A poem by Alicia Jo Rabins

We are very excited to present work from our readers at the upcoming Augury Books & Friends offsite AWP reading/shindig in Seattle. The reading will be at Noble Neon, 3130 Airport Way S on Friday, February 28th from 7:30 until we all feel like going back to our hotels. If you’ll be in Seattle, please join us!

Photo by Dave Bledsoe, FreeVerse Photography

 Chute

Each time a baby is born
the universe squeezes itself
through a chute,
the same chute
into which
suicides squeeze themselves.
Its mouth
is lined with small iron teeth.
When you bathe your father
who has become like a child,
you feel the teeth
on your fingers.
When your father asks
who you are,
it means his legs have been
sucked in.
For you the tunnel’s
mouth is closed;
for him it is open
and oiled.

Alicia Jo Rabins is a poet and musician currently based in Portland, OR. Her work appears in American Poetry Review, 6×6, Boston Review, Court Green, Ploughshares and The Collagist. She tours internationally with her band, Girls in Trouble, a song cycle about the complicated lives of Biblical women, and has performed fiddle music across Central America and Kuwait. Residencies and scholarships include Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and Bucknell Seminar for Younger Poets.

This Friday, Jan 24 — Launch Party for BEAST and THE FAMILY CANNON

Photo by Dave Bledsoe of FreeVerse Photography

You’ve saved the date, you’ve told your friends.

Now all you have to do is show up at 7 pm on Friday, Jan 24, to Augury Books’ 2014 launch party for our new books: Frances Justine Post’s BEAST, and Halina Duraj’s THE FAMILY CANNON, Augury’s first fiction publication. Enjoy the friends, the wine, and the readings by Post, Duraj, Timothy Donnelly, and Ely Shipley. Then come join us after for drinks down the street.

Details

What:  2014 launch party for Augury’s new books! Complete with readings, drinks, and irresistible new books for sale.

Who:  Augury Books’ new authors, Frances Justine Post and Halina Duraj, as well as special guests Timothy Donnelly (The Cloud Corporation) and Ely Shipley (Boy with Flowers).

When:  7:00 p.m. — Friday, January 24, 2014; Join us after the event for drinks in the neighborhood.

Where:  Berl’s Poetry Shop — 126A Front Street / Brooklyn, NY 11201 (next to Superfine in D.U.M.B.O.)

Why:  Because we all love new poetry, new fiction, wine, and each other.

How:  Take the F to York Street or the A/C to High Street. And you can RSVP to this event on Facebook.

Secure your copies of THE FAMILY CANNON and BEAST now by pre-ordering!

Announcing Augury’s 2014 Launch Party: Friday, January 24th at Berl’s Poetry Shop

Hamlet’s terrace, Kronborg, Denmark

Hello friends! It’s almost time to celebrate the launch of Augury’s 2014 catalogue: Frances Justine Post‘s poetry book, Beast, and Halina Duraj‘s book of short fiction, The Family Cannon

Help us celebrate putting these two books out into the world. At the same time, enjoy readings by Augury’s debut authors, Frances Justine Post and Halina Duraj, as well as guest readings by Timothy Donnelly and Ely Shipley.

Details

Who: Augury Books’ new authors, Frances Justine Post and Halina Duraj, as well as poets Timothy Donnelly (The Cloud Corporation) and Ely Shipley (Boy with Flowers).

What:  2014 launch party for Augury’s new books! Complete with readings, drinks, and irresistible new books for sale.

When:  7:00 p.m. — Friday, January 24, 2014; Join us after the event for drinks in the neighborhood.

Where:  Berl’s Poetry Shop — 126A Front Street / Brooklyn, NY 11201 (next to Superfine in D.U.M.B.O.)

Why:  Because we all love new poetry, new fiction, wine, and each other.

How:  Take the F to York Street or the A/C to High Street. Also, please RSVP to this event on Facebook.

Secure your copies of The Family Cannon and Beast now by pre-ordering!

