Poets Wear Prada at NY Rainbow Book Fair

Boutique publishing house Poets Wear Prada is pleased to announce that we will be tabling  with Eggplant Press at the eighth annual New York  Rainbow Book Fair and that several of our authors will be reading for the event.  The Rainbow Book Fair is the largest LGBTQ book event in the United States. The 2016 fair will be held on Saturday, April 9th from 12:00pm to 6:00pm at John Jay College of Criminal Justice located at 524 W. 59th Street (just west of 10th Avenue) in Manhattan. 

Our authors will be reading at two different readings at the fair.  Here's a list of the readers and their scheduled time slots. (Please note that this schedule is subject to change.)

2016 COME HERE! Poetry Salon hosted by Regie Cabico and Nathaniel Siegel


12:10-12:15pm  Geer Austin
01:05-01:10pm  Austin Alexis
01:20-01:25pm  Michael Montlack
01:30-01:35pm  John J. Trause
05:00-05:05pm  Joel Allegretti


2016 Main Reading Event

01:00 - 01:20pm  Chocolate Waters
04:00 - 04:20pm  Roxanne Hoffman

Roxanne Hoffman founded Poets Wear Prada in 2006 with the release of  a limited edition of B.D. Lyon's debut poetry collection, a chapbook titled "Your Infidel Eyes." From the press's  inception, it editors have continued to seek out the works of queer writers, women, and people of various ethnicity and cultural backgrounds as it strives to introduce unique and exceptional emerging writers and promote diversity to mainstream audiences with well-edited and beautifully designed volumes.  

Poets Wear Prada is proud to have published debut and early collections of Jee Leong Koh, John J. Trause, Austin Alexis, Michael Montack, Joel Allegretti and Geer Austin. In  2011 Poets Wear Prada in conjunction with Eggplant Press published groundbreaking feminist lesbian writer Chocolate Waters's first new book in over three decades, "The Woman Who Wouldn't Shake Hands." Hoffman co-edited "Pears, Prose and Poetry: Anthology of the 9th Annual Fresh Fruit Festival Poetry Event," also published in conjunction with Eggplant Press.

Founded in 2006 in Hoboken, New Jersey, birthplace of Frank Sinatra and professional baseball, Poets Wear Prada is a boutique book publisher devoted to introducing and promoting emerging writers to the mainstream audiences with beautifully designed volumes of well-crafted poetry and prose.

Happy Valentine's Day! "Edith Piaf" by Joel Allegretti

Nocturne for Edith Piaf

by Joel Allegretti

 

The accordionist, the gigolo,
the pugilist surely knew:

It all came down to the lights —

The footlights that fawned
over your delicious agony.

The lust lights of Place Pigalle.
The chaste lights of Sacré-Coeur.

Mais non

It came down to the heart.
How it fractures like a thrown vase,

Like a lover’s airplane
for which the sky has no further use.

How, in breaking, it is more of a heart —
more than a heart.

Non, rien de rien
Non, je ne regrette rien

We smoked a Gauloise in your honor.
We danced the Apache in your name.

How we envy you, Mlle Gassion.
You had no regrets. But we do.

This Valentine's Day selection is from Joel Allegretti's latest book, EUROPA/NIPPON/NEW YORK: Poems/Not-Poems, released in 2012 by Poets Wear Prada. “Edit Piaf” first appeared in Compass Rose.  Poets Wear Prada nominated this poem for 2013 Pushcart Prize.

EUROPA/NIPPON/NEW YORK: Poems/Not-Poems
by Joel Allegretti
ISBN 978-0615600208
Soft Cover, Perfect Bound 52pp.
$12.00
Release Date: March 25, 2010
Now available at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0615600204
and from CreateSpace: https://www.createspace.com/3785527

Come, children, and take your seat for Europa/Nippon/New York, where Joel Allegretti spans the globe with ears to the ground and eyes toward the stars. “The next world is the next movie,” the poet writes. Phantoms, chanson, Godzilla, bread and wine, riddlers-to-be roll through the projector-light of the poet’s wildly associative forms, his unforced epiphanies and extravagant voice. 

~ Daniel Nester, Author of  How to Be Inappropriate

Remembering "The Wolf Man" Lon Chaney Jr

Lon Chaney, Jr (February 10, 1906 – July 12, 1973)

February 10, 2013 -- Lon Chaney, Jr.,  son of famous silent film actor, Lon Chaney, an American actor known for playing such characters as The Wolf Man, The Mummy, Frankenstein's Monster and Count Alucard for Universal, was born born Creighton Tull Chaney,  107 years ago today, on February 10, 1906 in Oklahoma City.

Joel Allegretti  recalls his own adolescent transformation and the famous wolf man in this excerpt from "The Wolf Man of St. Mark’s Place" from his latest book "Europa/Nippon/New York:: Poems/Not-Poems" (Poets Wear Prada, 2012):

Thanks to Universal Pictures, the werewolf relocated from superstition to celluloid. The studio’s initial offering, Werewolf of London (1935), left nary a paw print at the box office. The second, The Wolf Man (1941), transformed the creature into a genre matinee idol who joined the rarefied movie-monster pantheon, taking his distinguished place next to Dracula, Frankenstein’s creature and the Mummy. Objects associated with the werewolf — full moon, silver bullets — entered the popular lexicon in the picture’s wake.

My personal experience was considerably less picturesque than that of Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney the younger). There was nightfall, but no machine-generated fog, no gypsy’s portentous utterances, no Béla Lugosi in one of his progressively lesser roles. I roomed with two other New York University graduates in a tiny apartment three floors above a record shop on St. Mark’s Place in East Greenwich Village. In the summer of ’75, I had the itch to leave the reek of Manhattan. Instead of going home to Minneapolis, I decided a long weekend upstate was the ideal prescription and bought a bus ticket to Monticello, where my mother’s cousin lived.

