Halloween news, treats but no tricks


Probably the biggest news is our own Stuart Kestenbaum is the new Maine Poet Laureate. His titles continue to be popular. This and other news can be found on the new Website.

Other news includes a new review for No Passing Zone also reviewed in the American Book Review, along with Wars Don’t Happen Anymore and links to that review, as well as poems appearing in journals, are on the Website page. Take a look at the new Website with new navigation features like drop-down menus, pages for author’s info and books, and of course free shipping in the US when you order from the Website. In the past 16 months, twelve new titles have been added to the list, so check out the quality work.

Lots of new books from 2015 & 2016: check the site for the latest titles

The Vagabond's Book Shelf by Dawn Potter

The Vagabond’s Book Shelf by Dawn Potter

F.Fields cover grab

Richard Kostelanetz

Wars Don't happen Anymore by Sarah White

Wars Don’t happen Anymore by Sarah White

descent-poems-cover

Descent & Other Poems

The Conversation by Dawn Potter

The Conversation by Dawn Potter

A passing

A Passing by Joan Siegel

Beautiful Day by JR Solonche

Beautiful Day by JR Solonche

Middle of the Night

Middle of the Night prose & poetry by HC Hsu

Once It Stops by Florence Fogelin

Once It Stops by Florence Fogelin Cover photo by Rosamond Orford

Yellow Horses by Martin Steingesser

Yellow Horses by Martin Steingesser

The Congress of Human Oddities by Teresa Carson

The Congress of Human Oddities by Teresa Carson

The World Disguised as This One by Mimi White

The World Disguised as This One by Mimi White

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News from The Thinking Heart


The Thinking Heart ensemble will be at the Camden Library April 27 performing the poetry to music based on Etty Hillesum’s life and writing.

Recently returning from a trip to Europe for Etty’s birthday, there are now thoughts and reflections on a new blog, the creative wellspring from that visit abroad, where news will be appearing on the development of a new educational program. No doubt, some of the impressions and words on that experience will be shared at the performance, so if you have not been to one this could be a rich time to attend.

The text of The Thinking Heart, with an introduction, is available in stores and online at Deerbrook Editions.

The Thinking Heart

News and titles from 2012-2013


Thank you for your support; whether you have bought books, made donations, or written a review—everything you do helps.

And Welcome to this update on titles.

Deerbrook Editions
A small literary press publishing deserving authors in well-designed trade books
Deserving Authors • Good Books

Find books here deerbrookeditions.com

distributed by Small Press Distribution spdbooks.org

Visit our new sample page online to view sample book pages and the beginning of our catalog. All remarkably presented by ISSUU in better than ebook form.
News from Deerbrook Editions 2013

New books are in the works. This year, 2014, as of this letter, new books will be coming out by Dawn Potter, Stuart Kestenbaum, and Martina Reisz Newberry. And More.

Over the past year and a half Deerbrook Editions has brought out six new books:

Learning by Rote, poems by Martina Reisz Newberry
The Thinking Heart: The Life & Loves of Etty Hillesum by Martin Steingesser
Memory Won’t Save Me: a haibun by Mimi White
No Passing Zone, poems by Donna Reis
The Irresistible In-Between, poems by David Sloan
Freeing the Hook, poems by Peter Harris

All books available from the Website deerbrookeditions.com
Available now: Freeing the Hook, poems by Peter Harris.

Freeing The Hook by Peter Harris

White Waves on Sand, Maine by John Marin

Petter Harris is Zacamy Professor in English at Colby College in Waterville, Maine where he founded a mentoring program. Currently, he chairs the Art Department. He has taught at Colby College since 1974.

He has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony, the Virginia Center for the Arts, Red Cinder House, and the Tyron Guthrie Center in Ireland, and has been awarded a Martin Dibner Writing Fellowship.

He is co-founder of a mentoring program (Colby Cares About Kids) that in 2012-13 matched nearly five hundred College students with primary and elementary students in ten communities.

He holds an BA from Middlebury, a Ph.D. from Indiana University. And a MFA from Warren Wilson.

———————-

David Sloan received the 2012 Betsy Sholl award for the poem Bad Math, and the 2012 Maine Literary Award for Poetry in the Short Works Competition.
The Irresistible In-Between by David Sloan, is available at the Website deerbrookeditions.com.
David not only teaches at Maine’s Waldorf school he trains teachers in Waldorf theory.

The Irresistible In-Between by David Slaon

The Irresistible In-Between cover features a photo by Chris Darling.

