A Secret Correspondence

Seventeen new collages, all in full color. All 125 books signed by the artist. Twenty-five special numbered copies come with a signed original collage by Anna Boschi. Mini-chapbook format, in wraps.

We fell in love with Anna Boschi’s art some years ago when we saw her multi-media collages for the first time. And we were honored and happy when she agreed to make artwork for this book. Here’s a chance for you to own a signed original piece from Anna, at a very reasonable price. I think these limited books will sell fast…

Anna, who lives in Castel San Pietro Terme in Italy, had her first exhibition in 1974. Since 1982 she has worked exclusively with the art, mostly with Visual Poetry, Collages, Artists’ Books and Artistamps.

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Some words about the book:

Ann Menebroker:
”I have always been drawn to collages. What is it that so captures us in the whimsical, seemingly random line/word/mixed-media vision of these art works? I don’t know. I do know I feel something that makes me want to look and see more than is put together. Anna Boschi has the magic. There is more than meets the eye. These are wonderful!”

Mauro Carrera:
“The artworks in this book are like a set of exquisite, handmade postcards exchanged between young lovers.

All 125 books signed by the poet.
[quickshop:Anna Boschi | A Secret Correspondence – Kamini Press:price:10:shipping:0:shipping2:0:end]10 USD Signed edition (including shipping all over the world)

[quickshop:Anna Boschi | A Secret Correspondence | Kamini Press:price:25:shipping:0:shipping2:0:end]25 USD Twenty-five special numbered and signed copies come with a signed original collage by Anna Boschi. Limited edition with artwork (including shipping)

We can also send a PayPal invoice if that is easier for you. Or pay with PenPal (cash in a letter to the address below)…:-)

In Sweden, please pay SEK 60 per book to Bankgiro 5889-0781, price including postage and VAT. SEK 150 for the limited version – email to reserve. More info about other Kamini Press titles on our website www.kaminipress.com.

After using the ”Add to the Kamini cart” button you will find at the very end of this page your shopping-cart to proceed the payment.

editor@kaminipress.com

Kamini Press
Ringvägen 8, 4th floor
SE-117 26 Stockholm, Sweden

The Measure of Small Gratitudes

by Ann Menebroker

Thirteen new poems. All 125 books signed by the poet. Twenty-five special numbered copies come with a signed water color painting by Henry Denander. Mini-chapbook format, in wraps.

[quickshop:Ann Menebroker | The Measure of Small Gratitudes:price:10:shipping:0:shipping2:0:end]Signed edition $10 (including shipping all over the world)

Twenty-five special numbered copies come with a signed water color painting by Henry Denander.

[quickshop:Ann Menebroker | The Measure of Small Gratitudes – with a signed water color painting:price:25:shipping:0:shipping2:0:end]Limited edition with artwork $25 (including shipping)

In Sweden, please pay SEK 60 per book to Bankgiro 5889-0781, price including postage and VAT. SEK 150 for the limited version. Email to reserve.

More info about this and other Kamini Press titles on our website www.kaminipress.com. We can also send a PayPal invoice if that is easier for you.

After using the ”Add to the Kamini cart” button you will find at the very end of this page your shopping-cart to proceed the payment.

Kamini Press, Ringvägen 8, 4th floor, SE-117 26 Stockholm, Sweden

Here some words on Annie Menebroker and this book:

ARTHUR WINFIELD KNIGHT
”Ann Menebroker is a legendary figure in the small press poetry scene. These poems will show you why.”

NEELI CHERKOVSKI
”Ann Menebroker is an extraordinary poet. Her voice is singular. The open-heartedness of her vision is a splendor to behold. Reader, enter and be transformed.”

GERALD LOCKLIN
”When I think of Ann Menebroker, I think of the Bay Area Delta, which whose marshes I associate Endangered Species, and then I’m back to Ann, because she is a unique poetic species whose voice has defied extinction for fifty years, for many of which we have been poetry pals at opposite ends of the Great Central Valley, and Henry Denander does not anoint many poets with the honor of a mini-chapbook in the Kamini Press Poetry Series (this one is Number 8), but he has here chosen perfectly because Ann is of those heroines who persevere in their poetry simply because it is what they were born to do (Wilma McDaniel was another), and they turn their lives into lines that resemble no one’s other than their own, and before they know it they have made of their unassuming lives a legacy of pure verbal authenticity. “For Joe DiMaggio” takes its place alongside the tributes to The Yankee Clipper by Hemingway and Paul Simon. In “Composition” “music . . . is also a way to go other places” and, along with loved ones, takes “the measure of small gratitudes.” And in “What Doesn’t Fit Here,” the speaker purrs, “i’m old style, honey,” and I whisper in reply, “So am I, Annie, and you are just plain fine, as fine as one of Henry’s fine designs.”

LYNNE SAVITT
”Annie Menebroker has a poet’s precise eye for mundane details. She turns everyday occurrences into art with lyrical humor & pathos. A shot glass full of Menebroker a day will give your muse a much-needed hard-on for her belly dance of words.”