On Saturday night — I think it was close to midnight (how appropriate) — while the family was in bed, I took a walk in the backyard along the edge of the woods. Yes, the moon was full and as bright as a klieg light. Out from the trees a German shepherd puppy bounded up to me. Laughing out of surprise as well as glee, I wiggled my fingers in the critter’s snout. It thanked me for my playful gesture by closing its callow jaws on my hand and bolting back into the forest. Under the moonshine, I saw the miserable animal had broken skin. I rushed into the house and treated the wound with hydrogen peroxide, a gauze pad and adhesive tape. The next morning, I was in the local emergency room for a rabies shot.
 
I was dying to abbreviate my trip and late in the afternoon boarded the bus to  New York — this in spite of Cousin Maria’s protests. Did I mention she had the same first name as the actress who played the gypsy woman in The Wolf Man? Don’t you love coincidence?
 
Back in the city and feeling weak from the needle, I sprawled on the sofa by the living room window. One roommate stepped out to buy me a falafel sandwich. The other was somewhere.
 
The full moon spilled itself on me, and I learned the little German shepherd was neither German nor shepherd.
 
Chaney Jr.’s shape-shifting scenes are colorful. They had to be if the film was going to lure moviegoers. I’m sorry to report the real-world transmutation is removed from the fanciful worlds of cinema and village beliefs. No, I don’t sprout hair like a sideshow freak, although my eyebrows do acquire a Vlad the Impaler bushiness (pardon the mixed metaphor) and a day’s five o’clock shadow takes on the look of two days’ worth. My canine teeth don’t gain a couple of inches. My voice is my voice, but with a dash of Louis Armstrong. I don’t feed on human biceps; raw pot roast fits the bill. The profound shift is in my personality. The closest analogy is Mr. Hyde. Still, werewolf or plain old were, I’m an American, damn it. Derring-do fills my bones as much as marrow. My father was a Minnesota state assemblyman who always taught me the following: Whether fortune blesses you or misfortune befalls you, ask yourself, “How can I capitalize on this?”
 
The Bowery was only a hop, skip and a lunge away, so I loped to CBGB, called myself Lou Garou and formed a punk-rock band with a trio of like-minded fellows. I was the lead singer.
 
Our name? The Larry Talbots.

[First published in "KNOCK"]

EUROPA/NIPPON/NEW YORK: Poems/Not-Poems
by Joel Allegrettei
ISBN 978-0615600208
Soft Cover, Perfect Bound 52pp.
$12.00
Release Date: March 25, 2012
Now available at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0615600204
and from CreateSpace: https://www.createspace.com/3785527

Pop culture chronicler Allegretti leads readers of his latest book on a cinematic journey through time and space replete with airplanes, submarines, the expected cathedral stops, plus surprise encounters with marquee idols and urban legends. “Come, children, and take your seat for ‘Europa/Nippon/New York,’ where Joel Allegretti spans the globe with ears to the ground and eyes toward the stars,” Daniel Nestor, author of “How to Be Inappropriate,” urges. Commends Peter Covino, winner of the 2007 PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award for Poetry, “Everything instructs, engages, and delights us through the wide-angle lens of this wonderful new collection where ‘the next world is the next movie.’”

Sun., May 27: Phoenix Reading w/ Allegretti, Kolm and Padki in Greenwich Village, NYC

Three local writers, Joel Allegretti, Ron Kolm and Melind Padki -- an eclectic mix of voices: a pop-culture chronicler, a "Downtown" cultural revolutionary and archivist, and an inside observer of Indian diaspora in America -- will be reading for Michael Graves' Phoenix Reading this Sunday afternoon May 27 from 4:00 p.m.  to 6:00 p.m. at Scalinatella (formerly Scali Caffe), 245 Bleecker Street (west of Carmine), (212) 255-5353, in Greenwich Village, New York City. 

PHOENIX READING SERIES
Sundays at 4PM
@ Scalinatella
245 Bleecker Street
(west of Carmine)
New York, NY 10014
www.scalicaffe.com

 

"The Kansas City Star” counted Joel Allegretti’s “Father Silicon” among the “100 Noteworthy Books of 2006,” a list that included Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” and “Against the Day” by Thomas Pynchon. Allegretti’s poetry has been set to music by Frank Ezra Levy with performances at  Kean University and at Holy Trinity, New York City.  His fourth poetry collection, “Europa/Nippon/New York: Poems/Not-Poems,” which the pop-culture chronicler describes as his "jet-setting, la dolce vita collection," was recently released by Poets Wear Prada.


Ron Kolm is probably best known for his involvement with the Unbearables, a loose collective of cultural revolutionaries -- poets and artists, he founded in 1985 with  Bart Plantenga, Mike Golden, and Peter Lamborn Wilson, inspired by  Hakim Bey's seminal book "TAZ" (Temporary Autonomous Zone).  In addition to organizing and participating in the group's performance-demonstrations, he has co-edited the group's anthologies, all published by Autonomedia, the latest titled "The Unbearables Big Book of Sex." "The Ron Kolm Papers," some thirty-five cartons of correspondence, notebooks, objects, chapbooks, signed first editions and runs of literary magazines,  were purchased by the Fales Library at New York University, where they now reside.

Melind Padki, originally from India, now residing in New Jersey, has had poems and short stories published in both English and “Marathi,” his mother tongue. He spent twelve years in the great city of Mumbai before coming to Unites States as a post-doctoral fellow at University of Southern California, Los Angeles. His observations, up close and personal, of Mumbai's massive slums and local workers' movements, have appeared in India’s national newspaper, “Times of India.”

