence and community, we follow the narrator’s own journey as she explores what it is to survive, to change, to desire and to hope. At once unflinching and fragile, For Your Own Good is a collection with transformation at its heart.REVIEWS“‘Magic,’ which is the title of one of the poems in this collection, is a word I’d use to describe Leah Horlick’s work. Each piece takes us through a transmutation–from frightened girl to woman, from lover to abuser, from audience to performer, from alone to beloved. Horlick doesn’t back away from hard realities, deep longing or fierce desire, and drapes language around them like fitted silk–revealing and reflecting.”–Jewelle Gomez, author of Waiting for Giovanni‘These poems are beautiful. Solid and glittering as ice or crystal, they hold secrets and hard truths in their core. The wonder and lushness of Horlick’s voice imparts a loveliness to countless hidden tragedies, never sugaring them but bearing an elegant, whispering witness.”–Michelle Tea, author of How to Grow Up“Leah Horlick’s most recent collection of poetry is a beautiful rendering of grief, love and survival. This poignant poetic offering left me feeling the sensitive grace of her words long after I finished reading. The way she weaves stories into poetry is both haunting and powerful, elegant and unsettling. While reading, I had to keep reminding myself to breathe!”–Lishai Peel, author of Why Birds and Wolves Don’t Trade Stones

    From the back porches of Buffalo, to the galleries of New York and L.A., to farmhouses of rural Tennessee, the artworks act as still points, sites for reflection situated in lived experience. Fleischmann combines serious engagement with warmth and clarity of prose, reveling in the experiences and pleasures of art and the body, identity and community.

    The historical body of evidence that remains from the Salem witch trials of 1692 touched the hands, mind, and imagination of poet Nicole Cooley, compelling her to seek entry to an inaccessible past of lies. The Afflicted Girls, so named after the young women who claimed to be victims of witchcraft, spans the centuries to give voice to those both audible and silent on history's pages--accusers and accused of several kinds: wife and husband, servant and master, congregant and minister, and, not least, bewitched and witch. Piercing, enchanting, Cooley's poems form a remarkable narrative, one that displays the enormous cultural power the Salem witch trials retain in twenty-first-century America.

    This is a new voice made of sunlight, knives, emergencies, heat, honesty, bottles of vodka, and a tanker full of talent. Madievsky has created something we should not go without."- Matthew Dickman"Go ahead, try all you want pulling on Ruth Madievsky’s Emergency Brake—but just remember it won’t do you any good. This will be the most exciting and inventive first book you have read in years, and this poet’s take-no-prisoners attitude makes for an ecstatic joyride. These deeply moving poems reflect the raw darkness paring at the edges of our lives, and they reveal how that dark can sometimes move to the very centers of our being. Sexy, irreverent, sorrowful, thrilling—the poems of Emergency Brake become a young woman’s survival manual for the Twenty-First Century: ignore it at your own peril."- David St. John"...a metaphor-maker par excellence"- ZYZZYVA"The social importance of Emergency Brake doesn’t come at the cost of artful finesse; a cleverly engineered speaker who invites distrust through sly direction guides us through the collection’s gallery of sex and Los Angeles sprawl..."- Columbia Journal"Emergency Brake is filled with boxcar after boxcar of metaphors you’ll wish you wrote, but Madievsky got to them first. You’ll want to hate her if it wasn’t for that sugary child jumping up and down behind your ribs, yelling, 'Do it again! Do it again!'”- Harpur Palate