From the back cover:

W.H. Auden said poetry is a clear statement of mixed emotions, and that’s the great gift of David Sloan’s poems. The Irresistible In-Between gives us a series of lenses, each clarifying the rich complexity of contemporary life and relationships. There is an exactitude of eye and ear here, and an unassuming confidence that makes the speaker an indispensable guide through relational thickets, where, as he says, ‘I do what I can to be near the commotion, the danger.’ I would describe all these poems the way the speaker describes his sons’ carpentry skills: ‘the casual exactness of lines/ measured out like music.’ These are indeed beautifully rendered poems.
—Betsy Sholl, author of Rough Cradle

Good books from 2012

No Passing Zone is a fine book of poems by Donna Reis who teaches at The Northeast Poetry Center, College of Poetry, in Warwick, New York. More can be seen at donnareis.com.
Donna has a review: reviewed-by-john-bellinger/10152085658697318  which is posted as a note on our Facebook page.

No Passing grab

From the Back cover:

Lyrical, wry, biting—Reis uses all the tricks in her deck to show how to survive the pain and healing of the body, the crumbling and restoration of houses, the razing and rebuilding of love. There’s serious word play here, and a sharp eye for detail. Reis explores not only her own experience, but the lives of others—Dorothy Wordsworth ministering to her brother, Mary Lamb, whose “Kitchen rattled / toward me, its knives hissing . . .” Readers will rejoice at the perseverance of this poet, who “stayed because [she had] more stories to tell.”
—Mary Makofske

 

 

 
Martina Reisz Newberry is a California writer now, once again, living in LA. Learning by Rote has gotten some attention and reviews can be read here: Martina’s blog. I have posted a number of descriptions and the like on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/learning.by.rote

A photo by Brian Newberry

A photo by Brian Newberry

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Martin Steingesser is as active as ever with readings and performances of The Thinking Heart. The ensemble has been raising money in performance to make a trip to Europe for Etty’s birthday. You can learn more information here: http://www.pilgrimagetotheheart.org

"A Red Anemone" , pastel by Katharine Whild

“A Red Anemone” , pastel by Katharine Whild

The book is based on the performance and contains the text and an introduction to Etty Hillesum, her writings, and how they touched and inspired Martin.

Read a review in the Press Herald.

“Etty Hillesum’s remarkable voice and The Thinking Heart ensemble’s stirring simplicity… make this an intimate and profoundly moving meditation on how…to love.” —The Portland Phoenix

 

 

 

 

 

Memory Won't Save me by Mimi White

Cover art: Sculpture “Wheel of Time” by Kerryn Forster of Australia

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Memory Won’t Save Me by Mimi White is best described by this endorsement:

When the Japanese poet-monk Basho invented the haibun, the alternating haiku and prose in which he documented his travels, he certainly never imagined what a poet could do with the form in twenty-first century American English. Mimi White’s Memory Won’t Save Me is an ingenious, fascinating appropriation, an account of both physical and emotional travel. The geography is the weeks leading up to the death of a father. Shifting easily between direct observation and layers of memory, she turns what might have been a familiar kind of elegy into a work of great depth and power.
—Chase Twichell

Other news is not so new but to perhaps some of you.

(Since keeping up with blogs, Websites, marketing, mailings, design, editing, etc. I yearn to be able to make more frequent newsletters.)

For the past couple of years Deerbrook Editions has had a Fiscal Sponsorship with Fractured Atlas in NY which allows “Project Deerbrook” to receive tax deductible donations to help us with our mission of making books and helping undiscovered authors reach a wider audience in well designed trade books.

We need your help to develop marketing and promotion strategies for new authors books. The press needs to raise money to expand beyond break even economics, in order to get help with the business of running the press, and to try to land a grant.

If you know and like the press books, please show your support by making even a small donation. If 20 people donated 10 dollars (the price of a bottle of wine or a six pack) it becomes 200 dollars; if 20 people donated 25 dollars it becomes 500 dollars. 500 dollars would help launch an authors new book or keep a couple of books on the list in print.

Deerbrook is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions for the purposes of Deerbrook must be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

Visit our profile and consider joining us in celebrating literature by donating or by buying books.

contact info: Deerbrook Editions / PO Box 542 Cumberland ME 04021 207.829.5038

http://www.deerbrookeditions.com

http://www.facebook.com/deerbrook.editions

Joy Harjo, Patricia Smith and the 86 Ensemble @ SPACE


This news is nice because one of our authors Martin Steingesser joins 86 Ensemble for this event.

Joy Harjo, Patricia Smith and the 86 Ensemble @ SPACE
On Wednesday, July 13, two of today’s most dynamic and acclaimed poets, Joy
Harjo and Patricia Smith, arrive in Portland for an electrifying evening of
spoken word, live music and performance.

