Kaminipress

Anna Boschi | A Secret Correspondence

admin — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 10:17:12 +0000

Here at Kamini Press we are very proud to present a new book by Anna Boschi:

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.

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

Ann Menebroker | The Measure of Small Gratitudes

admin — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 09:24:34 +0000

Here at Kamini Press we are very proud to present

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)

Guy R. Beining | Out of the Woods into the Sun

admin — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 13:55:10 +0000

Poet Hound

Guy R. Beining was born in 1938 in London and arrived in New York City in the spring of 1940. He currently resides in Great Barrington, Massachusetts and has published thousands of poems along with hundreds of collages and drawings. His most recent exhibition was at the Hudson Opera House in Hudson, New York in 2010 and his collection of art paired with beautifully worded lines to accompany them has been published by Kamini Press in this collection titled Out of the Woods into the Sun.

The collection of paintings are carefully and vividly reflected throughout the pages of this small book in my hands: Inside, the people are abstract and interacting with one another while the words beneath link humanity to nature with lines such as “the lake on the sun was unwrinkled” and “between you & me the sea is us.” I’ll admit that I do not always understand how the words beneath each painting relate to the painting but it is inspiring and beautiful nonetheless. Through the entire collection I gather a sense of excitement and mystery and I am happy to share with you a couple of pictures of the contents:The pictures do not do this collection justice but I hope that you enjoy the art and the words together. Mr. Beining has dedicated this book “To all poets & artists that have stayed on track,” which I find a wonderful dedication and hope that all of you out there continue to pursue what inspires you.

If you enjoyed this review and would like a copy for yourself, there are signed copies available from editor Henry Denander at Kamini Press for $10.00 and those that include limited edition artwork are available for $25.00.– Paula Cary

New eyes are needed

My initial impression: the Kamini Press has done it again. There productions in color and the laid paper are fine selections again.This small chap book is a gem, again.

Beinings art work combines figurative, narrative and metaphor, “memory is a branch” and the immediacy in the painting strokes depicts an abstract sensibility, as well as, the gestural drawing offers an expressive attitude. Viewers will find a painting on every page, with a poetic sentence below. “the shoreline pretends to be an ointment.” The juxtapositions are immaculate; poetry and painting works in this book because the words redirect the reader back into the paintings and the tension between the images and the words draw us into the presence on the page.

I highly recommend this book for those who love art and writing.

Irene Koronas, Poetry Editor:Wilderness House Literary Review. Reviewer:Ibbetson Street Press

Readers of Beatnik

will know already how much I like the high production values of the Kamini Press mini-chapbooks. Out of the Woods marks a break from the poetry series publisher/ editor Henry Denander has been running for a while now on the Kamini imprint, in that it showcases 16 fine paintings instead of works by poets of the underground/ alternative press. Each painting is tagged, as it were, with a line of poetry by Beining, who also writes, and the lines provide clues, albeit in an abstruse, apparently illogical, koan-like fashion at times, to the paintings. I found this helpful, not being particularly confident about my understanding of Beining’s approach, which seems to present people as shapes and areas of dynamic colour rather than in conventional form. You, of course, might understand what he is doing immediately. In any event I am sure that you will appreciate the impact of the paintings, as I did; and I argue all the time that a creative work doesn’t have to be one hundred percent accessible to the individual reader/ listener/ viewer to be a success.

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)

Guy R. Beining | Out of the Woods into the Sun

admin — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 09:52:39 +0000

Out of the Woods into the Sun

Guy R. Beining

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)

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:

John Bennett | Battle Scars

admin — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 12:49:42 +0000

Henry Denander presents another fine, handsome, classy little book of poetry on his Kamini Press imprint, this time by a guy who’s been writing and publishing for more than forty years on the good side – that is, the side I presume all readers of BEATNIK inhabit, the side of the outlaws and the misfits, the firebrands, the men and women who are sometimes too inventive and personal and too free of habitual restriction to be appreciated in their own time, but might, if we ever bloom into a courageous race, be discovered again and have laurels tossed on their graves (though most would settle, like Jack’s ghost probably does, for empty beer bottles and fag packets). Bennett has been associated with a whole lot of poets you’ll probably like a whole lot, since you’re here and not at the page of the Poetry Book Society, but I won’t mention them because I don’t want to try to elevate the man on the strength of his connections. There’s too much of that in mainstream poetry and in the small press – Charles Bukowski called it ”clasping assholes” – and our poet doesn’t need it anyway. Let’s just say that in Battle Scars we get 30 poems, none of them more than 8 or 9 lines long, on subjects ranging from ”techno-corporate dictatorship” to the ageing process, all crisply expressed and humorously cynical. You think you have not read very much at the end of each one but you find the words echoing in your mind, the ideas sinking themselves into your consciousness and making you think again about something you thought you had an absolute grip on. So you go back and read again. It’s nothing to change the world, perhaps, but none of your ideas or my poetry are either; and Bennett would be profoundly suspicious of anybody who wanted to, I suspect. I liked it very much. If you’re interested after hearing me waffle on like this, why don’t you visit the Kamini Press website at http://www.kaminipress.com for more information. — Bruce Hodder, The Beatnik

The second poem

in John Bennett’s 40th book, Battle Scars, is three simple lines under the title Trust “Don’t trust/cause-oriented/people.”

In another poem, Mirrors Bennett writes:

After a
certain age
all mirrors are
good for is
checking for
skin cancer &
the nicotine
stain in
your mustache

And in another titled Lacking he notes:

We will
not do
what we
need to
do to
save ourselves.

We do not
have it
in us.

Bennett is obviously a man of few words, but words that pack a wallop, fraught with meaning, an arrow to whatever gets you thinking, whatever causes an emotion in you. He can take a thought, or a cliche and make into an aphorism. The titles let you know he is not messing around, that he is an in-your-face kinda guy: Ego Like Indelible Ink, Reading Tea Leaves, Diminishing Returns, Battle Scars, Less Is More, and plenty of others.

I admire Bennett’s ability to boil down what could be a seemingly endless poem into six or eight lines and instead of leaving the reader confused or wondering what he said, he makes direct contact and you say, “Oh, yah!”

If you want a book that you can easily relate to and have it small enough to carry in a pocket or pocketbook, then this is definitely for you. By the way, keep close at hand to keep you out of trouble.– by Zvi A. Sesling

[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 | Battle Scars

admin — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 11:11:41 +0000

Battle Scars

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.

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.Â 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 GrabbersÂ 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 GrabbersÂ 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….andÂ 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.”Â (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

t. kilgore splake | the poet tree

admin — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 11:35:36 +0000

t. kilgore splake is a one of a kind, post-Beat, small press poet, with a romantic streak bigger than his beloved UP of Michigan and a body of work unrivaled by most of his contemporaries. You can set your clock by the deliberate, measured pacing of his free verse machinations and if you don’t love the soul of this man, well, have I ever got some overpriced, upscale, academic poetry I’d like to pawn off on your dismally pretentious ass.

splake’s poems are like missives, journal entries from a fading, too-soon-to-be-gone world. What he loves, what he wrestles with, who he is, is all there, right in the poems. As someone who came late to the ”profession” (the first two definitions of that word say it all: ”1 : the act of taking the vows of a religious community 2 : an act of openly declaring or publicly claiming a belief, faith, or opinion” i.), one of his major themes is his ongoing battle with ”dame muse” or ”damn dame muse.” The declarative nature and gender of this theme are telling. His heroes are championed throughout his work: Richard Brautigan, Hemingway, Harrison, the Beats, Vonnegut, Bukowski … the list is long and his admiration unflagging. Even his name – kilgore from Vonnegut, splake, as in a type ”trout,” a simultaneous tribute to Mr. V’s great character and the trout swimming upriver from the Brautigan mythos, and the t., well, I’m not telling about that – is collage as homage. He is a great lover of the outdoors, a fisherman, an inveterate hiker of the nearby Cliffs, an excellent photographer, and a man of decided opinions.

Oh, and did I mention: he is a wonderful poet.

There have been many fine collections of his work throughout the years, including poetry, prose, and photography. He has been championed by many such as Jim Chandler of Thunder Sandwich, whose interview with the poet is a great place to start for the uninitiated. Though his work may not appeal to all and, if we are honest, whose would, those who are attracted to it grab tight and hold on.

