Tupelo Press

New Joan Houlihan Interview

Citing her youthful reading of Hopkins, Dickinson, Eliot and Plath, Joan Houlihan describes the origins of her startling new book The Us to Christopher Lydon for "Open Source," a web radio program based at Brown University: www.radioopensource.org/whose-words-these-are-4-joan-houlihan/

Tupelo Press Is Pleased to Announce the Results of This Year's 10th Annual First Book Award

The editors of Tupelo Press and the literary journal Crazyhorse have selected the manuscript The Maturation of Man by Daniel Khalastchi of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

We thank all the poets who sent us so much terrific work to consider, and we extend special appreciation and congratulations to this year's Finalists:

• Ari Banias of Brooklyn, New York: One the Whistler, One the Dog
• Laurie Capps of Austin, Texas: Modern Recluse
• Brett Foster of Wheaton, Illinois: The Garbage Eater
• Christina Hutchins of Albany, California: World Without
• Tanya Larkin of Somerville, Massachusetts: Enemy Love Song
• Dawn Lonsinger of Salt Lake City, Utah: fatal light awareness
• Jynne Martin of Brooklyn, New York: We Mammals in Hospitable Times
• Kathy Nilsson of Cambridge, Massachusetts: Black Lemons
• Addie Palin of Chicago, Illinois: The Cautery
• Juliet Rodeman of Columbia, Missouri: Tropics of Petticoats
• Amanda Rachelle Warren of Aiken, South Carolina: Some Grain of Absolute Among the Trembling

New Annie Finch Interview

To read the interview hear Annie Finch read "Paravaledellentine" from Calendars, see Southeast Review: SER Online, July 2009

Floyd Skloot's Selected Poems: 1970-2005 has won the Silver Medal in ForeWord Magazine's Book of the Year Awards

Free Reader's Companions Now Available For Download

Responding to requests from teachers, book groups, reading hosts and readers, Tupelo Press has begun offering free, easily downloaded Reader's Companions to accompany books. Featuring author essays and interviews, critical commentaries, discussion questions, and other engaging ingredients, these guides can be retrieved and printed from the Tupelo Press website. The first three are now available: Reader's Companions for Annie Finch's Calendars, Karen An-hwei Lee's Ardor and Francine Sterle's Nude in Winter. Have a look and let us know what you think.

Dorset Prize Results: 2008-2009

Tupelo Press is delighted to announce the results of this year's Dorset Prize. Judge Ilya Kaminsky has selected Joshua Corey of Evanston, IL for the manuscript Severance Songs.

In addition, we extend our appreciation and congratulations to the runner-up, honorable mentions, and all finalists and semifinalists for giving us so much terrific work:

Runner-up:
Geri Doran of Eugene, OR for the manuscript Sanderlings

Honorable Mentions to:
Shane McCrae, Iowa City, IA for Mule
Rusty Morrison, Richmond, CA for Landscape, Not Fable

Other Finalists:
K.E. Allen, Ann Arbor, MI—Woman in a Boat
Desireé Alvarez, New York, NY—Paintings Hidden Upstairs
Hadara Bar—Nadav, Kansas City, MO—Architecture at the Mouth
Mark Conway, Avon, MN—Dreaming Man, Face Down
Landon Godfrey, Black Mountain, NC—Labor in Vain
David Hawkins, Salt Lake City, UT—Dark Adaptations
Christina Hutchins, Albany, CA—World Without
Dale M. Kushner, Madison, WI—More Alive Than Lions Roaring
Jynne Martin, Brooklyn, NY—We Mammals in Hospitable Times
Jennifer McClanaghan, Tallahasse, FL—The Cairo Letters
Mary Molinary, Memphis, TN—The Supine & Other Burials
Addie Palin, Chicago, IL—The Cautery
Michael Robins, Chicago, IL—Ladies & Gentlemen
Juliet Rodeman, Columbia, MO—Tropics of Petticoats
Rob Schlegel, Missoula, MT—Wrack Line
Robert Strong, Canton, NY—Bright Advent
Kerri Webster, St. Louis, MO—Anodyne
Nance Van Winkel, Liberty Lake, WA—Night to Which We Were Party

Semifinalists:
David Axelrod, La Grande, OR—What Next, Old Knife?
Susan Briante, Dallas, TX—Jerusalem
John Randolph Carter, Los Alamitos, CA—Bureau of Lost Continents
Carl Casinghino, Hatfield, MA—The Heathen Cartographer
Adam Dressler, Brooklyn, NY—Ithakas
Matthew Gavin Frank, Grand Rapids, MI—Egoli Exhaustress
Sarah Estes Graham, Charlottesville, VA—La Meuse Mississippi
Gabrielle Jesiolowski, Portland, ME—Ohio From the Fleeting
Stephen Knauth, Charlotte, NC—Keeperless Light
Jacqueline Kolosov, Lubbock, TX—An Impasse of Angels
Christi Kramer, Bonners Ferry, ID—Reading The Throne
Shara Lessley, Edenton, NC—Two—Headed Nightingale
Frannie Lindsay, Belmont, MA—The Urn Garden
Joy Manesiotis, Redlands, CA—Revoke
Abby Millager, Newark, DE—Space Botany
William Orem, Waltham, MA—Our Purpose in Speaking
Irena Praitis, Fullerton, CA—One Woman's Life: A Youth Between the Wars
Jay Rogoff, Saratoga Springs, NY—Enamel Eyes
Ravi Shankar, Chester, CT—Truth or Pretense
Martha Silano, Seattle, WA—The Little Office of the Immaculate Conception
Shirley Stephenson, Chicago, IL—Partial Toll
Alison Stine, Athens, OH—Persephone In Hell
John Surowiecki, Amston, CT—The Vomiting Bride
D.H. Tracy, Champaign, IL—Impressions of the Tribeless
Stacey Waite, Pittsburgh, PA—When Someone Asks If You Believe What You Just Said
Daneen Wardrop, Kalamazoo, MI— Perhapsed