Michael Graves

Michael Graves, author of four poetry collections, the most recent, “In Fragility” from Black Buzzard, hosts The Phoenix Reading Series every Sunday afternoons series at Scalinatella, 245 Bleecker Street (west of Carmine), (212) 255-5353, from 4:00 PM until 6:00 PM. An open reading follows the featured guest writers. There is an $8 food/beverage minimum plus a suggested $3 donation.


By Subway: Take the 1 train to Christopher Street-Sheridan Square; alternatively the A, B, C, D, E, or F train to West 4th Street and exit at the West 3rd Street exit.

From New Jersey: Take NJ PATH to Christoper Street.


The first Phoenix reading took place in 1995 at La Poeme, a venue on Prince and Elizabeth Streets, and in the years since the series has grown and evolved into the friendly forum it is today. Each week, Phoenix features a set of talented and recognized poets (usually two or three) who read for 20 minutes each. Following the spotlight readings, there is an open mic, and any and all audience members are welcome to share 3-5 minutes of their own material. Phoenix also publishes a print review.


For more information about the series and the print review, please contact Host Michael Graves by email to mikegraves50@hotmail.com

About the Readers:

Joel Allegretti

Joel Allegretti is the author of four collections of poetry: Europa/Nippon/New York: Poems/Not-Poems (Poets Wear Prada, 2012); Thrum (Poets Wear Prada, 2010); Father Silicon (The Poet’s Press, 2006), selected by The Kansas City Star as one of 100 Noteworthy Books of 2006, a list that included novels by Cormac McCarthy and Thomas Pynchon; and The Plague Psalms (The Poet’s Press, 2000). 


Allegretti’s poems have appeared in Smartish Pace, PANK, The New York Quarterly, Maintenant: A Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing & Art, MARGIE, Fulcrum and many other national journals, as well as in The Best American Poetry blog. His work has be published in several anthologies, including three this year: Divining Divas (Lethe Press), Token Entry: New York City Subway Poems (Smalls Books), and In the BLACK, In the RED (Helicon Nine).


Allegretti’s poetry has been set to music by Frank Ezra Levy for two song cycles: “A Cycle by the Sea,” which had its world premiere at Kean University in 2009, and “Night Keeps Its Promise,” first performed by Cantori New York at Holy Trinity, New York City, in 2011. 

Ron Kolmn

Ron Kolm is an American poet, editor, activist and bookseller. In 1985, Kolm, Bart Plantenga, Mike Golden, and Peter Lamborn Wilson founded the Unbearables, a loose collective of poets and artists based on the precepts of Hakim Bey, as set forth in his seminal book, TAZ (Temporary Autonomous Zone). Taking their name from a short story by Mike Golden, they target literary cliches, which they attempt to deconstruct with humor.


Kolm is a co-editor of the groups anthologies: Unbearables (1995), Crimes of the Beats (1998), Help Yourself! (2002) and The Worst Book I Ever Read (2009) all published by Autonomedia. Kolm's own publications include The Plastic Factory (1989, Red Dust), Welcome to the Barbecue (Low-Tech Press, 1990) and Rank Cologne (P.O.N. Press, 1991). His work can also be found, along with the other Unbearables, in the Outlaw Bible of American Poetry (Thunder's Mouth Press, 1999), and in Up Is Up, But So Is Down: New York's Literary Scene, 1974-1992 (New York University Press, 2006). He has collaborated on a novel, Neo Phobe, written with Jim Feast (Unbearable Books, 2006).


Historian Robert Siegle describes Kolm as "an editor and facilitator for magazines and presses as well as a writer of fiction and poetry" who "carried boxes of little magazines around to bookstores, passed around copies of new work, and connected people" in general, noting that "wherever we look along the networks that hold together the diverse creative talents who constitute this cultural revolution, we find Kolm."

Milind Padki, was born in India to a famous bohemian literary couple. Grew up in a house full of books and literary discussions. Published bits and pieces in school and college magazines. For his pharmaceutical education and PhD in the pharmaceutical sciences, he lived in the great city of Mumbai for 12 years, where Indian society was and still is, under constant churn. Observed Mumbai’s massive slums and slum dwellers up close and personal. Observed workers’ movements very closely. Published small pieces in India’s national newspaper, the “Times of India”. Came to the US as a Post-doctoral fellow at USC, Los Angeles. On the east Coast since 2002, where he has participated in many open poetry readings. Has published poems and short stories in both English, and “Marathi”, his mother tongue. His literary interests are in the interaction between the Indian immigrant and American culture.

About the Host:

Michael Graves is the author of two full-length collections of poems, Adam and Cain (Black Buzzard, 2006) and In Fragility (Black Buzzard, 2011) and two chapbooks, Illegal Border Crosser (Cervana Barva, 2008) and Outside St. Jude’s (R. E. M. Press, 1990). In 2004, he was the recipient of a grant from the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation. He is the publisher of the small magazine PHOENIX. Many years ago, he was a student of James Wright and organized a conference on James Wright at Poets House in 2004. And he became a member of P. E. N. a couple of years ago. In addition to leading a Finnegans Wake Reading Group, he has published thirteen poems in the James Joyce Quarterly and read from them and others of his poems influenced by Joyce to a gathering of the Joyce Society at the Gotham Book Mart.

From the News Front

The Key: Lady Grizzly and Sir Charles Otter
by Ice Gayle Johnson
Poets Wear Prada, 2012

April 30, 2012

Dear Friends,

I am happy and proud to announce "The Key" by Ice Gayle Johnson. It is profoundly beautiful: an unexpected turn of the lock. Hidden chambers of the heart lead from a girlhood kitchen to the panorama of windows that survive the woman's adult life. These poems follow Joel Allegretti's "Europa/Nippon/New York," recently released, a log -- part cata-, part travel -- chronicling metaphysical peregrinations of a 21st-century explorer and bricoleur. Available at Amazon. Coming soon: Patricia Carragon's "The Cupcake Chronicles," a confectionery tale for the ages--all ages.

