Rachel Zucker speaks with poet, musician, and Jewish educator Alicia Jo Rabins about her new book, Fruit Geode, and her lifelong passion for writing: click to listen.
Alicia Jo Rabins’ interview with Commonplace
BOOK PARTY for & MORE BLACK
We had a full house at Greenlight Bookstore for t'ai freedom ford's book party for & more black. A big special thanks to readers jayy dodd, francine j. harris, and Donika Kelly. The crowd was feeling it and the mood was joyous! Congratulations t'ai!
photo @imayawashington.
t’ai freedom ford readings: updated
Below readers can discover the BOOK LAUNCH date & spring/summer readings in New York by t’ai freedom ford in promotion of her new book, & more black. Check back for updates!
| WWBPS Anniversary/Brooklyn Commons | April 26 | 388 Atlantic Ave, Brooklyn |
| Artbook/MOMA PS 1 | April 27 3 pm | 22-25 Jackson Ave, LIC, Queens |
| & more black Launch/Greenlight books | May 2 7:30 pm | 686 Fulton Street, Brooklyn |
| Jayy Dodd bookk Launch/Callicoon Fine Arts | May 3 6:30-8 pm | 49 Delancey Street, NYC |
| & more black celebration/Ode to Babel | May 5 4-7 pm | 772 Dean Street, Brooklyn |
| Stonewall Legacy Poetry Reading | June 25 9 pm | Bryant Park Reading Room, NYC |
| Shameless- A pride reading | June 26 9 pm | Housingworks Bookstore, NYC |
AWP 2019
This year we held a wonderful reading in Portland, Oregon as part of the AWP festival, which included readers from Augury, Belladonna*, & Noemi Press! Below are some pics we took of the event.
New book by t’ai freedom ford, & more black
Augury Books is pleased to announce that t’ai freedom ford‘s second collection, & more black, is now open to pre-sale orders. Check out the blurbs by Terrance Hayes and Patrick Rosal, then read or download an excerpt of the collection by clicking on the link.
Why two covers? Because the book is actually double-sided.
From the Press Release: t’ai freedom ford’s second collection of poems, & more black, is direct, ingenious, vibrant, alive, queer, & BLACK. By turns tough and sexy, wrapped up in the evolving language and sonics of life, these poems take their cue from Wanda Coleman’s American Sonnets as they rhapsodize and dialogue with artists such as Carrie Mae Weems, Glenn Ligon, and Wangechi Mutu, along with many other musicians, artists, and writers. The kinetic energy of ford’s words leap off the page in rebellious, stunning, and revelatory fashion—poems that mesmerize with sheer velocity and telling pauses.
FRUIT GEODE by Alicia Jo Rabins Announced as Finalist for National Jewish Book Awards
Today we are very pleased to announce that Alicia Jo Rabins’ second collection of poems, Fruit Geode, has garnered a Finalist spot in Poetry at the National Jewish Book Awards.
If you haven’t checked out the book yet, dive in here: https://augurybooks.com/fruit-geode-by-alicia-jo-rabins/
A big shout-out to Kate Angus, her editor, & Moshe Schulman, her publicist, for all the good work they’ve done with the collection.
Alicia Jo Rabins tour dates for Fruit Geode
Upcoming Performances
Saturday October 6 – Portland, OR
Fruit Geode book launch/performance!
@ Mother Foucault’s Bookshop with fiction writer Mat Johnson
523 SE Morrison St.
7 pm, free
October 20-21 – Seaview, WA
Airstream Poetry Festival @ Sou’wester!
Alicia reads, performs & teaches @ this festival at the inimitable Sou’wester Lodge
more details here
$15, call (360) 642-2542 for lodging or more info!
Thursday, October 25 – Northampton, MA
Fruit Geode launch reading/performance
@ Iconica Social Club, 7 pm door, 7:30 show
BYOB, snacks & drinks available for purchase
Sunday, October 28 – Fruit Geode NYC launch reading/performance!!!
14th St Y Theatre, 344 E 14th St
An evening of Jewish Women Writers from the West
with novelist Rebecca Clarren & poet Lynn Melnick
Q&A to follow
free and open to public, details coming shortly
Saturday, November 10 – Portland, OR
Alicia reads @ the Portland Book Festival!
Thursday, November 15 – San Francisco
Fruit Geode launch reading/performance
at Adobe Books & Arts Cooperative
3130 24th St, SF (in the Mission)
a double book-launch with the wonderful Jake Marmer!!!
free!
Sunday, November 25 – Baltimore
Fruit Geode book launch reading and performance!!!!
at The Ivy Bookshop
6080 Falls Road
Baltimore, MD 21209
5 pm, free and open to the public ** note this is an afternoon reading**
Monday, November 26 – NYC
Alicia reads & performs at The Poetry Project
131 E 10th Street @ 2nd Ave
w/Vi Khi Nao
8 pm, $8/$5 members, tickets here
Wednesday, November 28 – Hadley, MA
class visit, Mt Holyoke college
Thursday, November 29 – Exeter, NH
@ the Word Barn
66 Newfields Rd, Exeter, NH 03833
details tba, open to the public!
