VIDA Interview: Augury Founder Kate Angus on Aesthetic Diversity

Photo by Dave Bledsoe, FreeVerse Photography

Just in time for the end of our reading period (5 days left, folks!), our own Kate Angus talks to VIDA’s Melinda Wilson about the issue of diversity and bias in the literary arts while also addressing the principles that have shaped Augury since its inception. Here’s a little teaser from the interview:

What we want more than anything is to publish more titles—the more books we can send out into the world, the greater statistical likelihood that they will reflect the multiplicity of personal experience and aesthetic range that we are interested in. —Kate Angus

Read the whole interview in VIDA’s Editor’s Corner here: http://www.vidaweb.org/editors-corner-10-kate-angus-for-augury-books

In the meantime, it is NOT TOO LATE send us your poetry manuscripts or short fiction collections on Augury’s Submissions Page. Get in under the wire before our reading period closes at 11:59 p.m., June 30, 2013.

Enjoy!

—Augury Books

Another by Augury Finalist Nicholas Hite: "Not an oubliette but similar"

Photo by: Dave Bledsoe, FreeVerse Photography

Photo by: Dave Bledsoe, FreeVerse Photography

 

Not an oubliette but similar

 

The times the men of the family used to

go deep sea fishing in the Gulf

& the other times they went

camping on small islands in Minnesota:

the times that I grew fiercely aware of my penis

& what it was supposed to mean

between my legs there flaccid like a wet sock

but I knew from talk around campfires with cousins

that it was to one day fatten, to become a sizeable portion of me.

I learned to carry it like a promise to myself;

later, like a promise I wanted to break,

like a hard carnivorous curse demanding

the meat of other people. To break.

Trading my virginity for his on Tuesday,

2002, as if we were going to remember each other

forever. When he didn’t bleed I felt cheated

& I stopped eating meat because

to want blood, it’s too much.

Let me love someone without perforating them.

Let me be that hole that they fall into.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Augury Introduces: Nicholas Hite is a 28-year-old attorney living in New Orleans with his vegan boyfriend, their blue-eyed dog, and a pet crawfish.

DON’T FORGET: Augury’s reading period is still open for another 10 days! Find out how to submit here.

Augury Books Is on Amazon — Order Your Favorites in a Flash

Photo by Amanda Noyes

In the interest of making ordering as effortless as possible, we are happy to announce that all five of our beautiful titles are now available on Amazon. Browse below to find the links to your favorite Augury poetry books and get to clicking. More functionality to come shortly! In the meantime, we still offer other ways to order. Get details anytime on our Orders Page.

While we’re here chatting, remember that Augury Books’ reading period is open for another 15 days only. Read our guidelines and send us your manuscripts here!

 

FIND AUGURY’S BOOKS ON AMAZON:

 

Buy Mantic on Amazon!

 

Buy Soldier Quick with Rain on Amazon!

 

Buy The Book of Lost Things on Amazon!

 

Buy Family of Many Enzos on Amazon!

 

Buy To Mend Small Children on Amazon!

 

Look Who We Discovered: A Poem by Nicholas Hite, 2012 Editors Prize Finalist

Photo by: Dave Bledsoe of FreeVerse Photography

A place of solidarity

The music of

there being

nothing else to say.

 

The lamplight is gold

in a way that only a joke

about doom could be gold.

 

Need can be so heavy.

 

“Oh,” he says.

“So you did meet Diane.

You met her at the wedding.”

Diane could right now be at a cocktail

party and things would

be the same.

I like however her hair

 

which is a mess of curls,

a toppled something.

 

There is a grammar and a syntax

to the aftermath. It consists of

certain configurations of the neck and shoulders;

of a way of moving which belies

how eager grief is for its own end;

a parse chainlink of circumlocution –

of where do you go and how is

the weather there; of wondering

if being the first to drink will make

you seem desperate and a target

for other mourners. Okay, we are

all hurting but not in your way;

 

in ways that are myriad and perverse,

like the spindle legs of the spider.

 

“Diane had never met him,”

he says, “but she is sure that

he was a good man. I’ve told her

as much myself.” The telling was a sham,

as were the casket and the eulogy; as is

the lamplight and the wanting to not need.

 

But there is this gravity of loss

in a way that suggests both heaviness

and attraction; the falling down and for.

Like when I forgot how to be hungry

for three months: those were

a good three months and I loved mirrors,

loved standing sideways in front of

them alone and pulling up my shirt

to watch what was once a beerbelly

wither; my ribcage a series of

enunciated erasure marks.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Augury Introduces: Nicholas Hite is a 28-year-old attorney living in New Orleans with his vegan boyfriend, their blue-eyed dog, and a pet crawfish.

DON’T FORGET: Augury’s reading period is currently OPEN through June 30, 2013, for poetry and short story books. Find out how to submit here.