John Jack "Jackie" (Edward) COOPER
Poets Wear Prada

Author Joel Allegretti in New York with New Poetry Book from Poets Wear Prada

NJ poet Joel Allegretti today announced 3 New York readings for his new book “Europa/Nippon/New York: Poems/Not-Poems”: Sun., May 6th, in Washington Heights; Thurs., May 17th, in Astoria, Queens; Sun., May 27th, in Greenwich Village. 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Jack Cooper

atelierprincipen@gmail.com

201.253.0561

Joel Allegretti [Credit: John Paul]

Hoboken, NJ - Apr 30, 2012 - Joel Allegretti announced three stops in New York this May on the East Coast leg of the book tour for his recently released “Europa/Nippon/New York: Poems/Not-Poems” from Poets Wear Prada. “‘Europa/Nippon/New York’ is my jet-setting, La dolce vita collection,” said Joel Allegretti. “The Kansas City Star” counted Allegretti’s “Father Silicon” among the “100 Noteworthy Books of 2006,” a list that included Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” and “Against the Day” by Thomas Pynchon.

Pop culture chronicler Allegretti leads readers of his latest book on a cinematic journey through time and space replete with airplanes, submarines, the expected cathedral stops, plus surprise encounters with marquee idols and urban legends. “Come, children, and take your seat for ‘Europa/Nippon/New York,’ where Joel Allegretti spans the globe with ears to the ground and eyes toward the stars,” Daniel Nestor, author of “How to Be Inappropriate,” urges. Commends Peter Covino, winner of the 2007 PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award for Poetry, “Everything instructs, engages, and delights us through the wide-angle lens of this wonderful new collection where ‘the next world is the next movie.’”

Allegretti, who now makes his home across the Hudson in North Jersey, is no stranger to the “bullying illuminations of New York.” He attended Xavier High School on West 16th Street in Manhattan, graduated with a degree in journalism from New York University, and worked until recently only a few blocks from Radio City Music Hall.

Allegretti will be in Washington Heights at 4 PM on Sunday, May 6th. He joins writers Sheila Maldonado and Jane LeCroy for Patricia Eakins’s Sunday Best Reading Series, at the Lounge at Hudson View Gardens, 116 Pinehurst Avenue (at West 183rd Street) in that uptown Manhattan neighborhood. $7 at the door includes light refreshments. Take the A train to 181st Street. (212) 923-7800.

Thursday, May 17th, Allegretti will participate in Boundless Tales, the Astoria Reading Series curated by Aida Zilelian, 7:30 until 9:30 PM, at Waltz Astoria, 23 – 14 Ditmars Boulevard (corner of 24th St), in Queens, with Nancy Agabian, Cassandra Faustini, Yvette Perez, and Michael T. Young. $10 drink minimum. Take the N or W trains to Ditmars Blvd. (718) 956-8742.

Allegretti will be back in Manhattan, this time in Greenwich Village, Sunday afternoon at 4:00, May 27th, reading at Michael Graves’s Phoenix Series with two co-features to be announced, at Scalinatella, 245 Bleecker Street (west of Carmine). $5 food/beverage minimum plus $3 suggested donation. Take the 1 train to Christopher Street-Sheridan Square; alternatively the A, B, C, D, E, or F train to West 4th Street. (212) 255-5353.

“Europa/Nippon/New York: Poems/Not-Poems”
by Joel Allegretti
(Hoboken: Poets Wear Prada, 2012)

“Europa/Nippon/New York” is Joel Allegretti’s second book project with Poets Wear Prada. The Hoboken-based press brought out “Thrum,” Allegretti’s meditation on stringed musical instruments, in 2010. Two previous collections, “Father Silicon” and “The Plague Psalms,” 2006 and 2000, respectively, were published by The Poet’s Press. Allegretti’s poetry has been set to music by Frank Ezra Levy for two song cycles: “A Cycle by the Sea,” which had its world premiere at Kean University in 2009, and “Night Keeps Its Promise,” first performed by Cantori New York at Holy Trinity, New York City, in 2011.

Founded in 2006, Poets Wear Prada publishes beautifully designed, well-crafted poetry chapbooks from Sinatra’s hometown, the birthplace of professional baseball.

“Europa/Nippon/New York: Poems/Not Poems” by Joel Allegretti (Hoboken: Poets Wear Prada, 2012), 52 pages, ISBN-10: 0615600204, ISBN-13: 978-0615600208, list price: $12.00, is available in paperback from Amazon Books and other popular booksellers.

New Poems by Joel Allegretti from Poets Wear Prada: "Europa/Nippon/New York" Takes the Reader Around the World in 52 Pages

Poets Wear Prada announced today publication of “Europa/Nippon/New York: Poems/Not Poems” by the American poet Joel Allegretti, a cinematic travel log through space and time replete with airplanes, submarines, the expected cathedral stops, and surprise visits with pop culture icons, and other legends.

EUROPA/NIPPON/NEW YORK
Poems/Not-Poems
by Joel Allegretti
Paperback: 52 pages
ISBN-10:0615600204
ISBN-13:978-0615600208
Poets Wear Prada: 2012
list price: $12.00

Hoboken, NJ, April 27, 2012 --(PR.com)-- Poets Wear Prada announced today publication of “Europa/Nippon/New York: Poems/Not Poems” by the American poet Joel Allegretti. “The Kansas City Star” counted Allegretti’s "Father Silicon" among the "100 Noteworthy Books of 2006," a list that included Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” and “Against the Day” by Thomas Pynchon.

