INTERVIEW: Angee Lennard on the 11th Annual Printers Ball

This year marks the 11th annual Printers Ball, a day of performances, live printmaking demos, and exhibitions surrounding poetry and literary culture. Founded in 2004 by Poetry magazine’s Art Director Fred Sasaki, Printers Ball strives to bring together printers, writers, publishers, artists, readers, collectors, students, teachers, makers, and consumers. This year, the Ball will be hosted by Spudnik Press Cooperative at the Hubbard Street Lofts in Chicago, with a central theme of “push and pull.”

Angee Lennard, founder and director of Spudnik Press Cooperative, discussed the event in depth with Augury’s assistant editor, Nicolas Amara.

 

Nick: What prompted this year’s theme of “Push & Pull”?

Angee: Despite how short and sweet the theme is, there was a ton of thought behind it. This year, we had two big goals in mind. First, we plan for this Printers Ball to be more tactile than ever. The Printers Ball Marketplace features publications and prints that are best enjoyed and appreciated in their physical form. The Spudnik Press Printshop will be hosting a variety of workshops allowing guests to run our presses and make their own prints. The Steamroller Spectacular will be highlight the tactile-ness of print. The physicality of pushing and pulling indicates our hands-on approach to this festival.

Second, we want to deepen the level of conversation among participants and guests. We’ll have more ways for guests to contribute their own voice. “Push & Pull” signifies to us complete engagement from everyone involved, including attendees, and hints at the healthy tension that can come from true dialogue.

 

Nick: Spudnik’s mission states that the cooperative was “founded on the premise that art should be a democratic and empowering medium.” The press release for this year’s Ball emphasizes that festival programs aim to blur the line between author and audience, creating an interactive, collective environment. Is this break down of hierarchy integral to the Ball’s mission?

Angee: This is a very acute observation, and in short, I do believe that Printers Ball has no need for traditional hierarchy. The event has always been first and foremost a celebration. It is an event for everyone: professional poets, readers, hobbyist writers, printers, students, self-publishers, and the simply curious.

When we began planning the 2015 Printers Ball, we gave a lot of thought to the evolution of Printers Ball. Since Printers Ball began, and perhaps in part because of Printers Ball, Chicago has seen tremendous growth in the number and quality of reading series and small press publishers. For example, Curbside Splendor host fantastic pop-up book shops year round and throughout the city. Sector 2337 grew out of Green Lantern Press, and has a permanent brick and mortor location. We felt that the level of artistic output in Chicago is fantastic and that we could fill a different role than simply presenting work. We craved dialogue, and we hoped that this could be a place for the creative community to not perform, but to talk with each other about their art form, their city, and their community, and leave invigorated. Luckily, this all ties in very nicely with our democratic mission and how we approach all programming at Spudnik Press Cooperative!

 

Nick: What role do you see Spudnik and the Printers Ball playing in the larger surrounding community? Though it is clear both are going strong, given this is the Ball’s 11th year, how has reception been?

Angee: This Printers Ball will be the third that Spudnik Press has organized and hosted, and each year keeps getting better. Spudnik Press offers rich programming year round that in ways address the same goals as Printers Ball (community, collaboration, and artistic production). However, Printers Ball allows us to present programming on a scale that is usually beyond our means. Printers Ball allows us to think much bigger and connect with an impressively broad audience. Under Spudnik’s pervue, we have been able to expand the scope of Printers Ball by getting our entire building involved and bridging poetry with photography, design, installation, and traditional printmaking. Printers Ball has always been a free-spirited event with reinvention every few years, and I expect it will continue to evolve as our larger surrounding community does the same.

 

Nick: Aside from showing up the day of, how can artists, writers, and other community members get involved with the Ball?

Angee: One way for artists to be involved is through contributing a carved woodblock to our Steamroller Spectacular. We’ve collected carving from about 300 artists, ranging from middle school students to professional artists. On Saturday, June 27th, all blocks, collaged in various 8-foot long combinations, will be printed in our parking lot using a construction steamroller. We are also seeking lightly used and affectionately discarded books for our Printers Ball Book Drive, benefiting Open Books. Publishers can also contribute books to our “Book Butcher,” where guests can order different cuts of magazines and books from revered publishers, big and small, across the nation.

Once people do show up, there are endless ways to get involved. G.E.E.E. is asking writers to stop by Plantlets for Poems, and select a few donated poems to read aloud. Story Club Chicago will give audience members the chance to perform live at Printers Ball. The more serious, round table conversations include “Gender, Sex, and Honesty,” “Curation as a Tool to Intersect Communities,” and “The Intersection between Art, Politics, and Community Building.” In the Printshop, we’ll have presses running all day with an ongoing collaborative letterpress poem project, screenprinted tattoos, mononprinting, and more.

For more information, visit the event website.

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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.