SAMUEL CHARTERS
”There’s a kind of poem that my friend Annie Menebroker has a personal license to write – a poem where she walks up to life and looks it right in the eye. She doesn’t push or crowd, she’s just quietly letting the world know that she’s there. She does it again and again in this immaculate new collection presented with the attention and respect for the writing we’ve learned to expect with Kamini Press. Note the perfect balance of her tender ballad to baseball ”For Joe DiMaggio” and feel a little better about your day. You’ll find yourself laughing sometimes and agreeing with her sentiments when she asks fellow poet Robert Bly to be her Valentine. Her ex-husband won’t mind since he already knows that poets ”are too full of ourselves.” When you read a poem like ”Photo Composition” with its acceptance of our mortality you begin to think about people you’ve known and you catch your breath a little. The poems are written with skill and an understated awareness of the resources poets bring to their solitary work. Thank you, Annie, for the phrase ”The Measure of Small Gratitudes” – it helps me understand things I’ve felt but never could find the words for. I couldn’t ask a poem or poetry itself to give me anything more than these moments of illumination you’ve shared with us.”

Ann, who lives in Sacramento, California, has published over twenty collections of poetry during a writing career spanning fifty years. In 2010 her work appeared in a college textbook, Literature and Its Writers, edited by Ann & Samuel Charters.

Ann Menebroker | Painting by Henry Denander

Ann Menebroker

has published over twenty collections of poetry during a writing career spanning fifty years. Her work has appeared in dozens of anthologies, including The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry. She has collaborated with artists and other poets on numerous projects in Sacramento, California. In the late 1970’s she edited and published a poetry magazine, Impulse. She continues to write and in 2006 she was part of the documentary film I Began To Speak, with other poets associated with the Sacramento poetry scene. The film is based on readings and interviews. In 2010, her work appeared in a college textbook, Literature and Its Writers, edited by Ann & Samuel Charters. A small limited-run hardcover book of her poems, Sunscreen in the Fog, was published by Bottle of Smoke Press in 2010.

Also by Ann Menebroker:

• It Isn’t Everything (1968)
• Three Drums for the Lady (1968)
• The Habit of Wishing (1977)
• Dark Pleasure (1984)
• Biting Through the Spine (1985)
• The Blue Fish (1985)
• On the Edge (1986)
• Feast in Solitude (1989)
• Slices (1990)
• Routines That Will Kill You (1990)
• Mailbox Boogie (1991)
• Dream Catcher (1992)
• To Get It Right (1997)
• Surviving Bukowski (1998)
• Trying For the Ten Ring (2000)
• Walking the Dog (2003)
• The Downtown of Life (2004)
• Tiny Teeth (2004)
• 3 poems 4 Bukowski (2005)
• Tuning In (2006)
• Swallowed by This Whale of Time (2007)
• Small Crimes (2008)
• Sunscreen in the Fog (2010)

Out of the Woods into the Sun

Guy R. Beining

We are proud to publish the artwork of Guy Beining as the first book in our Kamini Press Art Series. Beining, who lives in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, is very active as an artist and also a much published poet. We have been following Beining’s art for many years, admiring his strong and personal style in drawings, paintings and collages. Here we are presenting 16 new acrylic paintings.

The limited edition of the book includes an original signed acrylic drawing by Beining, a fine opportunity to get a highly frameable piece of Beining art.

Here at Kamini Press we are very proud to present the first chapbook in our Art series Out of the Woods into the Sun by Guy R. Beining 16 new paintings reproduced in full color.

All 125 books signed by the artist. Twenty-five special numbered copies come with a signed acrylic drawing by Guy R. Beining. Mini-chapbook format, in wraps. Portrait by Henry Denander.

[quickshop:Guy R. Beining – Out of the Woods into the Sun – Signed edition:price:10:shipping:0:shipping2:0:end]Signed edition $10 (including shipping all over the world)

[quickshop:Guy R. Beining – Out of the Woods into the Sun – Limited edition with artwork:price:25:shipping:0:shipping2:0:end]Limited edition with artwork $25 (including shipping all over the world)

Please Note: After hitting the Add to the Kamini Cart button you will find your shopping-cart at the very end of this page.

In Sweden, please pay SEK 60 per book to Bankgiro 5889-0781, price including postage. 150 SEK for the limited version. Email to reserve. Please ask for a PayPal invoice if you need that.

Kamini Press | Ringvägen 8, 4th floor | SE-117 26 Stockholm, Sweden | editor@kaminipress.com

…one of the paintings from this book by Guy R. Beining.

Selected titles by Guy R. Beining:

Razor with No Obligation (1976)
City Shingles (1977)
The Ogden Diary (1979)
Backroads & Artism (1979)
Ice Rescue Station (1980)
A New Boundary & Other Pieces (1980)
Waiting for the Soothsayer (1982)
The Raw-Robed Few (1982)
Stoma: All Points & Notions (1984)
Stoma (1989)
Upper & Lower Translation of Beige Copy Text (1991)
100 Haiku Selected from a Decade (1993)
Damn the Evening Garden (1994)
Too Far to Hear (1994)
Stoma (1994)
Curved Erosion (1995)
Axiom of a Torn Pulley (1995)
Too Far to Hear II (1997)
Beige Copy II & III (1997)
Inrue (2008)
World Pig 1-34 (2010)
Nozzle 1-36 (2011)

John Bennett

30 new poems.

All 125 books signed by the author. Twenty-five of the books come with a signed watercolor by Henry Denander.

Mini-chapbook format, in wraps.

Cover art by Henry Denander.