“Europa/Nippon/New York: Poems/Not Poems” is a cinematic travel log through space and time replete with airplanes, submarines, the expected cathedral stops, and surprise visits with pop culture icons and other legends. Publisher Roxanne Hoffman said, "Allegretti convincingly defies gravity in the best modern way: with verve, intelligence, marquee names and loads of special effects."

“The trip is shorter than Phileas Fogg's— the book takes but a fraction of the time to read; still, Jules Verne (who figures prominently in it) remains in the balloon’s gondola,” said Jack Cooper, who as production editor at Poets Wear Prada guided “Europa/Nippon/New York” to its elegant landing. “The difference is Fogg’s out and Allegretti’s pulling the strings,” he continued. Roxanne Hoffman called it a “vacation between book covers," adding "You go to Italy. It’s a day at the beach (and undersea) with nights at the movies combined: Phantom of the Opera, one time; howling at the moon, another.”

“‘Europa/Nippon/New York’ is my jet-setting, la dolce vita collection,” said Joel Allegretti. “I absolutely love the cover! It shows a side of Steve I never knew.” Steve Dalachinsky, a widely celebrated poet, created the collages featured on both front and back of the book.

This is Joel Allegretti’s second book project with Poets Wear Prada. In 2010, the Hoboken-based press brought out “Thrum,” Allegretti’s meditation on stringed musical instruments. His two previous collections “Father Silicon” and “The Plague Psalms” were released by The Poet’s Press in 2006 and 2000, respectively. Allegretti’s poetry has been set to music by Frank Ezra Levy for two song cycles: “A Cycle by the Sea” had its world premiere in 2009 at Kean University, and “Night Keeps Its Promise” was first performed in 2011 by Cantori New York at Holy Trinity in New York City.

Founded in 2006, Poets Wear Prada publishes beautifully designed, well-crafted poetry chapbooks from Sinatra’s hometown, birthplace of professional baseball.

“Europa/Nippon/New York: Poems/Not Poems” by Joel Allegretti (Hoboken: Poets Wear Prada, 2012), 52 pages, ISBN-10: 0615600204, ISBN-13: 978-0615600208, list price: $12.00, is available in paperback from Amazon Books and other popular booksellers.

Tues 2/7 Allegretti, Broderick, Koundakjian, Colman, Kalpakis & Johl 8pm Le Cheile Washington Heights NYC No Cover

A Night of  Live Literature

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 7th

8PM - 10PM

featuring:

COLIN BRODERICK (novelist)

JOEL ALLEGRETTI (poet)

 LOLA KOUNDAKJIAN (poet)

DAHLIA COLMAN (poet)

with music by

LEANN KALPAKIS & MAX JOHL

@

LE CHEILE

839 W 181st Street

between Pinehurst Ave & Cabrini Blvd)
New York, NY 10033

Neighborhood: Washington Heights
(212) 740-3111

http://lecheilenyc.com/

HOSTED BY ERIN LYNN

No Cover

By Subway:

Take the A train or the number 1 to 181st Street.

12/15 in NYC: Space on White fts. PWP Authors Efrayim Levenson & John J Trause

Come, help fill-up the page . . .

Thursday, December 15, 2011

from 7pm to 9pm

Poets on White

features

* EFRAYIM LEVENSON * JOHN J. TRAUSE * JACK TRICARICO *

+ open mic (Sign-Up 6:45 with Cindy Hochman

@

[space on white]

81 White Street,

(Tribeca,near Broadway)

New York, NY 10013

http://www.spaceonwhite.com/

 (212) 227-8600

Hosts: Evie Ivy & Cindy Hochman

$4.00 donation

Directions: J, N, R, Q, B and #6,1 train, A,C,E trains slightly longer walk
to Canal Street; Space on White is two blocks south of Canal Street


About the Features:

JACK TRICARICO is a New York City painter, poet, and T'ai Chi instructor who has been published in numerous poetry journals and anthologies based in New York City and upstate New York . He has completed 9 chapbooks and is working on his 10th. He's been published in Hunger Magazine, Home Planet News, Long Island Sounds, 2009 Issue, Perhaps I Am Wrong About The World, Asbestos, Nomad's Choir, Dinner With The Muse, Pushing The Envelope, The Poets Gallery press, among others. His art work can be seen on two art sites: www.nyaw.com and bondandbowery.com.

*

JOHN J. TRAUSE, said to be the secret love child of Henri Langlois and Mary Meerson (Or is it Marie Menken and Willard Maas?), was nominated for the Pushcart Prize (2009-2011). The Director of Oradell Public Library, he is the author of Seriously Serial and Latter-Day Litany, the latter staged Off-Off Broadway. His translations, poetry, and visual work appear in many journals and anthologies in North America and Europe , including the artists' periodical Crossings and the Dada journal Maintenant. Appearing in the City Lights Books celebration (Poetry Project, St. Mark’s, NYC) with Steven Van Zandt, Anne Waldman, and Karen Finley, and in Visible Word (Stevens Institute, Hoboken, NJ) with Jerome Rothenberg, he is cofounder of the William Carlos Williams Poetry Cooperative (Rutherford, NJ) and serves as host and curator of its monthly reading series. Aside from his literary work, his artwork has been exhibited in The MoMA Staff Show (1995), at Il Trapezio Café ( Nutley , NJ ), and appears in the permanent collection of The Museum of Menstruation (New Carrollton , MD ) to whose website he has contributed.

*

EFRAYIM LEVENSON has presented his poems at bars, churches, colleges, libraries, and synagogues in Manhattan , Brooklyn, and Buffalo . His work has been published in Pure Light, ArtVoice, Medicinal Purposes, What Happens Next, Poetica, and other anthologies, and online as well. A member of Parkside Poetry Workshop, Efrayim is currently editing a chapbook (his third) of poems based on the music of guitarist Buckethead. A CD of poetry and jazz, with bassist Clif Jackson, is also in the works.

