Augury Books

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Halfway Point For Augury Books’ 2013 Reading Period

Photo by: Dave Bledsoe of FreeVerse Photography

We’re halfway there, friends, in our reading period for poetry books and short story collections. Many thanks to those of you who have already sent us your manuscripts. If you’re still cracking, no worries — you have another full month (until June 30, 2013) to get those poetry books and short story collections together to submit to Augury.

A few words about what we’re looking for: We gravitate toward pieces that are expertly written and keep us intrigued. We are not particular when it comes to content, as we have fallen in love with work from many different traditions and on many different topics, as well as work that defies tradition and “topics.”

We do, however, want to fall in love with it, so it should justify that kind of devotion. If you have fallen in love with it, we consider that a great place to start.

Now you know. Tell your friends, loved ones and acquaintances. We’ll be seeing you all within the next month!

For exact guidelines and to submit your manuscript, click here.

—Augury Books

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PHOTOS: Launch Party Loveliness

Thanks to all of you who made Augury Books’ launch party on Monday night a huge success. Here are a few highlights from the wonderful readings offered by Maureen Alsop, author of Mantic, and David Joel Friedman, author of Soldier Quick with Rain and the winner of our 2012 Editors Prize. Thanks also to Mark Connell and Botanica Bar, and our fabulous photographer, Dave Bledsoe of FreeVerse Photography. To order the new titles by Alsop and Friedman, click here.

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Save the Date: Feb 25th Launch Party for Books by David Joel Friedman and Maureen Alsop

We know how much you love poems, new books, and looking forward to stuff, so we wanted you to be the first to know about our upcoming launch party on Monday, February 25, 2013. We will be celebrating (and selling!) the brand-new, hot-off-the-presses Soldier Quick with Rain by David Joel Friedman, the winner of this year’s Editor Prize, and Mantic by Maureen Alsop.

We promise poetry readings, drink specials, friendly faces, handshakes, hugs and … did we mention NEW BOOKS? … all in the cozy back room of Botanica Bar on Houston Street in Manhattan at 6:30 p.m. You can RSVP to our Facebook invitation.

While you’re at it, Like us on Facebook to continue receiving updates, and, if you’re feeling really ambitious, you can follow this WordPress blog by clicking in the right corner below and stay informed that way.

We would also like to extend another mammoth and monolithic thank you to anyone and everyone who supported these books and other upcoming Augury endeavors during our Indiegogo campaign, be it with donations, word-of-mouth, moral support or good vibes. You are dazzling and darling individuals.

To pre-order Soldier Quick with Rain and Mantic, click here. RSVP to our book launch party on Facebook here.

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Deadline of the Editor’s Prize Extended!

We are happy to announce that we are extending the Editor’s Prize deadline until August 15th.

-The winner will receive a $750 honorarium and publication with Augury Books as well as 20 complimentary copies of the book. Additional copies can be purchased at a discounted price.

-This contest is open to anyone, except personal friends, colleagues or former students of the editors.

-Multiple submissions are accepted as long as each manuscript is submitted individually with separate reading fees.

-All entries will be considered for publication.

–Submit up 40-75 pages of poetry and an acknowledgments page. Please do not include a bio.

-Entry Fee: $20

We will accept submissions online through Submishmash at http://augurybooks.submishmash.com/Submit.

All money received will go directly towards the title and the maintenance of our catalog.

Unfortunately we will not be able to provide royalties to the winner beyond the honorarium.

We are unable to accept manuscripts from international authors at this time. Open to U.S. residents only.

 

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New Poem by Geoffrey Nutter!

To prepare you further for the New York City Poetry Festival, we are excited to present a new poem by another one of our readers, Geoffrey Nutter. To hear more by Geoffrey, who will be reading with B. C. Edwards and Paige Lipari, don’t forget to join us on Governors Island Saturday, July 21st at 2 pm at Chumley’s stage.

These Great Sentinels

 

These great sentinels

have been here so much longer than you,

bare as January, January bees,

bare as rain or boats of commerce snarled

on the highly trafficked waterway,

as the bowsprit of the Dutch fishing pink

(one of many curious boats)

or the Malay rigging of the Bombay yacht

(another one of many curious boats)

and the lights along the turrets of the cliffs

along the harbor basin shined.

 

And Mrs. Hannah Glass set her cliffside house

in order. It was a house of glass.

And out above the water burst

the Roman candles of July,

the apple-green meister-singers,

the long fire of an open secret, aquatic trees,

and the cerulean brothers of Jupiter, of love.

 

And these great sentinels have torn

a page of strange remembrancy

from your endless calendar

to let the cool wind charm you

(the cool wind of July–for a fragrance

of jasmine drifted over from the palace, from the forest).

For each season has its delights,

as each key unlocks a door–but the key

does not tell you which door it opens,

nor in which building you will find it.

 

Geoffrey Nutter has written three books: A Summer Evening, Water’s Leaves & Other Poems, and Christopher Sunset. The Rose of January will appear in 2013 through Wave Books. He lives with his family in Upper Manhattan.