[quickshop:John Bennett – Battle Scar – Signed Edition – Kamini Press:price:10:shipping:0:shipping2:0:end]Signed edition $10 (including shipping all over the world)

[quickshop:John Bennett – Battle Scar – Limited Edition with Artwork – Kamini Press:price:25:shipping:0:shipping2:0:end]Limited edition with artwork $25 (including shipping)

In Sweden, please pay SEK 60 per book to Bankgiro 5889-0781, price including postage.

150 SEK for the limited version.

Email to reserve or please use the comment form at the end of this page…PLEASE NOTE: by clicking the ”add to the kamini cart” you will find your shopping cart always at the very end of this page to proceed the final payment.

John Bennett BIO

John Bennett was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1938. He is the founder of Vagabond Press and the former editor of the small press magazine Vagabond. The magazine was started in 1966 and he published Charles Bukowski, Tom Kryss, d.a. levy, Anne Menebroker, William Wantling and many other poets, new or established. He also edited Ragged Lion, A Tribute to Jack Micheline as well as the Henry Miller tribute Black Messiah, both published by Vagabond Press. John Bennett has 39 published books to is credit – novels, short story collections, journalism, poetry and shards, a form of prose poem Bennett has made his own. He now lives in Ellensburg, Washington, where he writes, publishes and sends his shards out on a regular basis to a highly-appreciative and wide-spread email list.

Some feedback on John Bennett’s Writing

It takes great love to take venom and turn it into perfume, to take the ”bitter” of life and make it art. The Shards come from the eternal laboratory of affinity–and well done, John Bennett. Good work, and all your other kinds of good work, poems, novels, publishing. Thank you for all that good work. I am saying this now, in case you get evicted from the body. I want you to know that you are appreciated. I am sure many others say the same thing. You are self-evidently a good person and great writer. Well done so far. I know this kind of purpose does not end.–Russell Salamon

John, ”Fool’s Gold” is brilliant, as are many of your short jabs. You’re an Old Testament prophet with twenty-first century staying power. ”Crazy Girls” sizzles, is just as brilliant, and genuinely scary, like late-Goya monsters. You’re writing beyond the reasonably possible. It’s the truest corpus of writing I’ve every read in my 74 years. Your novel sits here unfinished, a lot to say about it eventually. Time is trying to run me down. I’m running in my own late rush. –D.E. Steward

John Bennett, a legendary West Coast writer whose ”shards” are something like Will Rogers cum H. L. Mencken for the twenty-first century. –D.L. Steward

”One of my favorite writers ever. He might be just a _touch_ too edgy to be invited on Oprah, but higher quality literature, you will not find. I’m on the e-mail list to receive his ”shards,” and they keep me thinking every day. I also had the pleasure of hearing him read when he was in town last winter, and he completely stole the show from Jack Hirschman (with all due respect to SF’s reigning poet). Please check him out. Well worth the effort.” –Lytton Bell

”Bennett is the real thing. His voice is honest and smart and a little wild. I highly recommend him.” –Tom Robbins

It is Bennett’s consummate skill, combined with his unique social position, in which he looks up from society’s absolute bottom, but in a way that can see all the way through to the penthouse with total clarity, that allows me to dub him the first amalgam of the American outsider and the French étranger. –Jim Feast, Evergreen Review

”It’s some of the best stuff I’ve read in a long, long time, and I’ve been reading forever.” –Al Martinez, L.A. TIMES

”I knew there had to be a human way to write about these subjects. I think you’ve hit upon it.” (Night of the Great Butcher) — Saul Bellow, Nobel Prize winner

”Bennett is a remarkable writer, ferocious in his intent and startlingly poetic in much of his execution.” –SAN FRANCISCO REVIEW OF BOOKS

”You’ve fought a harder, cleaner fight than anybody that I know.” –Charles Bukowski

”Bennett has written movingly of pain, of dreams that slowly suffocate, and of realities that strike you like a cane.” (Bodo) WASHINGTON FREE PRESS, Seattle, WA

”I thought TRIPPING IN AMERICA was one of the best heightened documentaries I’ve read in post-guru America.” –Charles Plymell, poet CHERRY VALLEY EDITIONS

”You are on the crest of the wave that is our national zeitgeist.” –Wendell Smith, HARPER’S MAGAZINE

”…you have reached a peak that to me seems almost impossible to sustain, but somehow you are doing it. It’s really incredible.”– Carl Weissner ,  German translator of Charles Bukowski, Nelson Algren, etc.

”Despite praise from Bukowski, Saul Bellow and Tom Robbins, three highly distinctive American idols, a broad audience has yet to discover Bennett. Tire Grabbers could break the barricades.” –David Milholland, CLINTON STREET QTRLY, Portland, OR

”Bennett’s books are tremendously readable… a kind of moral stamina alongside the capacity for sheer survival.” –Gretchen Johnsen, GARGOYLE MAGAZINE, Washington, D.C.

”…A relative unknown as far as the general reading public is concerned, he has nonetheless managed to acquire a devoted cult-following among those who recognise a good thing when they see it. Bennett is to my mind the real McCoy, a courageous writer unafraid of the unalloyed truth regarding The American Dream, one, moreover, who finds a uniquely pithy way of putting it, so that no word is ever wasted….” –Richard Livermore, review of One Round Robin, CHANTICLEER MAGAZINE, Edinburgh, Scotland

”…the writing is edgy, fast-paced, and thoroughly engaging, as with everything that Bennett has written in the past. Tire Grabbers is certainly a high-water mark in Bennett’s long career, a postmodern parable to rattle the cage of the terminally disenchanted.”– Mark Terrill, SMALL PRESS REVIEW, Paradise, CA

”Tire Grabbers is a work of epic dimensions, with its own mythic (cosmological) structure, its struggle between good and evil, its heroes and villains, all of whom engage you as complex characters in their own right….” — Richard Livermore, CHANTICLEER MAGAZINE ` Edinburgh, Scotland.