Read Poetry from Poets Wear Prada on Your iPhone

Hoboken, NJ, August 25, 2011 -- With three poetry titles now available on Apple's iBookstore, Poets Wear Prada expands its entry into the eBook market. "Dead Reckoning," a 50-page full-length poetry collection by Gene Auprey, originally released as a paperback last year, April 2010, recently joined the two chapbook titles already listed in the iBookstore catalogue -- "Thrum: Poems by Joel Allegretti" and "Gathered at Her Sky: Life Poems" by Tantra-zawadi. The iBook titles sell at a significant discount off the list price for the corresponding paperback editions -- iBook versions of the two chapbooks list at $4.99 -- an almost 60% savings off the paperback editions which each sell for $12  -- while Auprey's full-length collection sells for $8.99, about a 40% discount off the paperback version which lists for $15.  And of course there is never any shipping and handling.

Roxanne Hoffman, Founder and Senior Editor at Poets Wear Prada, was curious to see how well the books would transition to Apple's popular personal hand-held mobile devices.  She enlisted the assistance of Ms. Patricia Carragon, who curates the Brownstone Poets reading in Brooklyn, and who spent last summer working as a Marketing Intern for Poets Wear Prada, and owns a iPhone.  Ms. Carragon agreed and after first registering for iTunes, she downloaded the free iBooks app to her iPhone and then samples of the two chapbook titles from the iBookstore to take a look.




Patricia Carragon with her iPhone's personal iBookstore Library.

 

"Thrum: Poems" by Joel Allegretti Front Cover Display on Ms. Carragon's iPhone

Her first response "OMG, this is so cute! You've got to see the little bookshelf!" Today, Ms. Hoffman got to do just that when the two met in NYC's Little Korea at Kum Gang San for lunch and snapped the photos shown here.  Ms. Carragon was not able to display the cover for "Gathered at Her Sky" due to the WIFI  traffic at the busy restaurant but Ms. Hoffman was able to scroll through the sample pages with just a touch to the iPhone's  screen.  While she found taking photos of the luminous iPhone screen "challenging" she said she did not find it a challenge to read the sample interior pages for the iBooks.  "I'm not sure if this is the  best way to read a detective story or a best selling novel but for short poetry like  the haiku Patricia Carragon often writes and for micro fiction  -- what I like to call "subway stories" -- anything short enough to read as you commute standing up in crowded rush-hour mass transit -- it works and completely makes sense in  today's fast-paced environment and for the constantly texting and gaming on-the-go 'digital natives' of  Generation Z."

Ms. Carragon's haiku response: "iPhone library/easy reading/on a mini shelf."  Her third book, "Cupcake Chronicles," a chapbook length collection of micro fiction, will be published by Poet Wear Prada this winter. "iPad and iPhone users, keep a look out for this perfect additon to your iBookstore library," advises Ms. Hoffman.

About Poets Wear Prada:


Poets Wear Prada is a small press based in Hoboken, New Jersey, devoted to introducing new authors through high-quality chapbooks primarily of poetry, since October 2006. Visit us online at pwpbooks.blogspot.com. "Have you had your poetry today?"


Contact:
Poets Wear Prada
Roxanne Hoffman
poetswearprada at myway dot com
201.253.0561

Poetry from Poets Wear Prada Now Available from iTunes

Poets Wear Prada announced its entry into the lucrative e-book market with the availability of two of its titles, “Gathered at Her Sky: Life Poems” by Tantra-zawadi and “Thrum: Poems” by Joel Allegretti, on Apple’s iBookstore and iTunes.


Hoboken, NJ, August 17, 2011 -- Poets Wear Prada today announced its entry into the lucrative commercial e-book market with the availability of two of its titles on Apple’s iTunes (UK). “Gathered at Her Sky: Life Poems” by Tantra-zawadi (http://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/gathered-at-her-sky/id443593407?mt=11), and “Thrum: Poems” by Joel Allegretti (http://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/thrum/id450632962?mt=11) are now available for immediate download. Both titles were converted to e-publication format and submitted to Apple's iBookstore by Lulu.com, which publishes and carries print-on-demand paperback editions of several Poets Wear Prada titles. Lulu has partnered with Apple to ensure that as many Lulu titles as possible are “available to every potential customer on the planet, starting with the 120 million plus readers who own an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch and shop at the iBookstore.” Lulu converts selected titles from its catalogue and handles their submission to Apple at no cost to its authors and their publishers but an iBookstore listing is not guaranteed.

Roxanne Hoffman, Senior Editor and Founder of Poets Wear Prada, was first contacted by Lulu.com in March about the free e-book conversions with an invitation to "join the ranks of Lulu authors who have already sold 60,000 e-books through the iBookstore." She received word in June that the two titles were converted and submitted to Apple, informed the two authors involved, and started her anxious wait to see if the titles would make the cut. “Gathered at Her Sky” was picked up July 11 and “Thrum” four days later. Both chapbooks are now available on iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with iBooks, and via computer with iTunes to registered Apple and AOL users.

Her wait finally over, and the two titles now available for sale as e-books, Ms. Hoffman says she is “excited and looking forward to future of publishing and being a part of it.” Poets Wear Prada switched to print-on-demand in 2010 after using local Hoboken mom-and-pop print shops since 2006 to publish the traditional saddle-stitched chapbooks, and after a larger printer failed to deliver the initial 800 copies of what would have been the press's first full-length collection. Ms. Hoffman said, “The quality of the print-on-demand books is better -- we can now offer perfect bound editions -- and the headache of direct mail orders is now handled by two experts in on-line distribution, Amazon and Lulu -- no more trips to the post office -- and best of all, my home office doesn't look like a warehouse. We had been looking at various options to convert our books for Kindle, Nook, iPad and the other competing tablets all of which require their own proprietary format. Then Lulu made the announcement it would do free conversions for the iPad. Sometimes it pays not to be on leading edge ahead of the curve. In this case, my procrastination paid off.” Lulu promises that these e-publication files will be available for further distribution to its ever expanding list of eBook retail partners.