Now Available for Pre-Order: 2014’s ‘Beast’ and ‘The Family Cannon’

PRE-ORDER BELOW:

Beast by Frances Justine Post (Poetry, January 2014)

AND

The Family Cannon by Halina Duraj (Fiction, January 2014)

Beast by Frances Justine Post (Poetry, January 2014)

There is plenty of Circe, and plenty of Caliban, too, in the poems of Frances Justine Post’s book BEAST. Carl Jung would have nodded in affirmation at the way in which myth and archetype pulse and flow under the surface of her poems—wolf, whale, cannibal, fire, doll. Her monologues cast the speaker’s self into these tableaux, and it’s hard to convey the detailed viscerality with which Post renders the human psyche—in all its needy, vengeful, rueful, generous and knowing configurations. ‘What have you been killing, my dear? / Let me wipe your chin.’ Post’s theme is hopeless love, but there is so much bravado, courage, insight, and self-knowledge in the poems that BEAST feels like a weird, wild, somewhat frightening party. Not to mention the sensuous, acrobatic flamboyance of Post’s remarkable writing, which carries this psychic carnival all proudly into Art.”

 Tony Hoagland, author of What Narcissism Means to Me

Frances Justine Post

Frances Justine Post is the recipient of the “Discovery” / Boston Review Poetry Prize, the Inprint Paul Verlaine Poetry Prize, and the Amy Award from Poets & Writers. Her poems have appeared in American Letters & Commentary, Boston Review, Denver Quarterly, The Kenyon Review Online, The Massachusetts Review, Pleiades, Western Humanities Review, and others. Originally from Sullivan’s Island, SC, she received her MFA from Columbia University and is currently earning her PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Houston, where she is poetry editor for Gulf Coast Magazine.

Order BEAST Now on Amazon — Look for it NEW from seller Augury Books

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The Family Cannon by Halina Duraj (Fiction, January 2014)

With quiet astonishment, Halina Duraj explores the mysteries of love and madness, offering her readers the secret salvation of story. Between a father’s reinvention of himself, a mother’s perplexing fidelity, and a woman’s navigation of the complexities of betrayal, we discover the exquisite pleasures of a world restored and redeemed through Duraj’s luminous gaze, the loving attention and tender playfulness of an extravagantly passionate imagination.”

Melanie Rae Thon, author of The Voice of the River and In This Light

Halina Duraj’s stories have appeared in The Sun, The Harvard Review, FictionWitness, and other journals. She has an MA in creative writing from the University of California, Davis, and a PhD in literature and creative writing from the University of Utah. In 2012, she was a writer-in-residence at Hedgebrook, a women’s writing retreat on Whidbey Island, WA. She teaches at the University of San Diego, where she also directs the Lindsay J. Cropper Center for Creative Writing.

Order THE FAMILY CANNON Now on Amazon — Look for it NEW from seller Augury Books

Poet Katie Fowley’s ‘Lullaby’

Photo by Dave Bledsoe of FreeVerse Photography

LULLABY

by Katie Fowley

Let’s all become nurses
And sleep in low places
A spa of red flowers
A block of old trees.

Away from your window
Across from your building
A building like yours
Lets off its new steam.

It’s better this weather
It’s better than silk.

The sky is a gray thing
The sky wants to hold you
The sky is away now.
It cannot white out.

Let’s all become nursemaids
And sleep in low places
Let’s all become jelly
In a spa of red hearts.

The heart is an urchin
The heart isn’t well now
The heart has a fever.
It wants to black out.

Let’s all become nurses
And sleep by the fire
The winter umbrellas
A host of red hair.

It’s a good thing this building.
This mantle of gleaming.
I’ll build you a building
If you live there with me.

Like snakes in the building
Like birds in the building
The men in the building
Are circling free.

The dusk is a low thing.
The dusk wants to hold you.
You cannot be held now.
You cannot walk out.

Come out of your building
Fluorescent in gloaming.
The windows are darkening.
The smell of green tea.

This green is depressing.
This green light is fetching
The light from the ether
The light from your knee.


Katie Fowley is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her poetry and criticism have been published in No, Dear; 6×6; and Rain Taxi: Review of Books. She is a co-editor of Lightful Press, which publishes poetry, translation, and art. Her chapbook is forthcoming from DIEZ in spring, 2014.