”I haven’t read prose more in touch with the inner man than yours.”– Phil Flott, Omaha, NB

”The thing that continually fascinates me about your writing is the trueness of it: not just a ‘write what you know’ kind of trueness, but a permanently immediate truth, something you could put in a time capsule and it would still be just fine in a thousand years.” — Liz Druitt, Anderson, TX

”Bennett’s vital book (The Night of the Great Butcher) is a great redefinition of the short story.” — SMALL PRESS REVIEW, Paradise, CA

”Upon my first reading I could not help but see parallels to Philip K. Dick….the great J.R.R. Tolkien….and Robert Anton Wilson…But there is much more to Bennett’s vision than the obvious comparisons to the above authors…This is a book that must be read, studied and enjoyed. This is speculative fiction at its best.” (Tire Grabbers) — B.L. Kennedy, RATTLESNAKE REVIEW, Sacramento, CA

”John Bennett never fucks around and has sensitive, frank, disturbing things to say… he fills in the chinks in poetry-culture where the mice and owls live.” – EXQUISITE CORPSE Magazine

”The two pieces (in Betrayal’s Like That) that really stood out were ”Three Dog Night” and ”Ballad of a Shard Writer”. Your prose is better than 90% of what’s being written today…” — Stellasue Lee, editor, RATTLE Magazine

”Bennett, as always, crams his fist through the mold and creates a readable and damn edgy prowl through the crap-world of betrayal and collapse.” (Betrayal’s Like That) — FIRST CLASS Magazine, Milwaukee, WI

”I read the catharsis of betrayal today. I sank further into the hole of loss. I ached like an infected cyst. I remembered every black hole I ever swam in…” (Betrayal’s Like That) — Lynne Savitt, poet, Wantagh, NY

”Betrayal’s Like That is killer. I’m so impressed with this book that if you order it and you don’t agree with me, I’ll send you whatever you feel you overpaid.” — Joe Grant, Radio talk-show host ”Lit Happens”, WORT-FM, Madison, WI

”Rodeo Town…a collection of small-town profiles….a moral book without being a didactic book, accomplished through sheer honesty and a clear love of people.” – SMALL PRESS REVIEW, Paradise, California

”The First Gala Affair and The Defrocking of Albert Dream are two of the best stories I have ever read.” — Robert Matte, editor, YELLOW BRICK ROAD

”I wanted to let you know how incredibly powerful and moving CRIME OF THE CENTURY is…I hope that it stays in print forever.” – Robert Peters, critic, Huntington Beach, CA

”CRIME OF THE CENTURY is a first-rate piece of writing. I couldn’t stay cool reading this and doubt that anybody could. It doesn’t howl; it’s good reporting, and metaphors out of left field that chill…” — Gene Fowler, poet, Berkeley, CA

”TRIPPING is a work of art. Art. It’s great. I say it this way after cooling down. Some. Kerouac has nothing over Bennett. Nothing.” — Greg Oldham, Portland, OR

John Bennett– a great writer of no category–as if the soul and brain and heart and balls of jack kerouac, maurice blanchot, paul valery and elsa lasker-schiller were reincarnated as one. But even that constellation won’t describe the ineffable rise of the authority of his moral center, lifting like a central valley tule fog burning off into some golden angel of sun rushing across/toward the indescribable clownface of history. — Edward Mycue, poet, San Francisco

”I liked the two chapbooks you sent me, especially yours! (Anarchistic Murmurs From a High Mountain Valley.) I’m an old anarchist from Union Square, New York, before the First World War! Still one–unaffliliated.” — Henry Miller

John Bennett | Painting by Henry Denander

AWARDS, ANTHOLOGIES & PUBLISHED BOOKS (April 2010)

Awards:

• Iron Country Anthology, Copper Canyon Press, Port Townsend, WA, 1st prize fiction.
• The William Wantling Award, Second Coming Press, San Francisco for: Crime of the Century.
• The Darrell Bob Houston Award, Tom Robbins, committee chair for: ”De-euphemizing the Sixties” in: The Clinton Street Quarterly, Portland, OR.
• Finalist, Drue-Heinz Literary Prize, University of Pittsburgh Press.

Anthologies:

• The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, Thunder’s Mouth Press, NYC.
• The Party Train, New Rivers Press, Minneapolis
• Stiffest of the Corpse, Best of Exquisite Corpse, Baton Rouge, LA.
• Green Isle in the Sea, Small Press Personality Profiles, December Press, Chicago.
• Fiction/82, Paucock Press, D.C.
• Editor’s Choice – Best of the Small Presses, The Spirit That Moves Us Press, Iowa City.
• The Pushcart Prize, Pushcart Press, Wainscott, NY.
• Poets West, Perivale Press, Van Nuys, CA.
• The Living Underground, Whitston Pub. Co., NYC.

