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

Richard Kostelanetz

Wars Don’t happen Anymore by Sarah White

Descent & Other Poems

The Conversation by Dawn Potter

A Passing by Joan Siegel

Beautiful Day by JR Solonche

Middle of the Night prose & poetry by HC Hsu

Once It Stops by Florence Fogelin Cover photo by Rosamond Orford

Yellow Horses by Martin Steingesser

The Congress of Human Oddities by Teresa Carson

The World Disguised as This One by Mimi White

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Prayer for Joy

What was it we wanted
to say anyhow, like today
when there were all the letters
in my alphabet soup and suddenly
the ‘j’ rises to the surface.
The ‘j’, a letter that might be
great for Scrabble, but not really
used for much else, unless
we need to jump for joy,
and then all of a sudden
it’s there and ready to
help us soar and to open up
our hearts at the same time,
this simple line with a curved bottom,
an upside down cane that helps
us walk in a new way into this
forest of language, where all the letters
are beginning to speak,
finding each other in just
the right combination
to be understood.

by Stuart Kestenbaum      from Only Now 

appeared on American Life in Poetry and Poetry Foundation

available here: Deerbrook Editions

 

As letter forms go, “J” is an odd one not found in the original Roman alphabet of Roman caps but may have been a swash version of the “I”. Swash being a flourish, more often seen in the Cancellaresca hand or Italic letterforms. Note the third line “Imperatori” using a swash ‘I’ and see if you can find any more.

There is more regarding the sound of “J” formerly being as “Y” in some other languages. The J is still four or five hundred years old probably first appearing in manuscripts and early printed books after the invention of printing from moveable types attributed to Gutenberg.

 

Now and again

Where it Goes features a photograph by Eleanor Bennett

Where it Goes, the latest book of poetry from Deerbrook Editions by Martina Newberry, features a photo by Eleanor Bennett, a promising young UK photographer. This second book of poems by Martina Newberry has been praised as “Revealing intense human vulnerability and wondrous irony . . . With honesty, wit, imaginative breadth and prosodic grace . . . Newberry explores the painful themes of death and life, youth and aging, prayer and spirituality”

—Anne Tammel

 

 

 

 

 

 

The cover features a print collaboration by Susan Webster and Stuart Kestenbaum

Only Now has been a best seller at Blue Hill Books and selling well in general. A welcome review of this book appeared on The Line Break by Tom Holmes of Redactions magazine. This is the third book of poems Deerbrook Editions has published by Stuart Kestenbaum over the years.

 

From the back cover of Only Now:

 

Stuart Kestenbaum’s Only Now is a rare accomplishment: a collection of poems that takes on the fragility of the world and our own mortality, and does so with unflinching directness and, most impressively, with wit and a sincere prayerfulness. Many of these poems are what I would call strangely hopeful warnings, elegies-in-advance. They worry about the world in ways that register the beauty of what is in danger of being diminished. —Stephen Dunn

Other recent good books post here: for Freeing the Hook by Peter Harris

White Waves on Sand, Maine by John Marin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and here for David Sloan’s The Irresistible In-Between. David received Maine literary awards for poems in the book.

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

All books can be found on the front page of Deerbrook Editions Website.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you are a reader and lover of literature, prose and poetry, and if you can, please buy books and support indie authors. If you are so inclined to make a donation, tax deductible donations can be made via our fiscal sponsor, here.  By supporting the press you support authors, and make it possible for the press to do more books and do better what we do for the books in the way of marketing, promotion, and distribution. Our distributor is spdbooks.org.  Your support will also help with new book plans coming in the near future (see head link The Latest) including new books of prose in the form of experimental fiction and short stories by noteworthy writers. Even if your donation is small, if you can encourage others, think of this; if 20 people gave us 10 dollars, that becomes $200.00. Thank you.

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. 

Only Now for poetry month

The cover features a print collaboration by Susan Webster and Stuart Kestenbaum

Only Now, poems by Stuart Kestenbaum, now only on the Website, for poetry month from Deerbrook Editions. Next week Stuart will be reading at Longfellow Books in Portland, Maine, with two other poets who have recent titles (2013) of poetry from Deerbrook Editions. Mark April 17th at 7pm on your calendar.

From the back cover of Only Now:

Stuart Kestenbaum’s Only Now is a rare accomplishment: a collection of poems that takes on the fragility of the world and our own mortality, and does so with unflinching directness and, most impressively, with wit and a sincere prayerfulness. Many of these poems are what I would call strangely hopeful warnings, elegies-in-advance. They worry about the world in ways that register the beauty of what is in danger of being diminished. —Stephen Dunn

Books_Q_A__Maine_poet_Stuart_Kestenbaum_expresses_optimism_and_awareness_of_mortality_in__Only_Now__.html

 

The other poets reading on the 17th are Peter Harris and David Sloan. Peter Harris had the poem Ode to Popcorn , and Villanelle  for the Pond, featured in Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry which appears in the Portland Press Herald, edited and introduced by Wesley McNair, Maine poet laureate, and produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. Stuart Kestenbaum also has had several poems appear in Take Heart: A conversation in Poetry.

Peter Harris  had his chapbook, Blue Hallelujahs, win the Maine chapbook competition in 1996.

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.

Davis Sloan is a graduate of the University of Southern Maine s Stonecoast MFA Poetry Program and loves living in Maine, at the edge of the world, with his wife Christine where they both work in Maine’s only Waldorf high school. He is the author of two books on teaching: Stages of Imagination: Working Dramatically with Adolescents, and Life Lessons: Reaching Teenagers through Literature.  His poetry has appeared most recently in The Barefoot Review, The Broome Review, The Café Review, Carpe Articulum, Innisfree, The Naugatuck River Review, The Northern New England Review, Passager, The Prairie Wolf Press Review and Words and Images.

All books will be available at Longfellow Books for signing the night of the reading. This should be a great night for poetry as all of these poets are excellent readers.

Peter’s cover features White Waves on Sand, Maine by John Marin

 

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