Editor’s Note: Many thanks to Ugly Duckling Presse’s 6×6, in which “Lullaby” first appeared.

Maureen Alsop & Joshua Gottlieb-Miller Collaborate on ‘Cloud’

Photo by Dave Bledsoe, FreeVerse Photography

Mantic author Maureen Alsop and Joshua Gottlieb-Miller, winner of the 2012 Indiana Review Poetry Prize, paired up to create this piece of poetic splendor, “Cloud,” via A-Minor Magazine. Thanks, all!

Read “Cloud” at A-Minor Magazine.

Read more from Maureen Alsop or order Mantic.


Maureen Alsop, Ph.D., is the author of two full-length collections of poetry, Mantic and Apparition Wren, and several chapbooks. Maureen is an associate poetry editor for the online journal Poemeleon and Inlandia: A Literary Journal. She presently leads a creative writing workshop for the Inlandia Institute/Poets & Writers, and the Rooster Moans. Collaborative poems with poet, Joshua Gottlieb-Miller have recently appeared on Verse Daily, Contrary, Inertia, and Switchback. http://www.maureenalsop.com


Joshua Gottlieb-Miller is the winner of the 2012 Indiana Review Poetry Prize. He lives in Madison, WI, where he works as a writing center coordinator and grocer, and volunteers with the Writers in Prisons Project at Oakhill Correctional Institution.

From "Solitude Must Share My Solitude" by 2013 Poetry Finalist Pia Aliperti

Photo by Dave Bledsoe, FreeVerse Photography

Photo by Dave Bledsoe, FreeVerse Photography

 

From “Solitude Must Share My Solitude” by Pia Aliperti

A fixed fire
a quiet, collected aspect.

Now for the hitch in the storm.

Fix your hair
bathe your face,

white-walled life.
I would then be your mistress.

 


Pia Aliperti holds an MFA from The New School. Her poems and reviews have appeared recently in Rattle, The Best American Poetry blog, H_NGM_N, and Publishers Weekly.

 

"Playing Tennis Against a Wall" by 2013 Poetry Finalist Andrew James Weatherhead

Photo by Amanda Noyes

Photo by Amanda Noyes

Playing Tennis Against a Wall

by Andrew James Weatherhead

The only way to win
is to rent a bulldozer
file a construction permit
learn how to operate
a bulldozer.
Don’t be a sore loser.
Trace the thought
back to the beginning.
The bus is late, again
but it’s here. It’s just you
and the driver.
His ringtone is that
Ennio Morricone song.
You know the one.
He has to use his hands.
He says, “Who is this?”
Then, “Oh, good morning.”

 


Andrew James Weatherhead holds a degree in Neuroscience from NYU, an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School, and is an Eagle Scout. His website is www.andrewweatherhead.org.

Poem by 2013 Augury Finalist Travis Macdonald

Photo by Dave Bledsoe, FreeVerse Photography

How To Keep Clean When The World Around You Is Going To Shit

by Travis Macdonald

Spoiler alert: there’s no secret meaning asleep beneath
every single love story. The human mouth contains
about 20 billion bacterium breeding
endlessly. Generations live and die in the grip
of your indigenous indigestion. Meanwhile we are still

killing the buffalo but with birth control
darts and BBQ sauce instead of bullets. Same dark hunger, different
villains in the seed vault stealing meals. It doesn’t take

Monsanto stock or an advanced degree to see we’re sinking in
iceberg sweat and high-speed propaganda bandwidths. You can get a PhD in pretty
much anything. Adieu

to you, dear country club bar mitzvah season. We miss
your microbe exchange rate slow dance doubling. With every chaperone slap

the effects of your affection hardened
into hidden tissues and hand-me-down zippers. Overstimulated
economic indicators of the apocalypse beware: This is the moment
where we begin to build our intimacy into a big brand name.

 


Travis Macdonald is a copywriter by day, editor by night and a poet in between. He is the author of two full-length collections (The O Mission Repo [vol. 1] and N7ostradamus) as well as several chapbooks. With his wife, JenMarie Macdonald, he publishes Fact-Simile Editions, a micropress dedicated to the creation of handmade contemporary poetic artifacts from recycled or reclaimed materials.