Published novels:

• Children of the Sun & Earth, Hcolom Press, Ellensburg, WA
• Tire Grabbers, Hcolom Press, Ellensburg, WA
• Bodo, Smith Publishers, NYC, Quartet Books, London, Mata Publishers, Prague (translation)
• The Adventures of Achilles Jones, Thorp Springs Press, Austin/Berkeley

Published novellas/short story collections:

• The Night of the Great Butcher (stories), December Press, Chicago
• The Party to End All Parties (stories), Fault Press, Fairfax, CA
• The New World Order (stories), The Smith Publishers, NYC
• Flying to Cambodia (novella), The Smith Publishers
• The Names We Go By (novella & stories), December Press
• The Moth Eaters (stories), Angelflesh Press, Grand Rapids, MI
• Karmic Four-Star Buckaroo (essays), Pudding House Press, Johnstown, OH

Published non-fiction:

• Survival Song (journal), Vagabond Press, Munich/New Orleans/San Francisco
• Crime of the Century (social commentary), Second Coming Press, San Francisco
• The White Papers (essays, four volumes), Vagabond Press
• Tripping in America (travel journal), Vagabond Press
• Rodeo Town (newspaper columns), Vagabond Press

Prose Poems, Shards & Poetry:

• Drive By, Lummox Press, Los Angeles
• Cobras & Butterflies (prose poems), Mystery Island Press, Sacramento, CA
• Firestorm (prose poems), Pudding House
• One Round Robin (prose poems), Green Panda Press, Cleveland
• The Theory of Creation (prose poems), Vagabond Press
• War All the Time (prose poems), Vagabond Press
• The Birth of Road Rage (prose poems), Vagabond Press
• Cheyenne of the Mind (prose poems), D Press, Sebastapol, CA
• The Stardust Machine (prose poems), Mt. Aukum Press, Mt. Aukum, CA
• Fire in the Hole (prose poems), Argonne House, D.C.
• Greatest Hits (poems), Pudding House
• Betrayal’s Like That (poems), Vagabond Press
• Domestic Violence (prose poems), FourSep Publications, Milwaukee, WI
• Crazy Girl on the Bus (poems), Vagabond Press
• Whiplash on the Couch (poems & stories), Duck Down Press, Fallon, NV
• La-La Poems (poems), Ghost Dance Press, M.S.U., East Lansing, MI

Here

Here at Kamini Press we are very proud to present the sixth chapbook in our poetry series

The Poet Tree

by

t. kilgore splake

34 pages of poetry. Cover art by Henry Denander. All 150 books signed by the author in Calumet, Michigan. Twenty-five of the books come with a signed water color by Henry Denander. Mini-chapbook format, in wraps.

a

[quickshop:t. kilgore splake – the poet tree – signed edition – kamini press:price:10:shipping:0:shipping2:0:end]Signed edition $10 incl. shipping all over the world

[quickshop:t. kilgore splake – the poet tree – limited edition with signed artwork – kamini press:price:25:shipping:0:shipping2:0:end]Limited edition with signed artwork $25 incl. shipping all over the world

Sweden, please pay SEK 60 per book to Bankgiro 5889-0781, price including postage. 150 SEK for the limited version. Email to reserve. Books are also to be found at Bokmagasinet, Stockholm.

The spirit of the Beats lives on the far reaches of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in the person of t. kilgore splake. He is a seeker after Truth with his spare, jazzy, plain spoken style, in a materialistic age where abstraction and buzz words have replaced a poetry of, and, for the people.  Read splake and remember what real poetry is supposed to be all about. -Alan Catlin

t. kilgore splake was born as Thomas Hugh Smith in 1936, in Three Rivers, Michigan. While teaching at Kellog Community College in Battle Creek, splake began writing poems. In 1989, he chose to take an early retirement as a college professor, to live in creative poverty and find his poetic voice. Upon retirement, he moved to Michigan’s upper peninsula, living for ten years in Munising, before moving to Calumet in the Keweenaw peninsula.

In twenty years splake has become a legend in small press circles for his writing and photography. His artist supporters believe that splake possesses an original creative vision as well as exhaustive working habits.

Tom Kryss

Sketch Book

It was the fine poet and writer John Bennett who many years ago, on his Vagabond website, introduced us to Tom Kryss. Since then he’s been a favorite artist, illustrator and poet. Please study Kryss’s long list of books, chaps, broadsides and art, look at the bottom of this page. There is something about Tom Kryss’s tone and voice that makes him very special. Have you seen his art? Have you seen his The Book of Rabbits – one of the most beautiful children’s books you’ve ever seen?

Tom Kryss is a true outsider and he was part of the Cleveland poetry scene in the Sixties around d.a. levy; the Cleveland scene back then had more outsiders per square meter than any other poetry scene in America.

Let me quote John Bennett from Vagabond: “You want your young genius poet of the 20th Century? Scrap Rimbaud. I give you Tom Kryss. What Tom Kryss does, more than any poet I know, is strip away excess and cut to the bone. He staked out a modest turf and then hunkered down and stayed there. He has not squandered time and blurred his focus chasing down publishers and polishing his image. So that what he writes is unencumbered and fraught with the particular, which is the unique, which is the only way to get a handle on the universal. What he writes always gives you something and never takes anything away. “

Sketch Book is his new book from Kamini Press, number 5 in our Poetry Series. 40 pages of prose poems. Cover art by Tom Kryss. All 150 books signed by the author in Ravenna (this American town with the beautiful Italian name). Twenty-five of the books come with a hand-tinted and signed print by Tom Kryss. Author portrait painting by Henry Denander.

