Written over ten years, these are indeed four separate books with their own forms and voices and preoccupations that also coalesce to form the outlines of a novel whose subject is a poet making up himself.
The poems themselves, as Jared White puts it in his introduction, are "a phantasmagoria worthy of Arthur Rimbaud but a 'Rimbaud chugging Robotussin.®'" They interest themselves in the purity of experience and are comprised of everything from experimental translations, emails and dreams, to spells, prose, advice, and mythologies (among other things).
The First 4 Book of Sampson Starkweather completely questions and reinterprets what a first book—or any book—of poems can be.
As always, thank you for your support of Birds, LLC and indie publishing at large.
The Rally Thursday, March 7, 8pm The Distillery, 516 East 2nd St, South Boston Facebook Event
Monk Books and Wonder reading Friday, March 8, 8pm Emmanuel Church 15 Newbury St., Boston, MA 02116 Facebook Event
Out of Gender: A Denunciation of Vanessa Place's Boycott Project Saturday, March, 6:15-7:15pm MIT, 4-163 Facebook Event
Sommer Browning
Buckets of Glorius: A Reading? Denver Quarterly, jubilat, Rescue Press, & Transom Thursday, March 7, 7pm The Harvard Advocate, 21 South St, Cambridge, MA Facebook Event
Elisa Gabbert
Literary Firsts Saturday, March 9, 5:30 pm Middlesex Lounge, 315 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge MA Facebook Event
Dan Magers
Sixth Finch & Vinyl Poetry Reading Friday, March 8, 3-5 PM Commonwealth Salon, Boston Public Library 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA Only 3 blocks from Hynes Convention Center! Facebook Event
Sampson Starkweather
The Rally Thursday, March 7, 8pm The Distillery, 516 East 2nd St, South Boston Facebook Event
Sixth Finch & Vinyl Poetry Reading Friday, March 8, 3-5 PM Commonwealth Salon, Boston Public Library 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA Only 3 blocks from Hynes Convention Center! Facebook Event
Chris Tonelli
Fuck Poems Anthology Wet Brunch Saturday, March 9, 11:30am LIR, 903 Boylston St., Boston, MA 02115 Facebook Event
Bull City Press Thursday, March 7, 1:00pm Table F17, AWP Bookfair
Emily Pettit's Goat In The Snow finalist for The Believer Poetry Award
Get hot-off-the-press copies of The First 4 Books of Sampson Starkweather—ON SALE EXCLUSIVELY AT AWP, plus Ana Božičević’s Rise in the Fall and all the whole Birds, LLC catalog.
Come hear Sampson, Ana, and Rise in the Fall artist Bianca Stone at The Rally.They’ll be reading with other dope poets from Factory Hollow, ImmaculateDisciples, Rose Metal, Sixth Finch, and Wonder.
As always, thank you for your support of Birds, LLC and indie publishing at large.
Love,
The Birds
Birds, LLC SALE! & Recommendations for the Holiday Season
Dear Friends,
Dunno what to get the literary man or woman in your life? Birds, LLC is here to help!
We've put together a list of our favorite books we read in 2012 and we're posting that list here to help you find the perfect gift for the earnest or ironic literary type in your life.
With no particular formatting conventions, here come the recommendations:
Dan Boehl
Anne Carson's Antigonick, New Directions, 2012. I bought it simply for Bianca Stone's unconventional depictions of Ann Carson's recalibrated cast of characters. But then you get Carson, too. Win, win. From the Guernica review:
"It may be tempting to dismiss the illustrations as merely quirky—one of the Chorus bears the Star Trek insignia on its chest, while elsewhere a figure wears a football helmet. But these touches serve to heighten the absurdity and dark humor of the senseless world Carson has created."
Ana Božičević
Lauren Berlant's novella/dictionary entry called Desire/Love. You can buy it or download it. Because "Without fantasy, there would be no love."
Sommer Browning
Ann Kim's Lobster Palaces, Flood Editions, 2012. Her incredible music will lullaby you into a wondrous stupor. These spacious poems are gorgeous, light things. These poems are much much more mysterious than that.
Jon-Michael Frank
Kenneth Patchen's Because It Is, New Directions, 1960. It is a titan. Because It Is was also compiled in a volume of Patchen's work called We Meet, with an introduction by Devendra Banhart.
Elisa Gabbert
I recommend Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner (Coffee House Press, 2011) for poetry people who like fiction and fiction people who like poetry. It's a very funny and philosophical look into the mind of a writer: the ego that believes itself both genius and fraud.
