CavanKerry Press attended the publication party for Identif-I in Hoboken, New Jersey. The event was held Saturday, May 20 at the Hoboken Historical Museum.
View footage from the Identif-I publication party below.
Exclusive Interview: Author Baron Wormser Addresses Talk of Dismantling The NEA, NEH and The Arts
CavanKerry Press Authors in the Community: Paola Corso Interview with Baron Wormser
Since its inception, CavanKerry Press has been committed to community. It’s outreach programs include Giftbooks, Waiting Room Reader, Bookshare, New Jersey Poetry Out Loud, and The Frost Place Conference on Poetry and Teaching. And in return for CavanKerry Press authors getting their books published, they offer free talks and workshops to under-served readers in their communities and free books to those who can’t afford them. They are also committed to sharing information with fellow writers to build a supportive and nurturing literary environment.
In a new series of interviews on community outreach, CavanKerry Press author Paola Corso will speak with other press authors about these projects and how they turn words into acts of community.
In this interview, Paola speaks with Baron Wormser, author and co-author of 14 books, most recently, the poetry collection, Unidentified Sighing Objects with CavanKerry Press. He teaches in the Fairfield University MFA Program and at his home in Montpelier, Vermont. One of his offerings is a generative poetry workshop he calls, “Open the Doors.”
Paola Corso: The title of your workshop, “Open the Doors,” sounds like a workshop for creating new possibilities. Tell me about the kinds of doors that participants have walked through.
Baron Wormser: Participants write new work on the spot. I use poems as prompts to get them engaged. We talk about the poem for a while and then they leap from the poem into their own imagination. I have found that a poem-prompt offers enough structure to lessen anxiety—what do I write about and how?–while avoiding being prescriptive. The discussion beforehand also helps participants to situate themselves in the realm of the actual—the poem in front of them—and the possible—the poem they may write. There is no predicting, of course, what will come out. What’s especially interesting is that often poems arise that speak to very intense, personal situations that the participant has either not written about or tried to write about but not succeeded. Writing to a prompt often opens the door to material that previously has been suppressed or repressed.
Paola Corso: How about an example of a poem-prompt?
[Read more…]
National Poetry Month! A Poem From Sandra M. Castillo
Today for National Poetry Month, I selected a poem from Sandra M. Castillo’s Eating Moors And Christians.
Please share your thoughts on this poem below.
Drowning
The bus driver speeds around
primitive streets, curves, circles, spheres,
the geometry of life.He turns, swerves without looking,
without thinking about the blue belowour yellow, rectangular world speeding
towards the unknown.I am thinking about Peruvian hieroglyphics,
abstract shapes, visions in an earthI fail to recognize for she is the stranger
she might have seemed across time,unidentified bodies of water.
This is an ancient city.
This is a mind map,and I am the hydrometer
of the round, blue circle inside methat wants to learn to measure water
without falling in.I look at the palm of my hand:
You are here. You are here.The driver falters on a turn, a stone,
and we spin, yellow into blue,and I go fishing for familiar faces
who traveled with meto foreign countries
above the sea level of our lives
and float across waters I have never knownto save something in me
that has never learned to swim.
Interested in more poems from Sandra M. Castillo? Pick up a copy of her book, Eating Moors and Christians from the CavanKerry Press store.
Poetry Reading at Words Bookstore with author Tina Kelley
On Saturday, Words Bookstore in Maplewood, NJ hosted author Tina Kelley for a book reading. She read poems from her latest book release Abloom & Awry.
Watch the official video of Tina Kelley’s book reading this past Saturday at Words Bookstore in New Jersey!
Check out photos from the event below.
National Poetry Month! Killing a Chicken
National Poetry Month! Editor’s Pick: Liking Drew
Our celebration of National Poetry Month continues with Joan Cusack Handler, Publisher and Senior Editor of CavanKerry Press, selecting a poem from Tina Kelley’s Abloom & Awry.
Read “Liking Drew” by author Tina Kelley below.
Don’t forget to pick up a copy of Tina Kelley’s latest release, Abloom & Awry from the CavanKerry Press store.
Poetry Reading at Book Culture with Jeanne Marie Beaumont
Last night, Book Culture in New York City hosted author Jeanne Marie Beaumont for a book reading. She read poems from her book Letters from Limbo.
If you haven’t done so, make sure you get your copy of Letters from Limbo here.
Check out photos from the event below.
April 19th, 2017
Former CavanKerry Press Associate Publisher, Teresa Carson with author Jeanne Marie Beaumont at her book reading last night in NYC!
National Poetry Month! My Pick: The Whisper
Today for National Poetry Month, I selected a poem from Ross Gay’s poetry book Against Which.
Please share your thoughts on this poem below.
The Whisper by Ross Gay
Don’t forget to pick up a copy of Ross Gay’s book, Against Which from the CavanKerry Press store.
Jesus was a Homeboy selected as 2017 Honor Book
Congratulations to author Kevin Carey! His book Jesus was a Homeboy was selected as an Honor Book for the Paterson Poetry Prize.
Joan Cusack Handler, Publisher and Senior Editor of CavanKerry Press says, “This is a great distinction for a great book! We are very proud to have published Jesus was a Homeboy and to see it receive this affirmation from the greater poetry community.”
If you don’t have a copy of this remarkable book, you’re missing out. Get your copy today by clicking here.