[quickshop:Tom Kryss – Sketch Book – Signed – Kamini Press:price:10:shipping:0:shipping2:0:end]10 USD Signed book including postage all over the world.

[quickshop:Tom Kryss – Sketch Book – Signed plus Artwork – Kamini Press:price:25:shipping:0:shipping2:0:end]25 USD Signed book with artwork including postage all over the world.

Please

use the PayPal button above or send cash in a brown envelope to Kamini Press, Ringvägen 8, 4th floor, SE-117 26 Stockholm, Sweden. In Sweden pay SEK 60,-/150,- (including postage) to Bankgiro 5889-0781, or get the book from Bokmagasinet, in Stockholm.

Tom Kryss | Painting by Henry Denander

Tom Kryss Books and Broadsides

• Cleveland Poems, Chicago Poems & Other Shit – Free Love Press – Cleveland 1967
• Look at the Moon Then Wipe the Light from Your Eyes and Tell Me What you See – Runcible Spoon – Sacramento 1968
• Nuclear Roses and Quiet Rooms – Open Skull Press – San Francisco 1969
• Dialogue in Pale Blue (with r.j.s.) – Broken Mimeo Press – Cleveland 1969
• The Book of Rabbits (Krulik Ksiega) – Ayizan Press – Cleveland 1969
• Sherwood Anderson’s Blue’s – Gunrunner Press – Milwaukee 1970
• Sleep Like Yellow Thunder – Second Aeon Publications – Cardiff, Wales 1970
• Dog’s Body – No Deposit No Return – Victoria, B.C. 1970
• New Majiks (Selected Poems & Rabbits) – Radical America – Cambridge, MA 1970
• Sunflower River – Dead Angel Press – Portland, OR 1972
• I Am the One Who Walks the Road (with Douglas Blazek and Don Cauble) – Dead Angel Press – Portland, OR 1972
• Music in the Winepress, Parrots in the Flames – Vagabond Press – Ellensburg, WA 1976
• Falling through the Cracks – Fuck If I Know Press – San Francisco 1984
• Coltrane Spins a Note – Black Rabbit Press – Cleveland 1990
• Dusty Dog #6 – (John Pierce, Publisher) – Zuni, NM 1992
• Strange Attractors – Zerx Press – Albuquerque, NM 1993
• Current Outsider (Tribute Sampler) – Vagabond Press Home Page – Ellensburg, WA 2000
• Just Blue Skies: Poems for & after d.a. levy (An Electronic Chapbook) – d.a. levy Home Page; cooperative presentation of Ghost Pony, Kaldron On-line, Light and Dust Mobile Anthology of Poetry 2001
• Downwind from the Fires of Nothingness – Kirpan Press – Vancouver, WA 2001
• 7 Poems & a Eulogy (with Steve Ferguson) – Ferguson Press – Cleveland 2003
• Sunflower Wars – Bottle of Smoke Press – Leesburg, VA 2003
• Death March (Poems for All #296) – 24th Street Irregular Press – Sacramento 2003
• Sunflower River for Jim Lowell (Bottle #2) – Bottle of Smoke Press – Bear, DE 2004
• Wiring Tutorial for Unshielded Twisted Pair (with Matthew Wascovich) – Slow Toe Publications, Cleveland 2004
• Entrance Level Opportunities - (Six Pack #4) – Bottle of Smoke Press – Bear, DE 2004
• Horse – Kirpan Press – Vancouver, WA 2004
• Two for the Asphodel – Costmary Press – Kent, OH – November 2004
• Here’s Wishing You Good Work in 2005 (assorted rabbits) – Jeff Maser, Bookseller – Berkeley 2004
• The Music Box Store (printed by Jason Davis of Verdant Press for Jeff Maser, Bookseller – Berkely 2005
• Brotherhood – Bottle of Smoke Press – Dover, DE 2005
• Real Time – Costmary Press – Kent, OH – June 2005
• Sunlight – Bottle of Smoke Press – Dover, DE – October 2005
• Spring into Winter – Kirpan Press – Vancouver, WA 2005
• Encyclical (Bottle #4) – Bottle of Smoke Press – Dover, DE 2006
• Real (Poems for All #617) – 24TH Street Irregular Press – Sacramento – May 2006
• The Search for the Reason Why – Bottom Dog Press – Huron, OH 2006
• In a Time without Sunflowers – Bottle of Smoke Press – Dover, DE 2006
• Unchained Melody – Letters Bookshop – Toronto 2006
• Rabbit (illustrated coaster) – Bottle of Smoke Press – Dover, DE 2006
• Further Downwind from the Fires of Nothingness (Measured Steps #5 with John Bennet and d.a. levy) – Kirpan Press – Vancouver, WA 2006
• At the Beginning & the End (Measured Steps #7 with Alan Horvath and d.a. levy ) – Kirpan Press – Vancover, WA 2006
• Where the Rainbow Ends (Measured Steps #8 with Jake Marx and David Pishnery) – Kirpan Press – Vancouver, WA 2006
• The Certificate of Nemeth Racz (Bagozine #55) – Word e Print – Cleveland – January 20, 2007
• Dusk (Populist Poems #12) – Bottom Dog Press – Huron, OH 2007
• In Reserve – Costmary Press – Kent, OH – February 2007
• Be the Poem (Bagozine #56) – Word e Print – Cleveland – February 17, 2007
• The Last Leaf (Bottle #5) – Bottle of Smoke Press – Dover, DE 2007
• Morel, the Clown (Bagozine #60) – Word e Print – Cleveland – August 18, 2007
• Was Lauft Er? (GPP Anthology) – Green Panda Press – Cleveland – August 2007
• The Case for Hope – Costmary Press – Kent, Ohio – January 2008
• The Attempt Itself – Green Panda Press – Cleveland – May 2008
• Stop, Look, What’s That Sound – Kirpan Press – Vancouver, WA – June 2008
• Tree Challenged - Kirpan Press – Vancouver, WA – August 2008
• Again – Costmary Press – Kent, Ohio – December 2008
• They Know Me at the Library – Costmary Press – Kent, Ohio – January 2009
• Tell What It Is To Be a Man – Costmary Press – Kent, Ohio – January 2009
• Light Dark Light - Iniquity Press / Vendetta Books – Manasquan, New Jersey – February 2009
• Two Poems and a Print – Costmary Press – Kent, Ohio – February 2009
• Roses That Bloom - J.W. Curry – Ottawa, Canada – March 2009
• At the Edge of the Forest – Yellow Pepper Press – Douglasville, GA – March 2009
• Roses that Bloom – Kirpan Press – Vancouver, WA – April 2009
• A Selection of Poems – This Passing World website – Portland, OR – June 2009
• The Little White Elephants of Senegal – Grey Sparrow Press – Kent, Ohio – August 2009
• Birds Don’t Talk - Costmary Press – Kent, Ohio – August 2009

