Reading

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Matthew Zingg’s ‘Mediations on Perspective’

Photo by Dave Bledsoe of FreeVerse Photography

M E D I A T I O N S   O N   P E R S P E C T I V E
by Matthew Zingg

Because the sky was wax paper the planes were
flies stuck in their holding patterns.

From a few thousand feet downtown must seem
          like something a man
could carve into a walnut shell.

It was just one of those days.

On the rooftop again a couple of dumb Lowells
in our hungover pajamas wagging two dollar
                 egg salad sandwiches
above our heads like late minute commandments.

You said: the city was wearing its clearest uniform.

I said: the brow of the park looked
scabrous and fresh

in its Sunday best, the air a shade
of yellow easiest to forget.

It was a game we played—to see how far the other
could take all this acreage.

A balloon lifts up a couple blocks away

and it means an explosion, a portent
or it means a slow eye. In other words

there is nowhere else to go up here, stretched
          thin as we are
across this autumn afternoon.

Matthew Zingg‘s work can be found in The Paris-American, The Awl, Blackbird, Cider Press Review, HTML Giant, The Madison Review, Birdfeast, The Rumpus, Everyday Genius, and Muzzle, among others. He lives in Baltimore where he hosts the Federal Dust Reading Series.

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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

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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!