Tim Mayo’s carefully structured book deals with the multiple forms of separation: separation from the past, from a sense of family, a sense of belonging and ultimately from the self. . . Full of surprising phrases and metaphors. . .the poems ring with important truths. . . they are extraordinary and generous gifts. . .
-Patricia Fargnoli, former NH poet laureate Thesaurus of Separation publication date: July 1, 2016 138 pages, 6" x 9", paperback $13.50 (reg. $14.95) Please pre-order your copy of Thesaurus of Separation before June 30 to take advantage of the special price! We'll also be giving away one free copy to a newsletter subscriber, so if you haven't signed up for our mailing list yet and would like to be eligible for the July 1 drawing, please do! Monster is a unique, moving meditation on disability, medicine and caregiving. In this collection of linked essays and poems Jeneva Burroughs Stone reflects on hubris; scientific advances and their significance to humanity; and the responsibility of a creator to her creation.
Jeneva says, 'My son Robert has been an on-going inspiration to me, and pursuing diagnosis and treatment for his rare condition has illuminated science and medicine in ways I'd not thought possible. Robert has a very rare form of dystonia, DYT 16, which was diagnosed by whole exome sequencing 14 years after he fell ill. He's the only reported case in the U.S. and only 1 of 11 worldwide. Despite his life-altering physical disabilities, Robert has an infectious personality, even though he cannot speak: mischievous, funny, determined. I'm so glad he's allowed me to write about him.' I first met Jeneva online, back in the days when Dave Bonta and I were co-editing qarrtsiluni. We also had a Vermont connection: she grew up near Burlington, VT, graduated from Middlebury College, and now lives in Bethesda, MD. Her work has been honored with fellowships from the MacDowell and Millay Colonies. I'm delighted to be working with her again, and honored to be able to publish this beautifully-written book. (Please be sure to sign up for our email newsletter if you'd like to receive notification of the pre-order offer for this book and be eligible to win a free copy!) (Author photo: B. Farbo, illustration: E. Adams) Phoenicia Editor/Publisher Elizabeth Adams, left, and author Tim Mayo, right. (Photo by Jonathan Sa'adah) In April, we were happy to meet poet Tim Mayo, whose new book, Thesaurus of Separation, we'll be publishing in July. Tim is from Brattleboro, Vermont, and, as some Phoenicia readers know, our own Vermont roots extend back into the mid-1970s.
We met Tim for lunch at the bakery/cafe of the King Arthur Flour Company in Norwich, Vermont, where we had a wide-ranging conversation about poetry, living in Vermont, French and French-Canadians (Tim grew up with a French-Canadian family and is fluent in the language), people we know in common, prior experiences of being edited and published, and, of course, Tim's book itself. It was fun to get to know each other better and establish a face-to-face relationship; in spite of the ease of doing this work via the internet, I'm always so pleased when it's possible to meet the authors in person. But who would have thought we'd still be wearing these jackets a month later! It's time for real spring in the north country! By now the book is edited, designed, and in the final stages of production; we've received wonderful blurbs; and Tim has been invited to read at a number of events this summer and fall -- details to be announced soon. We're very excited and hope you will be too. If you'd like to receive an early announcement of the June pre-orders for Thesaurus of Separation, and be eligible to win a free copy, please be sure to sign up for our email newsletter! The long, slow climb to publication...Tim Mayo, ascending the notoriously difficult King Ravine Trail in the Presidential Range of New Hampshire's White Mountains.
If, like us, you're a fan of Jon Appleton's music, or if you'd like to discover it through some excellent live performances, you can now watch videos of Yoshiko Kline playing four movements of Jon Appleton's Julia suite, and the complete Purcell Variations at Vimeo. These works are both available on the new CD Jon Meets Yoshiko, and as mp3 downloads.
Phoenicia is proud and delighted to announce our six nominations for the 2015 Pushcart Prize:
Magda Kapa, for the "January" section of All the Words. From Annunciation: Ivy Alvarez, for "Gratia plena" Kristin Berkey-Abbott, for "A Girl More Worthy" Leila Chatti, for "14, Sunday School, Three Days Late" Nic Sebastian, for "girl with angel" Claudia Serea, for "The good news" Please join us in congratulating all of these gifted poets! In August, Phoenicia traveled to the recording studios of WGBH in Boston where, with composer Jon Appleton, pianist Yoshiko Kline, and audio engineer Frank Cunningham, we produced a new CD of Jon's piano music that will come out in late November or early December. We thought you might like to see some images from the studio sessions, which were intense, concentrated, and extremely satisfying. Yoshiko's playing was virtuosic, expressive, and sensitive, and I'm very excited to share these new neo-classical, and neo-romantic compositions with both new listeners and fans of Jon's music. The score for Nine Novelettes. Frank studies a score while Yoshiko finishes her practice before recording the Purcell Variations. Inside the studio's magnificent Steinway. Yoshiko's hands at the keyboard, here playing one movement of the Suite des Hommages. Composer and pianist on the last day of recording. Jon, who now lives in Hawaii, gave Yoshiko a beautiful orchid lei. The whole team was pretty happy at the close of recording: Frank Cunningham, engineer; Yoshiko Kline, pianist; Jon Appleton, composer; and Beth Adams, producer.
To be notified when the CD/MP3s are released, at a special price, please sign up for our mailing list. In June, I had the pleasure and great good fortune to make a trip to Berlin, as the guest of my friend Teju Cole. Our mutual friend Magda Kapa came into the city by train to meet us, and we had a great time visiting museums together, eating some good food and drinking the fine local pilsner, attending an evening of the Berlin Poetry Festival, and expanding our literary friendship into a more personal one. Like me, and like Teju, Magda is a photographer as well as a writer; we all had our cameras at hand. She prefers not to be photographed directly, but I think she'll allow this one. Since she is Greek, we were kidding her about all the paintings that had grapes in them, so it seemed appropriate to photograph her this way!
Magda and I have known each other through our blogs and Twitter for a long time, and we've had a very fruitful relationship as writer and editor during the publication of her book, All the Words. But we were just delighted to finally meet each other in person. We spoke about internet relationships and how we both see them as absolutely real, but also how it helps to meet those people in person, and that this time spent face-to-face always changes and deepens the friendship. I am determined to get back to Europe soon - it was such a treat to be in the vibrant city of Berlin, new to me, and to be surrounded by its art, music, and architecture, both old and new, and by people from all over the world. Our evening at the Berlin Poetry Festival was for a presentation titled African Voices; we heard strong performances/readings by Kwame Dawes (Ghana/Jamaica/USA), Warsan Shire (Somalia/UK), and Natalia Molebatsi (South Africa.) As a child of the Cold War, I grew up under the cloud of the Iron Curtain and the sense of Berlin as a grey, divided city. This year is the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall; the city's revitalization, energy, and cultural richness were not only visually obvious, but could be felt. And I hope that this won't be the only time I meet Magda, but the first of many such meetings. As she wrote in All the Words, Friend: We touched each other in that photograph, now we'll always touch each other. and Memories: at the end of the year they hang together like grapes, some sweet, some sour, and wait for us to taste. |
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