Kamini Press
poet Tom Kryss wrote this letter in 1967, in support of da levy and Jim Lowell; who were under indictment by local authorities in Cleveland for the selling and dissemination of alleged obscene poetry. A collection of testimonials in behalf of Lowell, gathering anti-censorship discourse from American authors such as Charles Olson, Hubert Selby Jr., Charles Bukowski, Denise Levertov, James Laughlin, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and others, was published, with proceeds ploughed into Lowell’s defense fund.

A part of small press history, indeed.

Check out the Mimeo Mimeo blog.

BIRD EFFORT

by Ronald Baatz

32 pages of poems. First edition of 225 copies out of which 125 are signed by the poet. Twenty-five special copies contain an original signed water color & ink painting by Henry Denander. Mini-chapbook format, in wraps. Cover artwork by Henry Denander.

[quickshop:Bird Effort – Ronald Baatz – Kamini Press:price:10:shipping:0:shipping2:0:end]10 USD incl. shipment cost world-wide

[quickshop:Bird Effort – Ronald Baatz – Limited Edition – Kamini Press:price:25:shipping:0:shipping2:0:end]25 USD incl. shipment cost world-wide for the limited edition with signed artwork.

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I think Ronald Baatz is one of America’s finest poets. I know that many will agree with me when I say so. You probably know Baatz already but if you don’t you should read this book as an introduction, since it is as good as his other books, and they set a very high standard. A book consisting of fifty beautiful, short poems with birds as the central theme.

I don’t know how many times I have read these wonderful poems during the process of putting this book together but still I like to have the book close by or in my pocket when travelling. I love these minimalist poems.

I think this chapbook will one day come to be regarded as somewhat of a classic – a chapbook that people later will try to locate, only to find that a mere 225 copies were made and all are gone.

Ronald Baatz is not so keen on writing about himself or on metrying to present him. He wrote once: ”the only bio i ever give is that i’ve been living in the same farmhouse close to twenty years.” Here at Kamini Press we are very proud to present the fourth chapbook in our poetry series. Henry Denander

Please

use the PayPal button above or send cash in a brown envelope to Kamini Press, Ringvägen 8, 4th floor, SE-117 26 Stockholm, Sweden. In Sweden pay SEK 60/ SEK 150:- (including postage) to Bankgiro 5889-0781, or get the book from Bokmagasinet, in Stockholm.

SOME NATURAL THINGS

poems by Glenn W. Cooper

32 pages of poetry, mini-chapbook format, in wraps. Cover artwork by Henry Denander. First edition of 100 copies, all signed by the poet. This is the first title from Kamini Press and the first book in the Kamini Press Poetry Series.Please click the cover to enlarge.

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Glenn Cooper lives in Tamworth, Australia and for many years he’s been widely published in the small press and beyond. This is Glenn Cooper’s sixth book of poetry.

GERALD LOCKLIN says: I have thought very highly of Glenn Cooper’s work for many years, he’s a throwback to the glory days of the Wormwood Review. A first-rate poet in the debut of a very attractive new series.

ANN MENEBROKER says: Glenn Cooper’s poems are a walking companion in the rain. Something to think about under an umbrella. The poems are reflective of our losses, but also include the humor that grows like a palm tree in the snow. Glenn is ever the student, contemplating the forces of life which we have no control over. He says it best himself, the poignant need to write about “the small pleasures, just to make life beautiful.” And he does.

DAVID BARKER says: I highly recommend Glenn Cooper’s SOME NATURAL THINGS. A light touch, deep resonance. He writes about rain better than anyone I’ve ever read. As if rain was his dead sister. A beautifully designed little book that reads like a big book.