"Pick-Your-Price" Sale at Brooklyn Arts Press

From Snowflakes: a Chapter from the Book of Nature (1863), courtesy of the Public Domain Review

Effective until March 7th, Brooklyn Arts Press is holding a “Pick-Your-Price” sale on Noah Eli Gordon‘s The Word Kingdom in the Word KingdomThis deal allows book buyers to purchase one copy of Gordon’s book at the price of their choosing (plus $5 for shipping). Brooklyn Arts Press is an independent publishing house dedicated to publishing the poetry, fiction, and nonfiction of upcoming artists. Joe Pan, their managing editor and publisher, has a collection of poetry forthcoming from Augury in 2015.

For more on the “Pick-Your-Price” sale, visit their site.

PICS: Halina Duraj Reads at D.G. Wills

Thanks to everyone who came out on Saturday night to see Halina Duraj—2014 O.Henry Prize recipient and author of THE FAMILY CANNON (Augury Books, 2014)—read at D.G. Wills Books in La Jolla, CA. Thanks to Dennis Wills for the amazing venue and the wonderful audience for their enthusiasm and support. See photos from the event below.

Courtesy Halina Duraj and D.G. Wills Books

 

Courtesy Halina Duraj and D.G. Wills Books

Courtesy Halina Duraj and D.G. Wills Books

 

Courtesy Halina Duraj and D.G. Wills Books

Courtesy Halina Duraj and D.G. Wills Books

Courtesy Halina Duraj and D.G. Wills Books

Courtesy Halina Duraj and D.G. Wills Books

Courtesy Halina Duraj and D.G. Wills Books

 

More on THE FAMILY CANNON

Order THE FAMILY CANNON on Amazon

Augury Books’ reading period is open — Submit your manuscript!

Jeff Alessandrelli, Editors’ Prize Finalist, Shares ‘The Ample Harvest of the Luminous Never’

Photo by Dave Bledsoe, FreeVerse Photography

“The ample harvest of the luminous never.”—Tristan Tzara

What have the starfish

—glowing bright—

stolen from so many millions of stars?

If the information age cannot tell us,

if the digital age cannot,

nor the pulsating electronic nodes constantly circling

in and around our heads,

how can we lull ourselves

peacefully to sleep at night,

content in our ignorance?

Mystery is tangible, is constantly converting

the preying jaws of death

into a rocking chair, a La-Z Boy,

something colored-smooth and reclined.

Life resides here,

there. Death.

Luminous harvest of some ample never,

glowing bright, bright.

Even if you never learned how to swim,

even if you are 20,000 leagues under the sea

swarming in starfish,

it is impossible to drown,

to awake and—in wonder—

believe and be whole again.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Jeff Alessandrelli lives in Portland, OR. This Last Time Will Be The First, his first full-length collection of poetry, is forthcoming from Burnside Review Press in early 2014. The name of his dog is Beckett Long Snout.

Remembering in Third Person: Poem by 2012 Finalist Stephanie Anderson

Photo by Dave Bledsoe, FreeVerse Photography

Remembering in Third Person
Look at what we have
             established:
                               It is possible to have
                               a conversation with
                               a stranger.
The cats under the bed
The tiny tick of carbonation
We don’t imagine the
               scene:
                                 We inhabit it.
Closing lids against the sun
That shade of red
What makes
               a journal:
                                 a list.
The multicolored boards
The needy dog
The blue-and-white
               check:
 
We’ve lost the car:
                                 what has been
                                 taken.
The peeling paint
The glitter glue
               in her hair
What makes it better.
                                 The girl launching
                                 the waves
The water falling on
               the water
If you love error
               so love zero.
The dirty sill
The violet door
The pink cake
________________________________________________________________________
Stephanie Anderson is the author of In the Key of Those Who Can No Longer Organize Their Environments (Horse Less Press, August 2013) and four chapbooks, including the forthcoming Sentence, Signal, Stain (Greying Ghost Press).  She lives in Chicago and edits the micropress Projective Industries.

Come See Augury at the 3rd Annual NYC Poetry Festival, July 27-28

 

Photo by Dave Bledsoe, FreeVerse Photography

Tomorrow is already Wednesday, so it’s time to prepare your answer for the popular post-hump-day question of: “Hey, what are you doing this weekend?”

We’ve got you covered. “Going to the Third Annual New York City Poetry Festival, hosted by the Poetry Society of New York, on Governor’s Island,” you can say. Why? Because, hopefully, you are just as excited as we are for the two-day celebration of New York’s dynamic poetry scene.

Yes, Augury will be there! Our own B. C. Edwards (To Mend Small Children), David Joel Friedman (Soldier Quick with Rain) and Paige Lipari (Family of Many Enzos) will be reading Sunday (July 28) at 1:30 p.m. on the White Horse stage.

Find out all you need to know at the Poetry Society of New York’s website, including the lineup of over 50 poetry organizations and 200 poets, the times and locations of each reading, and transportation info to and from Governors Island.

Also, check out Coldfront’s fabulous NYC Poetry Festival Preview, featuring interviews from many of the presses, journals, and organizations that will present at the festival — including one from Augury!