December 23-27, Birmingham UK
Alicia reads & performs at Limmud UK!
Open to conference attendees only
Free Books for Do-Gooders
Welcome, do-gooders! You’ve landed here because you’ve donated your time or money to a progressive cause and are looking for some summer reading!
Augury Books and Brooklyn Arts Press want to thank you for your good work. We are attempting to find ways we can make a difference, which means supporting individuals and organizations that resist, stand strong, speak out, demonstrate, and support each other. Not just in a single way, but in whatever myriad ways we can, because a lot of what we care about is under attack and it won’t end by utilizing one solution.
So in the spirit of supporting those who are helping others, we invite you to:
*visit the Augury Books and BAP websites and make your selection from the authors listed below
*let us know if you prefer an ebook or a pdf of your selected book
*email us (augurybooks@gmail.com) a screenshot of your donation receipt to any of the following social organizations (or any other like-minded progressive groups); or email us a paragraph detailing any current activist roles you hold in your communities.
*get a free book!
Please allow up to 2 weeks for books to arrive.
Some of our favorite orgs: Ali Forney Center, Coalition for the Homeless, Doctors Without Borders, Equal Justice Initiative, The Innocence Project, Lamda Legal, Planned Parenthood, National Center for Trans Equality, RAINN.org, Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES), Sierra Club, Social Justice Fund, Southern Poverty Law Center, World Central Kitchen.
Thank you!
Kate Angus & Joe Pan
__________________________________________
Augury Books
www.augurybooks.com
augurybooks@gmail.com
Authors
Arisa White
Carey McHugh
Halina Duraj
Joe Pan
Justine Post
Randall Horton
Sara Schaff
Brooklyn Arts Press
www.brooklynartspress.com
info@brooklynartspress.com
Authors
Alex Green
Alexander Boldizar
Anaïs Duplan
Carol Guess
Daniel Borzutzky
Dominique Townsend
Erika Jo Brown
Heather Morgan
Jay Besemer
Joe Fletcher
John F Buckley
Martin Ott
Martin Rock
Matt Runkle
Matt Shears
Michael Ernest Sweet
Michelle Gil-Montero
Noah Eli Gordon
Paige Taggart
Seth Landman
Announcing Our 2019 Titles
Augury Books is delighted to announce our 2019 titles! Congratulations to t’ai freedom ford whose poetry collection & more black, chosen from our January Open Reading Period, will be published in the spring, and Arisa White, whose hybrid-memoir Who’s Your Daddy? will be published in the fall.
This year we received over 550 submissions during our open reading period and were thrilled to discover so many manuscripts of great promise. We commend the many talented authors who sent us their work and are grateful for the opportunity to read their manuscripts!
About the author:
t’ai freedom ford is a New York City high school English teacher and Cave Canem Fellow. Her poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared in The African American Review, Apogee, Bomb Magazine, Calyx, Drunken Boat, Electric Literature, Gulf Coast, Kweli, Tin House, Obsidian, Poetry and others. Her work has also been featured in several anthologies including The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop and Nepantla: An Anthology Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color. Winner of the 2015 To the Lighthouse Poetry Prize, her first poetry collection, how to get over is available from Red Hen Press. t’ai lives and loves in Brooklyn where she is an editor at No, Dear Magazine.
About the book:
From the author: & more black is a collection of what ford calls “Black-ass sonnets” that take their cues from Wanda Coleman’s American Sonnets. For ford, the word “American” conjures the spirit of her ancestors. In that way, the poems are rebellious, outspoken and, as she says, “take no shit.” They investigate Black art, Black bodies, Black sexuality, and Black language, unapologetically and with a capital B.
About the author:
Cave Canem graduate fellow Arisa White is the author of Post Pardon, Hurrah’s Nest, A Penny Saved and Black Pearl. Her book You’re the Most Beautiful Thing That Happened was nominated for the 29th Lambda Literary Award and the chapbook “Fishing Walking” & Other Bedtime Stories for My Wife won the inaugural Per Diem Poetry Prize. As the creator of the Beautiful Things Project, Arisa curates cultural events and artistic collaborations that center narratives of queer and trans people of color. She serves on the board of directors for Nomadic Press and is an assistant professor at Colby College. arisawhite.com
About the book:
Arisa White’s Who’s Your Daddy?, a hybrid memoir combining poetry and creative nonfiction, is a meditation on paternal absences, intergenerational trauma, and toxic masculinity. Who’s Your Daddy? asks us to consider how the relationships we are born into can govern us, even through absence, and shape the dynamics we find and forge as we grow. White lyrically moves across distance and time, from Brooklyn to California to Guyana. Her book enacts rituals that plumb the interior reaches of the heart to assemble disconnected and estranged parts into something whole, tender, and strong.
AWP 2018, Tampa
Thanks for everyone that stopped by our booth at AWP in Tampa this year, we had a blast meeting new folks, seeing some old friends, dining in Ybor City, and selling a lot of Augury books!
Thanks also to everyone who brought soaps and other toiletries from their hotels to our booth, as we were able to drop off several donation bags at the Bonnie Center at Alpha House, which helps homeless pregnant woman and women with children. You can find photos over at the Brooklyn Artists Helping tumblr.