ADRIAN MANNING says: Congratulations on the first Kamini Press publication. The chapbook itself is beautiful – a top class publication, and the poetry from Glenn Cooper is fantastic. I recommend it to anyone.

JEFFREY WEINBERG says: A fantastic book…Fine poetry..Gorgeous design and print job.

T.K.SPLAKE says: …the cooper poem “gravy” is one of the best writings I can remember in the past long while…

STEVENALLENMAY of Plan B Press writes on his blog: The beauty of this blog is when I happen across the “globalization” effect of small presses, take for example the new small press out of Sweden Kamini Press. Poet/artist and now publisher Henry Denander has created a new line of finely made chapbooks. One of the first is by Australian poet Glenn Cooper. His poetry is well written. The chapbook is very handsome indeed. Cover art by publisher, overall completely worth checking out.

CHRISTOPHER ROBIN at The Guild of Outsider Writers: Sparse, rainy day influenced poems. In ‘The Sandy Bottom Exposed,’ Cooper makes the correlation between the health of a local river and the health of the community: “the old timers say the river has never looked so bad/so sick/and the crime rate is up around here too/ so maybe there’s some truth to what Jung says.”

These poems are more philosophical than whimsical and not asking to be taken lightly, as many nature poems I have read prior to this I am more likely to skip over for stating the obvious; but not these, he writes about the real natural world, ecology, and the affect on his psyche and his relationships. He reflects on the fragility and also the overwhelming power of nature, sometimes told through the experience of watching a small child, as in ‘Four Year Old Collecting Eggs.’

These are beautiful poems that never get bogged down by over-sentimentality, many poems dealing with the topics of love, nature, fragility and getting older. Highly recommended.

Please

use the PayPal button above or send cash in a brown envelope to Kamini Press, Ringvägen 8, 4th floor, SE-117 26 Stockholm, Sweden. In Sweden pay SEK 60:- (including postage) to Bankgiro 5889-0781, or get the book from Bokmagasinet, in Stockholm.

THE POET SEES HIS FAMILY SLEEPING

poems by Samuel Charters

34 pages of unpublished poems. First edition, 200 copies, all signed by the poet. Mini-chapbook format, in wraps. Cover artwork and author portrait by Henry Denander.

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Samuel Charters began his life with small presses in the 1950s in New Orleans when he shared a rundown French Quarter building with Gypsy Lou and Jon Webb and made his first magazine appearance in an issue of their ground-breaking magazine The Outsider. Beginning in the mid-1960s his poetry chapbooks, broadsides, and literary essays were published by Berkeley’s Oyez Press, many designed and printed by the legendary Graham MacIntosh. With their own Portents press, he and his wife Ann published small pieces by, among many others, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Charles Olson, and Robert Creeley. With Ginsberg they created the book Scenes Along The Road, the first look at the story of the Beat Generation.

In the other world of publishing he has written innumerable books on jazz and the blues, as well as novels, biographies, translations, and travel memoirs, and worked with Ann on the first biography of Jack Kerouac. He is also responsible for the poetry section of their college introduction-to-literature textbook Literature And Its Writers, now in its 4th edition. Their current project is the authorized biography of Beat novelist John Clellon Holmes. His own most recent book is the first history of New Orleans jazz, A Trumpet Around The Corner.

A sample poem from The Poet Sees His Family Sleeping:

Conundrum

a

There is no hell,
but I stumble there – often.
No heaven,
but I journey there – sometimes.

Please

use the PayPal button above or send cash in a brown envelope to Kamini Press, Ringvägen 8, 4th floor, SE-117 26 Stockholm, Sweden. In Sweden pay SEK 60:- (including postage) to Bankgiro 5889-0781, or get the book from Bokmagasinet, in Stockholm.

THE PLOT OF IL TROVATORE

and other poems

by Gerald Locklin

32 pages of poems. First edition of 300 copies out of which 125 are signed by the poet. Twenty-five special copies contain an original signed water color & ink painting by Henry Denander. (First come first served…) Mini-chapbook format, in wraps. Cover artwork and author portrait by Henry Denander.

[quickshop:The Plot of Il Trovatore – Gerald Locklin – Kamini Press:price:10:shipping:0:shipping2:0:end]10 USD incl. shipment cost world-wide

The Limited Edition is SOLD OUT

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Gerald Locklin is the author of over 125 books and chapbooks of poetry, fiction and criticism with over 3000 poems, stories, articles, reviews and interviews published in periodicals.

CHARLES BUKOWSKI wrote about Locklin: ”I have never been let down. I have been picked up, lifted up, tossed into that rare area: excellent writing with verve, writing that laughs, writing that reads easy yet says something. That’s a good package.”

MARVIN MALONE wrote: ”His poems are about real people and places that illustrate with common language the classic themes of love, envy, honesty, integrity etc. He is pro-people.”

EDVARD FIELD: ”The male spirit in him remains honest, bighearted, sentimental, generous, gentle, vulnerable, but sassy in the face of adversity – qualities that could be applied to as few American poets as to presidents. I think of him as a wonderful, protective big brother every sensitive little boy needs.”

Please

use the PayPal button above or send cash in a brown envelope to Kamini Press, Ringvägen 8, 4th floor, SE-117 26 Stockholm, Sweden. In Sweden pay SEK 60:- (including postage) to Bankgiro 5889-0781, or get the book from Bokmagasinet, in Stockholm.