A detail from Photographs from a séance with Eva Carrière (1913), courtesy of Public Domain Review

Frances Justine Post’s BEAST (Augury Books, 2014) has recently been reviewed in the Philadelphia Review of Books. Poet Nina Puro examines the ways in which Post’s work questions the social boundaries and expectations of femininity.

Beast has an enigmatic interiority that plays out in an exploration of feminine selfhood and self-characterization. Post’s personas are shifting, complex, and increasingly vengeful as the book advances. […] Cecelia Bennett called Post’s work “frustrating” in Sabotage Review —this is accurate, but the frustration seems to me intentional: performance in protest. The frustration is not an occlusion to the reader—it’s a query. Post is not posturing to baffle or belittle; she is eliding definition in order to perplex, to incite curiosity. Post’s personas seek to dismantle; they will not be pinned down.”

Read the full review on the PRB‘s site.

More on BEAST

Augury’s Reading Period Is Open for Prose and Poetry May 1 – July 31, 2015:

Submit now via Submittable, and thank you for your interest in Augury Books!

Randall Horton has recently been featured in the Guernica/PEN Flash Series. The piece, “Because Hook Doesn’t Exist,” will be published as a slightly different version in Hook: A Memoir through Letters, forthcoming from Augury in 2015. The Guernica/PEN Flash Series, a partnership between Guernica: A Magazine of Art & Politics and the PEN American Center, publishes new flash prose twice every month. You can subscribe or submit to the series on PEN’s website.

Additionally, Horton has produced a video reading of this text, available to view above.

More on Randall Horton

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Augury Books’ spring/summer 2015 reading period is now open for submissions in poetry and prose. For guidelines and general information, please visit our submissions page.

From A.J. Bormeester’s Nova Totius Terrarum Orbis Tabula (1684), courtesy of the Public Domain Review

Recently, Atlas Obscura wrote about the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, focusing on their enormous and impressive collection of geographical artifacts.

Originally belonging to the American Geographical Society, the collection of maps, atlases, and globes required a new home after the company was forced to sell its headquarters in the seventies. The geography staff at UWM were enthusiastic to apply for the relics. They now reside within the Golda Meir Library, a location large enough to hold all of them.

To learn more about the various articles kept at UWM, you can read Atlas Obscura’s post.

If you’re interested in visiting the archives, visit UWM’s website.

From Shin-Bijutsukai (1901-1902), courtesy of the Public Domain Review

The Academy of American Poets will be accepting donations throughout the month of April, known within the literary community as National Poetry Month. The money raised will go toward Poem-A-Day, their free newsletter featuring classic and previously unpublished poetry. Contributions will allow Poem-A-Day to remain a free resource for educators.

To donate to this important cause, visit their website.

Giovanni Paolo Pannini’s Roman Ruins and Sculpture (1755), courtesy of the Public Domain Review

Satellite Collective, a non-profit organization dedicated to the arts, introduces its new Telephone initiative today, April 20th. The exhibition receives its name from the children’s game it’s based off of, in which a message is passed in whispers from one person to another. In Satellite Collective’s spinoff of the game, the message is conveyed through various art forms. After viewing a work by one artist, the next had to translate the message using their own genre of art. For example, after viewing viewing a drawing, a poet would convert the drawing’s meaning into a poem. Among the participating artists for this project is Augury’s Kate Angus.

To track and explore the results of the Telephone experiment, click here.

From Hortus Malabaricus (1678-1693), courtesy of the Public Domain Review

On the first Wednesday of each month, The HiFi Reading Series takes place at the HiFi Bar in the East Village. Coordinated by Ryan Britt and Lena Valencia, the program seeks to reveal new and upcoming writers in NYC. Recently, Augury chatted with Ryan Britt about the series:

Augury Books: What prompted you and Lena to start the HiFi Reading Series?

Ryan: Lena and I have been friends and colleagues for a number of years. We’ve been in a writing group together since 2011 and we both worked at powerHouse Arena Bookstore in Dumbo on and off for ages. Lena was the event director at powerHouse and as such is super-organized and excellent at programming. Meanwhile, I’m a fair “hype man.” The honest truth is we wanted to do a reading series that actually DID showcase new talent, rather than just curate all our cronies.
Why HiFi? Well, I’ve been a patron at HiFi Bar since 2005. I snuck into a Death Cab for Cutie after party and the owner (Mike Stuto) has been nice to me ever since. All the bartenders at HiFi are readers. Over the years I’ve felt truly at home there. So, when Mike asked me if I wanted to do a reading series, it was perfect timing because Lena and I had been talking about doing something anyway.

A: What has the reception been like?

R: The reception has been totally positive. We’ve had a great turn-out from the very first show. Part of that I think is because the audience changes depending on who the readers are. People who have never done a reading invite all their friends and suddenly we’ve got a bar half-full of people who have never met each other. We also have a core audience of literary NYC folks. Some editors, agents, publicists, and of course, authors!
Our show tends to be pretty short and sweet, so I think people like that, too. We had a nice write-up in the New York Observer late last year.

A: What events do you have planned for the future?

We’ve got a really cool 2015. Jim Shepard is guest-curating in August. He’s such an interesting guy and I already know for a fact that he’ll present some kind of diverse line-up that blows our minds. That’s part of the fun of doing this series. Lena and I are often meeting the people reading for the first time through their reading for us. It’s great.
We’re doing an event centered around this great short story anthology called WATCHLIST. Most importantly, we’ve got exciting guest-curators showing up new talent EVERY SINGLE MONTH on the first Wednesday.

From Robert Thornton’s Temple of Flora (1807), courtesy of the Public Domain Review

“Heroes Are Gang Leaders” held a tribute concert at Howard University on April 12th, during which they performed “The Amiri Baraka Sessions.” Put together by Thomas Sayers Ellis and James Brandon Lewis, the group is composed of poets and musicians dedicated to sharing the story of social activist and writer Amiri Baraka. Among the poets featured were Augury’s Randall Horton and Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie. In the band were Luke Stewart (bass), Janice Lowe (piano and vocals), Catalina Gonzalez (guitar and vocals), Ryan Frazier (trumpet), Warren “Trae” Crudup (drums), and Margaret Morris (vocals). The complete recording of “The Amiri Baraka Sessions,” consisting of multiple six hour sessions, should be released later this year.

For the full press release from Howard University, visit their website.

More on Randall Horton here.