Caroline Gormley
My recommendation is Dear Jenny, We Are All Find by Jenny Zhang. It's an amazing first collection with loads of wit and intelligence.
I haven't read any small press books that aren't Birds' recently so I'm going to recommend, without ever having read it, the second edition of Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology which is due to be released March of next year. The last edition is interesting partly because it is so big, partly because it has so many different kinds of people in it and partly because of the 18 essays on poetry by various authors. If you are able to meet any of these authors, I recommend doing that in addition to reading their poems/essays/writing.
My recommendation is The Cat and the Cuckooby Ted Hughes. Not a new book, but if you're a poet and you know a kid (2-6 or even older) who loves animals, this book would make a unique gift. Check this stanza from "Goat," "Though nobly born / With a lofty nose / I'm as happy with the Thorn / As I am with the Rose" or this opening stanza from "Toad," "The Toad cries: First I was a thought. / Then that thought it grew a wart. / And the wart had thoughts / Which turned to warts."
Joseph Silvers
I've gone through Zach Schomburg's Fjords, Vol. 1 several times since I bought it in March. Every time I read it, it takes me to a whole other world within this one, and it's a good place to be.
Matthew Dickman's new book Mayakovsky's Revolver. His skills sharpen; the grief evolves even further; I loved it.
Chris Tonelli
Chris Vitiello's Obedience (Ahsahta, 2012) With Obedience, Vitiello further exposes the acts of writing and reading--in time--and the relationships that are possible between author and reader.
The So & So Series Joins Forces with Birds, LLC
Friends,
We’re pleased to announce that the So & So reading series and magazine have merged with Birds, LLC! To mark the occasion, So & So founder and Birds editor Chris Tonelli and editorial assistants Michael Johnson and Joseph Silvers have revamped the So & So site. It now exists on its own and as a tab on the Birds site. Among other things, it now contains:
A Series page with details about upcoming readings and an archive of past readings.
A Media page with links to videos of readings, interviews, broadsides, the So & So Facebook page for you to “Like” and Twitter to follow.
Be sure to check out the latest edition of So & So Magazine, featuring poetry by Vincent Cellucci, MRB Chelko, Jackie Clark, Adam Day, Joe Fletcher, Jennifer H. Fortin, PJ Gallo, Evan Glasson, Alec Hershman, MC Hyland, Matthew Johnstone, Christopher Shipman, Marcus Slease, Mike Smith, and Joseph P. Wood.
We’re also excited to announce that Caroline Gormley has joined the Birds family as an editorial assistant. Welcome aboard, Caroline!
Thanks for supporting Birds, LLC and independent presses in general!
Love,
The Editors
Birds, LLC Seeking Two Austin Based Interns
Birds, LLC is seeking two editorial/event/design interns. Austin Location.
Ideal candidates have a strong interest in poetry, publishing, digital media marketing, readings, are familiar with basic HTML and Adobe applications, and possess excellent writing and editing skills. Applicants should also be extremely organized, self-motivated, and detail-oriented. Familiarity with Birds, LLC books, website, and social media is absolutely essential.
Interns will work directly with the Austin based Birds, LLC editor to support all aspects of running the publishing company, from marketing, web updates, to soliciting, editing, and producing ebooks and books for Birds, LLC’s nascent chapbook imprint.
The positions offer valuable hands-on experience in independent publishing, design, marketing, events, the fast-growing world of ebook production.
Intern duties will include:
Soliciting, reading, editing, and producing books for the Birds, LLC chapbook imprint.
Book design and layout.
Administering an Austin based reading series.
Writing and editing web content.
Grant research and application.
Attending readings, interacting with poets and writers, and producing digital content of readings for the website.
Project-based research.
Creating ebook versions of new, existing, and chapbook titles. Uploading ebook versions to online outlets.
Creating original design content for readings, chapbooks, and marketing emails.
Web updates and maintenance.
Applicants should expect to make a minimum commitment of 6 hours per week, although most work will be done remotely. You should live in Austin. Candidates who have or are working towards a degree in writing, poetry, publishing, marketing, and design are preferred. This position is unpaid, with the opportunity to earn an editorial assistant title.
If interested, please e-mail a cover letter, a resume, and your availability to
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
with “Austin Editorial Intern” in the title. Application deadline September 20, 2012.
Two New Books from Birds, LLC
Friends,
We’re crazy excited to announce our next two titles, Rise in the Fall, by Ana Božičević (Fall 2012), and The First Four Books of Sampson Starkweather, by Sampson Starkweather (Winter 2013).
A few words about these amazing books, as well as videos of Ana and Sampson reading from their work:
Ana Božičević is both a poet's poet and the people's poet. Rise in the Fall, her second full-length collection, is a revolutionary book and an ars poetica for the polis in which she excludes nothing. Navigating literary history, gender, sexuality, economics, family and friends, she is at ease employing both the universal political statement and the lyric "I". A Croatian émigré, Božičević approaches the English language with a playful objectivity, bouncing back and forth from the conversational to the grand: "This is the whitest shit / I've ever written" she notes in her half-myth "About Nietzsche." Her critique of our time and place is at once empathetic and crude, tender and grotesque. Lucky for us, "beauty [wins] in all its casual terror and pain."
Written over ten years, The First Four Books of Sampson Starkweather is surreal but always grounded in the life of the poet. Comprised of experimental translations, emails, dreams, spells, prose, advice, and mythologies (among other things), these poems transform and steal from literary history, current events, technology, and the world. Just as Starkweather questions what makes a poem, his first book completely questions and reinterprets what a first book—or any book—of poems can be.
"Partyknife knows that you don’t overthink a playlist. If you are having a dinner party, and want to play Cambodian psychedelic rock music from the 60s, go for it, but don’t try it for a dance party. Obvious stuff works. If it’s midnight and you swallow your pride and put on “Dancing Queen,” you will get laid."
"Try and recall the last book you wanted to take up as a lifestyle. Try and recall in particular, the last book of poetry that you wanted to become. It made me feel good. When’s the last time poetry made you feel good? Not distant and admiring, not the literary equivalent of the Met. When was the last time you read a book of poetry that hit you cinema hard? That left you pointing frantically at the screen, a la Velvet Goldmine, saying that’s me."
Sommer Browning and Elisa Gabbert Live Tweet 2001: A Space Odyssey!
Elisa Gabbert and Sommer Browning will live tweet Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey!
Join them this Sunday! Start watching the film at 7pm Mountain time, 9pm Eastern time & 6pm Pacific!
You just need to be weird and have a twitter account. Use this hashtag: #2001
Other participants include (this list grows daily!):
@AmyLawless (NYC) Patrick Culliton @TheHauntedTooth (Chicago!) @DanBoehl (Austin) Dan Magers @partyknife (Brooklyn, NY) @OrenSilverman Aaron Angello Bill Wetzel Statler & Waldorf Tom Servo Crow T. Robot @BiancaStone (NYC) @emmabo @lawnsea @carolynhembree @bryancoffelt (PDX) @yaddyrap
and of course: @egabbert & @vagtalk
Birds, LLC is looking for editorial and design interns.
Birds, LLC is seeking editorial/administrative and design/social media interns. New York City and Raleigh, NC locations.
Ideal design/social media candidates have a strong interest in poetry, publishing, digital media marketing, are proficient in basic HTML and Adobe applications, and possess excellent writing and editing skills. Applicants should also be extremely organized, self-motivated, and detail-oriented. Familiarity with Birds, LLC books, website, and social media is absolutely essential.
Ideal editorial/administrative candidates have a strong interest in poetry, publishing, and readings. Applicants should be well-read, have a basic knowledge of independent presses and reading series, and active in the NYC poetry community.
Interns will work directly with Birds, LLC editors to support all aspects of running the publishing company, from marketing, web updates, to soliciting, editing, and producing ebooks and books for Birds, LLC’s nascent chapbook imprint.
The positions offer valuable hands-on experience in independent publishing, design, marketing, events, the fast-growing world of ebook production.
Soliciting, reading, editing, and producing an online journal for the Birds, LLC online magazine.
Writing and editing web content.
Attending readings, interacting with poets and writers, and producing digital content of readings for the website.
Project-based research.
Applicants should expect to make a minimum commitment of 8 hours per week, although most work will be done remotely. You should live in New York for the NYC positions and Raleigh, NC for the NC position. Candidates who have or are working towards a degree in writing, poetry, publishing, marketing, and design are preferred. This position is unpaid, with the opportunity to earn an assistant editor title.
If interested, please e-mail a cover letter, a resume, and your availability to
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
with the job title you are applying for in the subject line. Use “Editorial Intern (NYC or Raleigh, NC)” or “Design Intern.” Application deadline June 1, 2012.