    Poetry

    They pine for lost loves and pop music romances, Hollywood heartthrobs, and sunnier towns. They flee from failed relationships and looming violence, adulthood and other deaths. Written with dark humor and incisive, voice-driven prose, Kara Vernor's stories will stick in your head like a song. "Kara Vernor's "Because I Wanted To Write You A Pop Song" is hilarious, dark, and beguiling. These wonderful stories crackle with hard-earned wisdom and wit and will, like all the very best songs, become forever etched on your heart." --John Jodzio, author of Knockout "Reading Kara Vernor is like being in a fast car that reveals the deepest secrets of its passerby. You rubberneck and yearn for more. You're spinning, you're flying, you're exhilarated and sad and brimming with thrill. Hail this book and hold on tight." --Lindsay Hunter, author of Ugly Girls "Kara Vernor says so much in so few words with these stories that I felt myself becoming a better reader as I read them. Her writing feels like a knife, cutting through so many of the falsehoods of American life and leaving only the truth, somehow leaving it both gently and determinedly at the same time. The stories in Because I Wanted to Write You a Pop Song do not flinch and do not seem to even remember how." --Siamak Vossoughi, author of Better Than War (winner of the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction) "The stories in "Because I Wanted to Write You a Pop Song" dazzle and tenderize. They are strange little worlds that invite you in...Kara Vernor writes with gut, heart, and striking beauty." --Jensen Beach, author of Swallowed by the Cold "If I could leave a few things in a capsule for the civilization coming next, I think I’d maybe pick Kara Vernor’s stories. Beings of the future might know us that way: how we thought; how our words arranged themselves on our tongues when we were only half thinking; what we were after, and how messed up that all was, but how vital in a deeper way. Like some of my favorite writers, Vernor is able to bring to the page a voice you’re shocked to recognize, for it seems so totally new. All of the stars, is what I’m trying to say. All of the hearts and cherries."--Scott Garson, author of Is That You, John Wayne?

    These twenty-three prose poems are thoughtprovoking, witty, and thoroughly unexpected observations of a bygone era, and through the lens of Feinstein's camera they speak volumes about the faces and places that have graced the City of Angels. Images like those of Judy Garland, Marlene Dietrich, and Steve McQueen resonate with our collective memory, while photographs of hopeful starlets, movie studio backlots, and sunny, palm tree'd boulevards evoke the timeless allure of all things Hollywood."Hollywood Foto-Rhetoric" marks a unique collaboration: With his unerring eye, Barry Feinstein captured unforgettable moments in stunning black-and-white, such as Marilyn Monroe's swimming pool on the day she died, and Frank Sinatra celebrating at John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Ball. In the provocative accompanying text, Bob Dylan's quixotic, expressive lyricism redefines silver screen nostalgia.

    LGBTQIA Studies. The playful and poignant novel LITTLE BLUE ENCYCLOPEDIA (FOR VIVIAN) sifts through a queer trans woman's unrequited love for her straight trans friend who died. A queer love letter steeped in desire, grief, and delight, the story is interspersed with encyclopedia entries about a fictional TV show set on an isolated island. The experimental form functions at once as a manual for how pop culture can help soothe and mend us and as an exploration of oft-overlooked sources of pleasure, including karaoke, birding, and butt toys. Ultimately, LITTLE BLUE ENCYCLOPEDIA (FOR VIVIAN) reveals with glorious detail and emotional nuance the woman the narrator loved, why she loved her, and the depths of what she has lost.

    Through Texas and Tennessee, Alabama and the riverbeds of the Mississippi, these poems wrap themselves in cloaks of masks and comfort; garments we learn are flammable if we stand too close to flames.

    

    Invoking both the personal and the civic self, they chart uncertain new beginnings in a shattered nation. What emerges is both a poignant meditation on a daughter's relationship with her mother and a citizen's relationship to her country. from "Frontier" . . . At times, I felt sick, intoxicatedby BPA and mercury.At other times I fasted and the starsstumbled clear from the vault.Up there, the universe stands around drunk.I hope the Lord is kind to us,for we engrave our every mistake . . .

    This chart-topping 2014 album release from Lana Del Rey is presented in piano/vocal/guitar arrangements for all 11 songs: Brooklyn Baby * Cruel World * Money Power Glory * Old Money * The Other Woman * Pretty When You Cry * Sad Girl * Ultraviolence * West Coast * and more.