Albuquerque-based Harjo draws on her Mvskoke-Creek heritage to bring stories
of transcendence and redemption to life.  Joy has published fourteen books
and released four award-winning CD’s of original music.  Joy performs spoken
word and saxophone  internationally with her band Arrow Dynamics.   Joy’s
many awards include the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry
Society of America.    She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Chicago-native Smith’s 2008 work, Blood Dazzler, a National Book Award
finalist, chronicles the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in
riveting, fierce style.    Patricia was a winner of the 2009 Paterson Award
for Sustained Literary Achievement, and one of NPR’s and the Library
Journal’s Top Books of 2008.   Teahouse of the Almighty was the winner of
the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award and the 2007 Paterson Poetry Prize.

Smith has  performed around the world, including Carnegie Hall, the Poets
Stage in Stockholm, Rotterdam’s Poetry International, the Aran Islands
International Poetry and Prose Festival, the Bahia Festival, the Schomburg
Center , the Sorbonne in Paris and and toured in Germany, Austria and
Holland.  She is a Pushcart Prize winner, and a four-time individual
champion of the National Poetry Slam, the most successful poet in the
competition’s history.

Patricia Smith and Joy Harjo are joined by The 86 Ensemble including Ben
Noyes, Gil Helmick and Jesse Lynch plus Martin Steingesser with Rudy
Gabrielson and Rick Cormier.    Collaborating with the performances of
Harjo, Smith and The 86 Ensemble are musicians Kyle Hardy, Duncan Hardy,
Mark Tipton, Josh Francis, Chris Sprague, Maria Wagner, Blake Hawley and
Jacob  Forbes .

Movement Artists from Maine  and Massachusetts are converging to the hour
and place to honor this night of poetic and musical synergy.  Movement by
Shana Bloomstein, Jill Eng, Deb Grant, Carl Rudman, Joe Rogers, Susan
Schell, Rachel Schwarz  and Kristen Stake will accent and invigorate.

The evening is Co-Presented by Port Veritas and Near-Sighted Productions in
Association with the USM Stonecoast MFA Program..

8.00 pm
Doors Open 7.30
@ SPACE
538 Congress Street,
Portland, ME
All Ages
$10 Admission
$  8 for Space Gallery Members

For further details and photos,
Contact:
Gil Helmick
207.400.7543

Reprise & Overture


“Reprise & Overture,” a program of poems and music by Martin Steingesser and friends for the publication of the second edition of his book Brothers of Morning will be presented at Longfellow Books, One Monument Way, Portland, Maine, on Thursday, May 20, at 7 pm.

Poets, musicians and friends of Martin Steingesser will join to read poems from his book Brothers of Morning, followed by a presentation of new poems by the author. Readers include flutists Carl Dimow and Judy Cormier, singer, guitarist and composer Con Fullam, poet Bruce Spang, co-manager-owner of Longfellow Books Chris Bowe and performer Judy Tierney. The ensemble also will be joined by percussionist Rick Cormier.

Martin Steingesser “is a musician and acrobat, his book Brothers of Morning, ablaze with imagination,” says poet Laure-Anne Bosselaar. “A burning, tender voice,” said former Maine Poet Laureate Baron Wormser. Individual poems have appeared in the national magazines The Sun, The Progressive and the Humanist (spring 2010), and in literary publications like American Poetry Review, Hanging Loose, Rattle, The Ohio Review, Nimrod International Journal, Inkwell Journal, The Beloit Poetry Journal and Poetry East (forthcoming). His poems have received a number of awards, including First Place in Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance 2008 Maine Literary Awards. They are represented in several anthologies, such as Four Seasons, edited by Wesley McNair (Downeast Books: 2010), The Maine Poets, edited by Wesley McNair (Down East Books: 2003); Motion: American Sports Poems (University of Iowa Press, 2001); Poetry Comes Up Where It Can: Poems from The Amicus Journal, 1900-2000 (University of Utah Press, 2000); Speaking of New England  (North Country Press: Belfast, ME, 1993); Blood to Remember: American Poets on the Holocaust  (Time Being Books, St. Louis, MO, 2007); and Naming the World (Heinemann Publishers: Portsmouth, NH, 2006).
He is Portland, Maine’s first Poet Laureate (2007-09).
Brothers of Morning was originally published by Deerbrook Editions, of Cumberland, Maine, in 2002. The second edition, with revisions by the author, was re-issued by Deerbrook this April.

Sometimes a Poem Ripens in Me,

and I think I’ll split my skin
if I don’t have a plate
on which to offer it,
some altar from which to sing.
Interminable are the days, months,
years my poems wander
searching a page
you might turn to find them.
All morning
I’ve worked on and off on one,
stumbling over new gifts,
as if words,
phrases, images, were windfall apples,
this old heart among them
glad as a fawn again.

Copyright © 2010 Martin Steingesser

For Additional Information Contact
Longfellow Books; One Monument Way, Portland, Maine; 207-772-4045;<Lfbooks@maine.rr.com>
Martin Steingesser, Author & Participating Poet; 207-828-9937;