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New poem by B. C. Edwards!

In anticipation of the upcoming New York City Poetry Festival on Governor’s Island, we are posting a new poem by one of our featured readers. Please join us on Saturday, July 21st at 2 pm at Chumley’s stage. Can’t wait that long? You can also hear Carter read on Friday the 13th at the H.I.P. Reading Series at Bar on A (170 Avenue A) at 7 pm.

Like Everything Was Already There

Joshua,
I am making a list of the things we need to buy
A bathroom scale
A weekend vacation house for the bathroom scale to live in
and keep occupied during the weeks that we are in the city.
A blender to keep the bathroom scale company. One of those nice ones
That can grind rocks into sand. That if we leave it too long
Will grind sand to dust. Dust to whatever comes after dust.
Pots of various sizes
and colors if possible
A vacuum for the dust and what comes next.
A couch
Two couches, actually, unless your sister has a spare
Mine does not. she has no extra couches
She is flush all out
but my sister is lousy with beds
We do not need any extra beds
we have between us five beds possibly more
we could each spend almost a week
every night in a different bed
and not sleep with each other once
A dry bar.
A shower curtain.
Stools for the dry bar.
A shower curtain liner,
but to be honest I don’t know what those are for
They just seem to get in the way, dangle on the wrong side of the tub at all the worst moments
I only added it to the list so that you wouldn’t think that I was one of those brutes that grew up only having a shower curtain and not the liner, which I was, in fact.
A dishwasher, because we should be honest about this, neither of us is going to wash the dishes. Probably not ever.
A maid. Mostly to deal with the dust, what comes after and also take the dishes out of their washer.
We’ll need a bedroom as well.
or really just the walls to define the bedroom.
because we kind of already know where the bedroom is
but haven’t told anyone
and without the walls there, no one will know that it’s the bedroom
but, as I said before, we’ve got plenty of beds for it.

B.C. Edwards lives in Brooklyn. He is the recipient of the 2011 Hudson Prize put out by Black Lawrence Press which will be publishing his collection of short fiction, “The Aversive Clause” in 2012 and his collection of poetry “From the Standard Cyclopedia of Recipes” in 2013. He is a regular contributor to BOMBlog and his work can be found in Red Line Blues, The Sink Review, Mathematics Magazine, Hobart and others. His short story “Illfit” is being adapted into a piece by the Royal Ballet of Flanders. He is also a Literary Death Match Champion and has the medal to prove it

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We are now open for submissions again!

 

We are so happy to announce that we are open for submissions again for the 2012 Editors’ Prize manuscript contest. Our reading dates are May 1st–July 31st 2012.

The winner will receive a $750 honorarium and publication with Augury Books as well as 20 complimentary copies of the book. This contest is open to anyone, except personal friends, colleagues or former students of the editors.

For further guidelines, please click on the Submissions tab at the top of our webpage. As you can see, we are excited to put our reading hats on; we hope you’ll put on your submitting hats too!

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To Mend Small Children by B.C. Edwards

“If you like to be spooked by poems, if you like poems to send you back into your quotidian existence with a more acute sense of its weirdness and charm, read “How to Mend Small Children” carefully. Edwards’ poems offer solutions to bizzaro problems and alchemic transmogrifications for exotic items, but their miraculous nature really lies in the way they transform the person who reads them. Prepare to visit a dimension that is weird, dark, funny and eerily similar to the one in which we live.” ~Ben Mirov

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FAMILY OF MANY ENZOS by Paige Lipari


Family of Many Enzos

“In Family of Many Enzos, Paige Lipari conjures a night kitchen that pulses with memory and fantastical incident. Volcanoes provide the heat, while “the red moon only comes out on the nights we stuff artichokes.” The cooking, too, is hardly homey: “enemies/ will be picking/ bones from their loaf,” and be sure to look for the “young American cousin in/ the sweet dumpling squash.” Smartly posed dilemmas of self-knowledge are entwined with strands of a generational saga, obliquely told yet vivid. Lipari pries at the connections that link all things sensual—food and pleasure (“Make me a feast out of the/ the brains you’ve lost in bed”)—to render felt intimacies, as well as the starkness of isolation: “Where are the candles kept?/ I am alone on this ceiling,/ and wasn’t even born timely to.” In Lipari’s night kitchen, the flame burns low but steady.” ~Albert Mobilio

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Book Release Party with Edwards & Lipari!

Finally, something to do Monday, February 20th if you live in the New York Tri-State area! Augury will be around to heartily celebrate the release of its three new titles. B.C. Edwards and Paige Lipari will also be there to read from their startlingly beautiful new chapbooks.

Also, music by Alicia Jo Rabins of Girls in Trouble! Cupcakes! Drink specials! Poetry! Books!

RSVP on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/272806632784695/

And we would be remiss if we didn’t thank everyone who supported Augury during our fundraising process. We made our goal! Thank you to donators, well-wishers, word-spreaders, hand-holders, and everyone else.