It is with great pleasure that I received in the mail recently a beautiful little chapbook, published by Henry Denander’s Kamini Press of Stockholm, entitled The Poet Tree and Other Poems. Though splake writes well in longer forms of 1, 2, and more pages, this tiny little volume concentrates on one of his greatest assets: the short poem, 15 or so lines or less. Here is the opening salvo:

divinity

red thimbleberries
like Jesus’ blood
chartres stained glass

In 3 short lines is captured quite a bit of what splake is about: the beauty, and his fascination with, nature, a drop or two of sacrilege, and an all pervasive appreciation of art.

No mean feat, as it took Proust 7 lengthy volumes and over 1.5 million words to capture what Splake sketches in a telling 9 words.

He can capture himself, too, with a stark honesty, in this poem putting the photographer’s precise eye to fine effect:

coming into spring

young pretty girl
espresso and laptop
conglomerate café morning
window table voyeur
while bears still sleeping
somewhere under snow

Here the element of nature is transmuted into an almost haiku like epiphany. Like his old friend and fellow poet, Albert Huffstickler, splake has a thing about coffee shops, often chronicling them in his verse. Spring, by the way, is a big, if brief, thing in its coming to the UP.

There are ups and downs in his work, emotional swings of elation and depression, characteristic of many an artist. One of the ways the poet has chosen to deal is to go head on and wrestle the angel:

cojones time

”sunlight here i am”
bukowski

muse long gone
blank page contests
past distant memories
destiny in hand
hot chivas rush
bardic blood boiling
brain skull cavity
distant grey fog
dull hum-hum-humming
.357 ticket to ride
spared nursing home
score tied
overtime eternity

Like Ginsberg & other Beats before and after him, splake chooses to shed all articles in a rush to catch the rhythm of meaning, the click-clack sound of spirit riding, riding, straight into the midnight heart of It All. Yes, there is darkness and there is much light, there is the ultimate beauty of life and what is.

Norbert Blei, at poetry dispatch and other notes from the underground, did an excellent recent post on splake, replete with poem and an essay by the poet on what exactly ”the poet tree” is. To tempt you over to this essay, here is a picture I lifted from there:

You can get a nice signed edition of this beautiful little chapbook with over 30 of splake’s finest poems for a mere $9 from Henry Denander at Kamini Press. I highly recommend it.

Of course, I’m biased. The poet and I have corresponded for nearly 20 years, him sending me envelopes full of xeroxed articles of books of interests and poems, his and others, I sending back and commiserating over the collective doom of his much-loved Cubbies and my much maligned Buccos. Yes, baseball is another shared romance of a bygone era, two old fools on a virtual park bench lamenting the way it was.

And my bias goes beyond this epistolary friendship of the non-electronic variety. My friend has honored what I do, if only by association: imagine my true and happy surprise to read this, the title poem of his collection, for the first time in this chap:

poet tree

denander drawings
lilliput poems
tibetan prayer flag colors
suffering autumn storms
vanishing in winter blizzards
buried until spring
to be born again

Of course, it is possible that lilliput is just a modifier here, signaling the diminutive nature of the poems on the tree and in this collection and has nothing to do with Lilliput the magazine (4 splake poems from previous posts) at all. But I’d like to think differently, especially since it was italicized (of course, there is that other Lilliput) and knowing how splake love’s to refer to the things he enjoys.

Yes, I believe I’ll think otherwise, mistaken or not. Don Wentworth

t. kilgore splake | the poet tree

admin — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:52:24 +0000

Here another of our longtime favourites and companions; t. kilgore splake, the bardsmith of the Upper 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. He is a celebrated photographer, editor, Pushcart Price nominee poet and a vigorous mountain & cliff climber.

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.

[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

admin — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 17:54:17 +0000

Lemme put this straight; I am a big fan of Tom Kryss and have been for many years. His new title, Sketch Book, is no different than any other title by Tom Kryss, for here is a poet who is truly insightful and filters his pages with meaning. From the very first page, where he quotes Ohio poet Kenneth Patchen, to the very last line, you cannot put this little book down. Although at times I have found myself wondering why the poet did this and why he took this sentence in this or that direction, I kept on returning to the fact that here is a master, whether he is composing sonnets or prose poems. Sketch Book is being released in a limited edition of 50 signed copies and 100 regular copies. If you have a chance to order this book, I will urge you to do so as soon as possible.

—B.L. Kennedy, Reviewer-in-Residence

Here at Kamini Press we are proud to present another of our favorite poets and his new book:

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.

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