National Poetry Month! Editor’s Pick: The Key
Today for National Poetry Month, our Managing editor, Starr Troup selects a poem which comes from Christopher Bursk’s A Car Stops And A Door Opens.
Read “The Key” by author Christopher Bursk below.
Here, the man says, stopping you on the street,
is the key to my heart,
and he closes your fingers
around a real key and then vanishes so quickly
you aren’t sure he’d stood next to you
and when you unclench your fist,
the sun chooses that exact moment
National Poetry Month! Editor’s Pick: Tuesday Afternoon Metaphysics Lesson
Happy National Poetry Month!
To celebrate, our Managing editor, Starr Troup selected a poem from Tina Kelley’s Abloom & Awry.
We are proud to present this poem to celebrate National Poetry Month.
Read “Tuesday Afternoon Metaphysics Lesson” by author Tina Kelley below.
Today Kate said she was drawing an angry ghost.
I asked what’s he mad at?
“Me,” she said.
Why?
“Cause I’m drawing him.”How Heisenberg-y, as if
a spirit had hovered in the molecules
of her blue crayon tip who could’ve emerged
in any old emotional state, if that dimpled
fist had not borne down so hard.And I know if I ask why she’s drawing him
she will holler, “yer buggin’ me!” so I just answer
what comes after G, why H, and how to draw the S.
And we place the labeled picture on the fridge,
that altar to preschool power, to delineation itself.
Did you enjoy reading this poem? Comment below.
Don’t forget to pick up a copy of Tina Kelley’s latest release, Abloom & Awry from the CavanKerry Press store.
National Poetry Month Celebration: A Poem from Jeanne Marie Beaumont
April is National Poetry Month. To celebrate an entire month dedicated to poetry, we start with “Post Mortem” from Jeanne Marie Beaumont’s Letters from Limbo.
Post Mortem
Who killed Anna K.?
Not I, said Belladonna of the nightshade family.
I supply atropine to dilate pupils, anesthetize.
It’s true I can produce rapid heart rate,
but I’m an antidote to poisoning with morphine.
Only overdose will cause coma, convulsions,
delirium. Look, I prevent cardiac slowing—
it surely was not me!
CavanKerry Press – 2017 AWP Small Press Publisher Award Finalist
CavanKerry Press is pleased to have been nominated as a finalist by Association of Writers & Writing Programs for the 2017 AWP Small Press Publisher Award!
AWP’s Small Press Publisher Award is an annual prize for nonprofit presses and literary journals that recognizes the important role such organizations play in publishing creative works and introducing new authors to the reading public. The award acknowledges the hard work, creativity, and innovation of these presses and journals, and honors their contributions to the literary landscape through their publication of consistently excellent work.
Congrats to Coffee House Press, winner of the 2017 AWP Small Press Publisher Award and the other small press finalist Belladonna.
We hope for another opportunity to be nominated for this prestigious award next year with the support of our fans. Letters of nomination are accepted each year between August 1 – September 15 and submitted through AWP’s Submittable portal.
Get the full details about our nomination on awpwriter.org.
Christopher Bursk Discusses Controversial Poem in New Book ‘A Car Stops and A Door Opens’
Author Christoper Bursk discusses writing, poetry, and his latest book ‘A Car Stops and A Door Opens‘.
Read Christopher Bursk’s full interview with Nin Andrews below.
Nin Andrews (NA): I so enjoyed reading A Car Stops and a Door Opens. How long did it take you to write this collection? Can you talk a little about the evolution of the book?
Chris Bursk (CB): I have been working on this book for a number of years. Some poems – the ekphrastic ones – date back several decades. The poems about parents go back at least a decade. The book decided it wanted the poem “A Car Stops And a Door Opens” to be the opening into the book – there are a number of doors in the book – doors in the body, doors in the mind, trapdoors too.
Bill Murray Reveals His Favorite Poems
Bill Murray is a lifelong lover of verse who’s been a supporter of New York City’s Poets House for more than 20 years.
In celebration of National Poetry Month, O Magazine asked Murray to share a few of his favorite poems.
The first poem Bill Murray selected was Famous by Naomi Shihab Nye.
New Jersey Poetry Out Loud State Finals 2017 [Video]
Watch the video below of Amos Koffa performing at this year’s NJ Poetry Out Loud.
The State Champion of New Jersey Poetry Out Loud 2017 is Amos Koffa of Burlington County Institute of Technology – Medford Campus. Here he is with “Let the Light Enter” by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper.
Amos Koffa will head to the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., to compete at the National Finals of Poetry Out Loud in April 2017.
“Letters from Limbo” by Jeanne Marie Beaumont Debuts on Poetry Daily
CavanKerry Press author Jeanne Marie Beaumont’s “Letters from Limbo” makes an appearance on Poetry Daily.
In Jeanne Marie Beaumont’s book, Letters from Limbo, voices of the dead reach the living through various means, including the titular letters, revealing experiences harrowing and mysterious. Fluent in many modes, the poet commands varied poetic forms both illuminating and celebrating the haunting truth of our unpredictable earthly sojourn as we dwell in metaphorical limbo.
Poetry Daily is an anthology of contemporary poetry. Each day, the website brings new poems from books, magazines, and journals. Read “Letters from Limbo” by Jeanne Marie Beaumont which appeared on Poetry Daily below.
“Your Mother Wears a House Dress” by Joseph O. Legaspi in Poetry Magazine
CavanKerry Press author Joseph O. Legaspi is featured in the December 2016 issue of Poetry Magazine.