Tantra-zawadi, author of “Gathered at Her Sky” says "I am delighted to join the ranks of authors in the ever expanding e-book market. Poet's Wear Prada has seized the opportunity to reach a broader audience in the digital community with easier access to my book and on-line spoken word musical collaborations. This is an exciting and well integrated introduction into a new technological era!”

Poets Wear Prada also continues to expand its paperback distribution. Six poetry chapbook titles from Poets Wear Prada are now available from Tower Books at Tower.com: "Gathered at Her Sky: Life Poems" by Tantra-zawadi, "Thrum: Poems" by Joel Allegretti, "Green Rain" by Mary Orovan, "The Slip" by Michael Montlack, "Payday Loans" by Jee Leong Koh and "Detailed Still" by Karen Neuberg. The six paperback titles were added to the on-line music store catalogue August 10th, 2011 through Amazon's CreateSpace.com's extended distribution program. [http://www.tower.com/tower_search/search_2.cfm?keywords=poets%20wear%20prada&div_id=1]

Author Joel Allegretti says, “It seems appropriate that my Poets Wear Prada collection is available through an online music store because ‘Thrum’ deals exclusively with musical instruments. Its international availability is a real bonus because it now has a channel it otherwise would not have.”

# # #

About Poets Wear Prada:
Poets Wear Prada is a small press based in Hoboken, New Jersey, devoted to introducing new authors through high-quality chapbooks primarily of poetry, since October 2006.  Visit us online at pwpbooks.blogspot.com. "Have you had your poetry today?"

Contact:Poets Wear Prada
Roxanne Hoffman
poetswearprada at myway dot com
201.253.0561

Joel Allegretti Joins Ravi Shankar for an Evening of New Poetry at RAW in Hartford, CT

Poet Ravi Shankar Launches "Deepening Groove" with Joel Allegretti, Susan Frischkorn & Lisa C. Taylor in an Evening of New Poetry at RAW, Hartford, CT.

Hartford, Connecticut, August 14, 2011 -- Real Art Ways’ Writers and Reader Series is pleased to announce an evening of new poetry with acclaimed poet, Ravi Shankar, who will launch his new book “Deepening Groove,” winner of the 2010 National Poetry Review Prize. Three notable authors will join Shankar, each reading from their new works -- Joel Allegretti, Susan Frischkorn and Lisa C. Taylor -- on Thursday, August 25, 2011 at 6 pm, at Real Art Ways, 56 Arbor St, Hartford, Connecticut 06106. Connecticut Poet Laureate Dick Allen, who has hailed Shankar as “one of America’s finest younger poets,” will introduce “Deepening Groove.”



“Deepening Groove,” described as “a book of savvy, delicious surprises" by Wyn Cooper, author of” New Calm,” is a collection of poems comprised of detailed observations about animals, trees, flowers, fish, the weather, and the human condition. Many of the poems are set in New England where Ravi Shankar lives. Poems from the collection have been featured by the Academy of American Poets and have appeared in such journals as “Blackbird,” “Barrow Street,” “Fulcrum,” “The Mississippi Review” and “Slope.”

Ravi Shankar is founding editor of “Drunken Boat,” an international online journal of the arts, and Co-Director of Creative Writing at Central Connecticut State University. A recipient of a Pushcart Prize, he has published five other books and chapbooks. With Tina Chang and Natalie Handal, he edited W.W. Norton's “Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from Asia, the Middle East & Beyond,” called "a beautiful achievement for world literature" by Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer.


Joel Allegretti is the author of two full-length volumes of poetry from The Poet’s Press: “The Plague Psalms” and “Father Silicon,” selected by “The Kansas City Star” as one of 100 Noteworthy Books of 2006. Poets Wear Prada released his third collection, “Thrum” (2010), a chapbook of prose poems and poetic essays about musical string instruments. Poets Wear Prada will publish his fourth collection, “Europa/Nippon/New York: Poems/Not-Poems,” in 2012.

Suzanne Frischkorn is the author of “Girl On A Bridge” (2010), and “Lit Windowpane” (2008) both from Main Street Rag Publishing. In addition she is the author of five chapbooks, most recently “American Flamingo” (2008). Her honors include the Aldridge Poetry Award for her chapbook “Spring Tide,” selected by Mary Oliver, a 2009 Emerging Writers Fellowship from the Writers Center, an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism.

Lisa C. Taylor is the author of three collections of poetry, most recently a collaborative collection with Irish poet and writer Geraldine Mills, “The Other Side of Longing” (Arlen House/Syracuse University Press, 2011). They were both named 2011 Elizabeth Shanley Gerson Readers of Irish Literature at University of Connecticut. She has a new collection due out in 2012.
Writers and Readers is a social gathering for people who love books. Readings will be preceded and followed by an informal discussion providing an opportunity to talk with others interested in reading, writing and thinking. Newly released publications will be available for purchase. Admission is open to the public, free for all Real Art Ways’ members; $5 for non-members.

Real Art Ways (RAW) is an alternative multidisciplinary arts organization, founded in 1975, that presents and supports contemporary artists and their work, facilitates the creation of new work, and creatively engages, builds, and informs audiences and communities. The RAW live arts program has featured poets Allen Ginsberg, Amiri Baraka, Martin Espada and Sonia Sanchez among others. Real Art Ways, 56 Arbor Street, Hartford, CT 06106, phone: 860.232.1006, fax: 860.233.6691, email: info@realartways.org , website: http://www.realartways.org/.