Either Way I'm Celebrating reviewed in the Boston Review
Check out this review of Sommer Browning's Either Way I'm Celebrating in the Boston Review.
Everything that Feels Good is Good
Friends,
If you’re going to be in Chicago for this year’s AWP, please swing by table N-22 where you’ll be able to check out:
FINALIST, SEMIFINALIST, FORTHCOMING, and PUSHCART PRIZE NOMINEE T-Shirts made by the amazing Sommer Browing. All profits benefit Badgerdog.
Limited edition broadsides, posters and other ephemera.
We’re also teaming up with Brave Men, DoubleCross, Factory Hollow, Flowers & Cream, Immaculate Disciples, minutes BOOKS, and Projective Industries for, No Baby (Yes Baby), with readings by:
Dan Magers Emily Pettit Ally Harris as Taryn Andrews Cody-Rose Clevidence Julia Cohen Ben Fama Elaine Kahn Mark Leidner Rob Ostrom Caryl Pagel Mathias Svalina Paige Taggart Michelle Taransky
We’re ecstatic to announce that a limited number of copies of Partyknife, by Dan Magers, will be available exclusively at AWP 2012. Once those are gone, you’ll have to attend one of Dan's readings or wait until the official release in June 2012.
Birds, LLC is happy to announce GOAT IN THE SNOW has arrived at our offices. Order it now exclusively at Birdsllc.com. If you've already purchased a copy, you'll receive it soon!
A limited number of broadsides are still available. Click the button to purchase yours.
For those of you interested in teaching GOAT IN THE SNOW (or any of our titles), you can order directly from our website, and you'll receive books before the start of the Spring semester. Or if you're required to go through a distributor, Small Press Distribution and Amazon will have GITS by January 3rd.
Thanks for your support, and merry holiday times to you and yours.
Love,
the Editors
Birds, LCC Tour! Broadside Deal for Goat in the Snow!
Birds, LLC is pleased to announce our mini tour in celebration of Emily Pettit's Goat in the Snow!
Poetry readings by Justin Marks Emily Pettit Sampson Starkweather Paige Taggart Chris Tonelli
And don't forget to buy your copy of Goat in the Snow with the special limited edition broadside for $25! Click the button below to order the book and limited-edition broadside.
Special Broadside Offer with GOAT IN THE SNOW!
We are very pleased to announce that we are now taking pre-sale orders of Emily Pettit’s Goat in the Snow. To celebrate we’re offering 100 limited-edition broadsides of a poem by Emily, which will be adorned with original art by Rachel B. Glaser and letterpressed by Flying Object. Books and broadsides ship by December 15th.
But that’s not all. We’re also offering something extra-special: The first 26 people who order will get a lettered copy (A-Z) of the broadside, signed by both the author and artist. Click the button below to order the book and limited-edition broadside.
TWEET WEEK with Sommer Browning
Celebrate Either Way I'm Celebrating: Join Sommer Browning for A Week of Tweets: Draw Genitals, Exchange Insults, Collaborate on Exquisite Corpses, Tell Jokes & Guess Rebus Puzzles (whatever the hell those are)
Sommer will be tweeting all sorts of awesome over at @vagtalk. There will be poems, jokes, and cartoons galore. And if you participate in any of it, you'll get 50% off her book EITHER WAY I'M CELEBRATING (if you already have it, you can get 50% off any BIRDS, LLC book!)
Oct 24 Day 1 -- Twitter Genital Day -- Tweet your own hand drawn image of a) boobs b) butts or c) front butts. I will collect them all and post them on my website (this can be anonymous). Let's work to make the largest online repository of front butt drawings in the world!
Oct 25 Day 2 -- Twitter Insult Day -- I will tell one joke about each one of my followers based on your bio, photo and FBI background investigation...Can I do it? Probably not!!
Oct 26 Day 3 -- Twitter Exquisite Corpse -- Let's write a 1000 line poem! Tweet a line of a poetry and I'll collect them all and post them on my website.
Oct 27 Day 4 -- Twitter Joke Day -- I will turn any subject you tweet to me into a very funny (or unfunny) joke.
Oct 28 Day 5 -- Twitter Rebus Puzzle -- During the day I will tweet Rebuses of poets' names -- Guess first and win the drawing!
Tune in to the tweets! In the meantime, you can read reviews of EITHER WAY I'M CELEBRATING at the Faster Times and Pank Magazine.
Czech out Sommer's Website (with Satanic Bed Bath & Beyond comic)
BIRDS, LLC PRESENTS: Dan Magers' PARTYKNIFE
Birds, LLCis pleased to announce the publication of Partyknife, by Dan Magers, in February 2012. This is Dan’s first full-length collection, and we’re really excited to be working with him on it. The cover will feature artwork by Matt Bollinger, the artist responsible for the cover of Dan’s H_NGM_N echap, White Collar Worker: I Am a Destiny.
Congrats to Emily Pettit, named new Publisher of Jubilat; look out for GOAT IN THE SNOW coming in December
We’re excited to announce that Emily Pettit’s Goat in the Snow will be available in time for Christmas.
And in case you hadn’t heard, Emily has been named the new Publisher of jubilatmagazine. Big congratulations to her.
SOMMER BROWNING ON THE RADIO: an interview and reading
Listen to SOMMER BROWNING read poems from EITHER WAY I'M CELEBRATING and discuss the relationship between comics and poetry, Philip Guston, Robert Walser, Edward Gorey, Joe Brainard & Ron Padgett, Bianca Stone, strange adventures at the Walt Whitman Shopping Mall, the art of extending jokes without punchlines, and how examining the life of the world's littlest dildo will not get you a teaching job.
BUYING THIS BOOK IS BUILDING A BOAT: J.A. Tyler reviews Kings of the F**king Sea
"...there is so little I can realistically explain without simply saying: read this book. I might only, as a reserve, say what this book is not: Kings of the F**king Sea is not a standard poetry collection. Kings of the F**king Sea is not predictable poetry on any level. And Kings of the F**king Sea is not ever what you expect it to be even when you are starting to expect from it. Dan Boehl has done here what you must sail upon. Buying this book is building a boat."
"Sees, hears, and is silent" New Pages reviews KINGS OF THE F**KING SEA
"Amidst the utter absurdity (which, I suppose one should anticipate, given the title) there are moments of great poignancy, as promised in the book’s epigraph from Whitman, which bears repeating, especially these days:
I observe the famine at sea, I observe the sailors casting lots who shall be kill’d to preserve the lives of the rest. I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon laborers, the poor and upon negroes, and the like. All these—all the meanness and agony without end I sitting look out upon, See, hear, and am silent.
With this in mind, Boehl has concentrated his imaginative efforts upon the lines between life and art, and between war and life. He writes, in “(Shipwright) European Oils”: “He went off to war while the older ones, the alcoholics in khaki pants, dripped paint all over the place, worried about the redness of red and blackness of black.”
In lines such as these, one senses guilt, the kind of guilt Bataille describes as inherent to the artistic endeavor. That is, there is something that needs to be done, and meanwhile, the writer writes, the artist makes art. Sees, hears, and is silent, except for his useless words."
RETURNING FROM THE SYNCOPE: An essay on THE FRENCH EXIT
"One of the most common occurrences of syncope is the coup de foudre, a violent falling in love. So the poem goes, weaving in and out of the rabbit hole, till we’re brought up short in the real world by the odd inversion of that violent final line, the opening of the narrator’s face by the door, instead of what we might have expected when someone falls face first into a hinged object."
"Between the statement and the conclusion, the world throws up any number of free radicals. It is the syncope we began with – an eclipse, interval, absence, followed by a new departure."
"TIME IS THE GREAT ENEMY" -Interveiw with ELISA GABBERT
"Time is the great enemy. On the micro scale it moves too slowly, on the macro scale it moves too fast. Days are long, years are short. I don't see how anyone can be alive and aware and not obsess about time, all the time. Who said all poems are about death? All poems are also about time, since death is ultimately about time." -Elisa Gabbert
"The Odyssey of 2011": GlassTire review of KINGS OF THE F**KING SEA
"Boehl’s work is filled with high and low cultural references. Its reoccurring cast of characters including artists, poets, merchants, sailors, and soldiers are all in search of a false freedom to be found on the open sea. From Dr. Mengele to Jack Spicer and Walt Whitman. From Rothko and Motherwell to David Bowie, Spiderman and The Green Goblin. KINGS OF THE F**KING SEA is a collection of word and image that is beautifully tragic, wrenchingly heart breaking, occasionally humorous and always intelligent. And as the poem (Minstrel) If I had a Boat and the press release state, ‘“The world invents, the sea discloses, and irony isn’t a necessary tool for successful men.” On the sea, as in art, some make it and others die nameless, destitute of love, forgotten.’"