More praise for C.G.Waldrep's Archicembalo

The latest Library Journal says of Archicembalo, "Recalling works by Russell Edson and Max Jacob, this collection redefines poetry writing."

The full review: Waldrep here reveals the transparency of poetic language and its affinities with nonlyric genres such as politics and history and its links to routine activities. The poems are ultimately answers to questions posted by their titles, recalling the Archicembalo, a musical instrument of the 1500s designed to experiment with tonality and allowing for call-and-response. The poet makes rich use of a wide range of symbols, from "General Electric, Mutual Omaha" to a sacred city in Iraq: "The Country around Karbala is desert, meaning a dry wind and sand and/ pilgrims in like season." While lucid, these poems are written in a fabulist style with a complete absence of narrative linearity and must be read attentively. They create a sense of absence that yearns to be present, of a present on the verge of disappearing, and a new language to be rolled around the tongue and set sailing. Recalling works by Russell Edson and Max Jacob, this collection redefines poetry writing. Recommended for academic and large public libraries.—Sadiq Alkoriji, South Regional Lib., Broward Cty., FL

The Berkshire Eagle covers Tupelo Press's move to North Adams, MA

The Berkshire Eagle has just done a nice article on Tupelo Press, newly out in both a print and online version.

The Colrain Manuscript Conference

The Colrain Poetry Manuscript Conference provides the faculty, tools and methods necessary to set poets with a completed manuscript or manuscript-in-process on a path towards publication. Faculty includes conference founder Joan Houlihan as well as Jeffrey Levine, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of Tupelo Press. For details on location, requirements and cost, please visit: colrainpoetry.com .

You may also...

Call: (978) 897-0054
Email: conferences@colrainpoetry.com
Write: Colrain Poetry Manuscript Conference
c/o Concord Poetry Center
40 Stow Street
Concord, MA 01742-241

Cloisters Wins Design Award


Tupelo Congratulates William Kuch, WP Graphic Design, for winning a da Vinci Eye award from the Eric Hoffer Book Award Committee for the cover artwork of Cloisters, by Kristin Bock.

Here is the full announcement:

Hoffer Award Introduces the da Vinci Eye

The Eric Hoffer Book Award committee announces the first da Vinci Eye winners.
April 13, Trenton, NJ — The Eric Hoffer Book Award committee has released the da Vinci Eye winners for the 2009 award year. Each year, the da Vinci Eye is given to the titles with superior cover artwork. Cover art is judged on both content and style.

“The da Vinci Eye is a special honor given as part of the annual Hoffer Award for books and prose,” said Christopher Klim, Chair of the Eric Hoffer Award. Klim is also the award-winning author of several books.

Here is the current short list of award finalists in alphabetical order:

A Road More or Less Traveled, Stephen Otis & Colin Roberts, Sunnygold Books
(cover by Ben Brezina)

Cloisters, Kristin Bock, Tupelo Press
(cover by William Kuch)

Faces of the Earth, Elizabeth Searls Almy, Wishflower Press
(cover by Charlotte L. Searls)

Leaving My Found Eden, Ron L. Zheng, Literary Road Press
(cover by Ron L. Zheng)

The Enduring Journey of the USS Chesapeake, Chris Dickon, The History Press
(cover image by John Christian Schetky)

Tough Boy Sonatas, Curtis L. Crisler, Boyds Mills Press
(cover by Floyd Cooper)

Tupelo Press/Crazyhorse First Book Award Deadline Approaches

2009 Tupelo Press/Crazyhorse First Book Award
Submission (Postmark) Deadline: April 15, 2009
Awarding publication of a book-length collection and $3,000.00

Click Here For Complete Guidelines

Archicembalo by Dorset Prize Winner G.C. Waldrep Just Released

Congratulations to G.C. Waldrep, whose just-released Archicembalo garners a starred review in Publishers Weekly. Here's an excerpt:

Often breathtaking in its erudition, at other times imbued with a forceful simplicity, tricky in its sensibility yet clearly driven by affection, this third collection from the prolific Waldrep might be the best book of prose poems to appear in a long while.

Selected by judge C.D. Wright as winner of the Dorset Prize, Waldrep's Archicembalo is an acerbic, whimsical, and deeply intelligent attempt to fuse poetry and music.

As Waldrep has said, "I was interested in writing about music in language, but on music's terms, in music's vocabulary of phrase and affect, its logic of composition and performance. The poems are a kind of mental music." "They are also very, very intimate, at least to me," he said. "They are meant to take shape in the reader's mind, as music. So, people should listen to the poems they way they listen to visual art."