Contact:

Real Art Ways

Meghan Maguire Dahn

860.232.1006 x109

mdahn@realartways.org

http://www.realartways.org/



Boog City Hosts Poets Wear Prada at ACA Galleries, New York City in September

Boog City will host a reading featuring writers from Poets Wear Prada on Tuesday September 27th, 2011. David A. Kirschenbaum, editor of Boog City, will host the event on:

Tuesday, September 27, 2011, 6pm

@

ACA Galleries

529 W. 20th St., 5th Floor

New York City

Featuring:

Austin Alexis
Joel Allegretti
Jee Leong Koh
Richard Marx Weinraub
Dorinda Wegener
Karen Neuberg
Maria Lisella
Carol Wiezerbicki

Please come out and support the writers, Poets Wear Prada, and Boog City at the reading!

Check out Boog City online at http://welcometoboogcity.com/

Austin Alexis has published poetry and flash fiction most recently in First Literary Review--East, Nomad's Choir, Mobius: The Poetry Magazine, Rusty Typer, Dance Macabre, Come Hear (an anthology), Quill and Parchment and Vox Poetica. His second chapbook, For Lincoln & Other Poems (Poets Wear Prada), was named a Small Press Review "Pick of the Month" and contains a Pushcart Prize nominated poem. One of his short stories was performed at the 2010 Woodstock-Diamond Dance Festival.

Joel Allegretti (www.joelallegretti.com) is the author of two full-length volumes from The Poet’s Press: The Plague Psalms (2000) and Father Silicon, selected by The Kansas City Star as one of 100 Noteworthy Books of 2006, a list that included novels by Cormac McCarthy and Thomas Pynchon. In 2010 Poets Wear Prada released his third collection, Thrum, a chapbook of poems and poetic essays about musical instruments. Allegretti’s work has appeared in The New York Quarterly, Margie, Fulcrum, Voices in Italian Americana, and Sentence: a Journal of Prose Poetics and many other national journals, as well as on the Best American Poetry blog. Allegretti’s poems were the basis of two song cycles by Frank Ezra Levy, whose symphonic work is available in the American Classics series on Naxos.

Jee Leong Koh is the author of two books of poems, Payday Loans (Poets Wear Prada) and Equal to the Earth (Bench Press). His new book Seven Studies for a Self Portrait was released by the same press in March 2011. Born in Singapore, he lives in New York City, and blogs at Song of a Reformed Headhunter.

Related to the Marx Brothers through his mother, Richard Marx Weinraub was born in New York City in 1949; he was a Professor of English at the University of Puerto Rico from 1987 through 2010. A book of his poetry entitled Wonder Bread Hill was published in 2002 by the University of Puerto Rico Press. His poetry has appeared in many journals including The Paris Review, Asheville Poetry Review, South Carolina Review, The Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, Green Mountains Review, North American Review, Measure, The Evansville Review, Slate, and River Styx. A

Spanish translation of Wonder Bread Hill was recently published by Terranova Press. A chapbook of his poetry entitled Heavenly Bodies was published in 2008 by Poets Wear Prada Press, and a poem from it was nominated for a 2009 Pushcart Prize.

Maria Lisella's Pushcart Poetry Prize-nominated work appears in Amore on Hope Street (Finishing Line Press) and Two Naked Feet (Poets Wear Prada). Her poetry has appeared in The New York Quarterly, Skidrow Penthouse, Paterson Literary Review and New Verse News among others; her latest short story appears in Sweet Lemons 2, Writing with a Sicilian Accent (Legas Press). She co-curates the Italian American Writers Association monthly literary readings at Cornelia St. Cafe on the 2nd Saturday of each month. She is a travel writer by profession.

Karen Neuberg lives in Brooklyn, NY and West Hurley, NY. Her

poems have appeared in numerous publications including Big City Lit, decomP, elimae, NewVerseNews, Pirene’s Fountain, Stone Telling, and the anthology Child of My Child. She’s a two-time Pushcart and a Best of the Net nominee, holds an MFA from the New School, and is associate editor of Inertia Magazine and of First Literary Review, East. Her chapbook, Detailed Still was published by Poets Wear Prada Press and is available from Amazon. For more information and links to her on-line work, please see her website at http://karenneuberg.blogspot.com/

Carol Wierzbicki is a published poet, editor and reviewer. She has run poetry readings in New York City, and is co-editor of the Unbearables Worst Book and Sex anthologies. Her latest chapbook is Top Teen Greatest Hits, poems about teen angst (Poets Wear Prada, 2009). Her short story, “Mending,” will appear in the summer 2011 issue of Many Mountains Moving.

Dorinda Wegener holds a MFA from New England College where she was a Joel Oppenheimer Award recipient. Her poems have been published in The Antioch Review, Indiana Review, Hotel Amerika, and Mid-American Review, among many others. Dorinda has had the honor of reading with the louderARTS Project in New York City. Her poems, “The Harvest” and “Evening Service,” were both finalist for the Marlboro Prize as judged by poet Edward Hirsch. She currently resides with her husband and daughter in Staten Island, New York, where she’s a teaching artist of poetry for Teachers & Writers Collaborative. In 2011, she will present a reading and discourse on William Carlos Willams at the Williams Center for the Arts, Rutherford, New Jersey, as well as join the editorial staff of Green Mountains Review as a reader.

Boog City is a small press now its 16th year, and East Village community newspaper of the same name. The press has published more than three dozen volumes of poetry and various zines, featuring work by Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, Ed Sanders, Eileen Myles, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Bernadette Mayer among many others, and theme issues on topics ranging from baseball to women's writing, Louisville, Ky. to The Ramones and Talking Heads making the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame.