updating Plan B Press

The latest book we have brought out is Joseph Kerschbaum's Your Casual Survival (the air & the echo). Joseph is 1/4 of an Indiana-based poetry troupe called Reservoir Dogwoods. He along with fellow Dogwood member, Tony Brewer, will be at the next Poetry Lab in Vienna, VA on April 2, 2010. In fact, their appearance will be part of their mini-tour which they are calling "Bottomless Cheetah Blood Tourette"

here's their tour dates:

Thurs 1 April
Zanzibar Brews
740 E. Long St.
Columbus, OH
9p

Fri 2 April
The Soundry
316 Dominion Rd.
Vienna, VA
8p

Sat 3 April
Wild Goose Creative
2491 Summit Street
Columbus, OH
7p - $5 cover

I am glad to say that I am particularly happy that their 3rd leg of the tour will be at Wild Goose Creative in Columbus, Ohio. They held Talia Weisz & Jason Venner book release gig back in December. Good people there. If you are going to be heading through Ohio, trying to set up an event at Wild Goose is an option worth checking out.

Additionally, we are more than happy to announce that Dan Maguire's chapbook Finding the Words has gone into a 5th printing. Incredible, Dan, you are the Everready Bunny, aren't you?

till soon


stevenallenmay

due to successful emergence of the Poetry Lab...

we are creating a Poetry Lab blog to document this fantastic new series.....
suffice it to say that we are overwhelmed with positive feedback we have so far received, and are impressed with the 30 people who showed up for a 10PM start in Vienna, VA!

the next twist : Plan B Press @the Soundry

s - a - m has been working to establish a new series at the Soundry in Vienna, VA called "the Poetry Lab". Working with Saul Rosenberg of Poetry Pure Poetry and Tommy Tavenner, a vision of the future is being explored once a month. Saul taped and posted the first batch of videos onto YouTube.

PoetryPurePoetry

in March 2010, CL Bledsoe will be reading at the Poetry Lab, in May 2010 Daniel Collins will be performing. Both were published by Plan B Press. The April event will feature Tony Brewer and Joseph Kerschbaum of Indianapolis, IN - each with a freshly published chapbook by Plan B Press. (Brewer - Little Glove in a Big Hand, Kerschbaum - Your Casual Survival)

more to come!


s - a - m

Following Richard Brautigan by Corey Mesler

In 2005 I decided that the short fiction contest that Plan B Press held would be a "Beat Generation" themed contest as the year marked the 50th anniversary of the first reading of Howl by Allen Ginsberg. I went to such lengths as to secure a number of fairly obscure Beat titles as part of the winning prize and secured ruth weiss to write the foreword to the winning chapbook. As it happened, the judge selected Corey Mesler's entry Following Richard Brautigan.

Now almost 5 years later, the complete novel by Corey is being published by Livingston Press. The click above comes from Corey's own source. The section he reads from is contained in the winning chapbook. The chapbook sports Mesler in a well known Brautigan cover pose.

We couldn't be happier for Corey's upcoming success. It's long overdue. Cheers to you, Corey Mesler. Enjoy the ride!!

Full Moon on K Street anthology is IN THE NEWS!

See the article in Sunday Feb. 7, 2010 Washington Post Style section written by Dan Zak :

"Chicago has Carl Sandburg's fog, coming on little cat feet. Los Angeles has Bukowski's drunks, sleeves soaking up spilt booze. New York has as many poets as rats. Washington has . . . what, exactly? Its reputation in popular poetry is that of a way station for gestating genius, a quarry of one-liners chipped into monuments, the coronation spot of a poet laureate who lives elsewhere.

Quote a line from a poem that captures the capital as a place to live.

Can't.

Couldn't, until now.

'Full Moon on K Street' -- the first anthology of modern poetry to be wholly for, about and by current and former Washington residents -- teems with poets who've distilled the region's lifeblood into verse over the past 50 years."

FULL ARTICLE



enjoy!


stevenallenmay

Full Moon on K Street anthology is HERE

the books have arrived, the books have arrived. the books !
gorgeously done cover by Katy Jean May. 101 poems expertly edited by Kim Roberts.
The first reading at Folger Shakespeare Theatre went swimmingly well, congrats all around.
more to follow!

s - a - m

the anthologies are here!

the gorgeous Full Moon on K Street : Poems about Washington DC has arrived and tonight, Jan. 11, 2010, at Folger's Theater in Washington DC as part of the beginning of their Spring season. It's the first time that Folgers is presenting a local reading and it's going to be quite an event. Will post pix later (should there be a shutterbug in the house)

noting two passings, Dennis Brutus and Don Belton

In my time in Philadelphia as Katy and I were taking over the daily operations of Plan B Press, I got to meet any number of fantastically talented and influential people. Two of them died over the holidays.



I got to know Dennis Brutus through his friendship and association with poet/publisher Lamont Steptoe and Larry Robin of Robins Bookstore, who created the Celebration of Black Writing in 1984 as a natural outgrowth of the very successful Black Ink program that been on-going at Robins for many years. The gentleman I met was full of grace and determination, a man bursting with energy and righteous cause. His presence, his shadow, will continue to be seen and felt by all who knew him and heard his words.

Don Belton was the kindest, most gentle man I met in Philadelphia. The tragic end of his life reminds me of the horrible ending of Matthew Shepard's life. Why is it that homophobes claim that they are assaulted by gay men as a justification for the hate in their own hearts, trying to justify murder of people who would not harm a fly? For anyone who wishes to know more about the moves in Indiana to seek justice for Don Belton please go to Justice for Don Belton.

Full Moon on K Street comes out soon

Plan B Press is happy to announce that it is taking pre-orders for Full Moon on K Street: Poems about Washington D.C. at a discounted rate until Jan. 10, 2010. Featuring over one hundred contemporary poems, the book captures DC's unique sense of place, from monuments to parks, from lawyers to bus stations, from go-go music to chili half-smokes.
All poems were written between 1950 and the present, by past and current residents of the city. Edited by Kim Roberts, the publisher of the acclaimed online journal Beltway Poetry Quarterly, this anthology captures the city's many moods: celebratory, angry, and fiercely political.



Contributors include: two-time US Poet Laureate Reed Whittemore; DC's first Poet Laureate, Sterling A. Brown; senator and five-time presidential candidate Eugene J. McCarthy; Cervantes prize winner for lifetime achievement in Spanish-language literature, Jose Emilio Pacheco; renowned gay rights activist Essex Hemphill; and President Obama's official inauguration poet, Elizabeth Alexander.



A number of readings will take place throughout 2010, in the greater Washington DC area (and one in Chicago) It's a developing year-long celebration. To see a listing of readings throughout 2010, please check out the Plan B Press events page or at Beltway Poetry Quarterly

Looking ahead to Spring 2010

We are publishing three chapbooks plus the 2010 poetry contest winner this coming season while working hard with Kim Roberts to promote the very impressive anthology Full Moon on K Street that is soon to be released. Two of the poets we are publishing are Tony Brewer and Joseph Kerschbaum, who comprise half of Reservoir Dogwoods, an Indianapolis-based spoken word group. Brewer had submitted an entry into the 2009 poetry chapbook contest and I was the reader of his submission and found it very good. After the results of the contest were made known, I wrote Tony and asked him to resubmit the collection. He sent back the now revised collection, "Little Hand in Big Glove", which I felt was an extremely powerful collection.


On the other hand, Joseph Kerschbaum had sent a different collection and then sent a second one when asked. Neither Joseph or Tony mentioned that they worked together - as I was putting together the Spring season I noticed that they both lived in Indianapolis area so I googled them, and hmmm, how about that? I picked two poets who knew each other and worked together. Without knowing, of course, the "happy accident" if you will.

Funny how that happens


till soon

stevenallenmay