"ONE OF THE GEMS OF 2010" Erika Moya reviews Tonelli's THE TREES AROUND
Erika Moya reviews Chris Tonelli's THE TREES AROUND in Sink Review:
"Tonelli asks the reader to immerse themselves in a work so candid and open that it serves as a “self that touches all edges…that fills the four corners of night.” But not only does this apply to Tonelli’s Gesamtkuntswerk, but also to the metaphor of trees he remains loyal to. It appears that such a common and simple object as a tree must be a trick of some sort, but when pushed further we see it for what it is, the object behind the idea. The ideas presented in the four sections that make up The Trees Around differ in content, form, and message."
V of geese, we’ve been extinct this entire time. Evict me. Evict me. Evict me.
"The Trees Around is definitely one of the gems of 2010."
ELISA GABBERT NAMED BOSTON'S BEST POET! buy The French Exit
"Pinsky who? ELISA GABBERT is our kind of poet. "Take me to the library; I'm in the mood to get murdered," she writes in a poem called "BLGPM W/ DTHWSH" in her first collection, The French Exit. Gabbert — whom Bookslut has called the Zoe Saldana of letters --..."
Come see Sommer Browning read from EITHER WAY I'M CELEBRATING!
MAY Wednesday, May 11 with Noah Eli Gordon Danny’s Tavern Chicago, IL
Reader beware. Timothy Bradford on Elisa Gabbert's THE FRENCH EXIT
"Reader beware. Even with such emotional and human gestures, The French Exit is no catchy-hooks-got-you-on-the-first-listen sort of book. It intrigues and hides and even frustrates the first time through, enough so that you find yourself wanting another listen, and then another, and as the full complexity of what is happening unfolds, quantum like, you realize you’re holding a dazzling book that richly rewards those willing to sound and puzzle it out."
Poem is a poem is a poem is a poem: Matt Mullins on Chris Tonelli's The Trees Around
I ended up taking only one book, a book that I had been wanting to read ever since I got a copy earlier this year...Chris Tonelli's The Trees Around.
After reading the book once through with no pen in hand, no notes, no nothing, I tried to just think for a moment and get a sense of my sense of the book. The best word I could find to describe the feeling the book left me with was "open." I think this sense of openness is more than simply a result of the final poem of the collection being entitled "Bridge." The sense of openness comes from the way these poems reveal themselves to me, the way they don't ask me to look through them, but to look directly at them.
As I reread the book, taking some notes along the way, this sense of openness became more and more apparent. But what exactly do I mean by "open"? Let me try to clarify my sense of the collection by responding (uninvited) to Joe Hall's musings over on HTML Giant.
Announcing Three New Books: EITHER WAY I'M CELEBRATING by Sommer Browning, THE KINGS OF THE F**KING SEA by Dan Boehl, and GOAT IN THE SNOW by Emily Pettit
Birds, LLC is proud to announce three kick-ass new titles!
Releasing in January of 2011:
EITHER WAY I'M CELEBRATING
Poems and Comics by Sommer Browning
THE KINGS OF THE F**KING SEA
Poems by Dan Boehl, Images by Jonathan Marshall
And releasing as soon as these light-winged Dryad’s of the trees can manage (so buy books during the December Pre-Sale, please):
GOAT IN THE SNOW
Poems by Emily Pettit
Authors Bio's:
Sommer Browning writes poems, draws comics and tells jokes. She is the author of three chapbooks, most recently THE BOWLING (Greying Ghost, 2010) with Brandon Shimoda. Her poems and drawings have appeared in The New York Quarterly, Typo, Octopus, past simple, Free Verse, The Stranger and other places. With Julia Cohen she curates The Bad Shadow Affair, a reading series in Denver. Read a poem here.
Dan Boehl’s chapbook Les Miseres et les Mal-Heurs de la Guerre is now available from Greying Ghost. He writes art reviews in Austin and works for the University of Texas…as adults looked on. Read a poem here.
Jonathan Marshall is an artist who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Check out Jonathan here.
Emily Pettit is the author of two chapbooks HOW (Octopus Books) and WHAT HAPPENED TO LIMBO (Pilot Books). She is an editor for notnostrums (notnostrums.com) and Factory Hollow Press. As well as assistant editor at jubilat. Read a poem here.
You've been warned.
-African Kingfisher
IT NINJA STARS ME: The Rumpus review of Elisa Gabbert's The French Exit
"Exquisitely pictorial ( . . . “confusing feeling with seeming, I think./ And nothing, and suffering, with fog”), post-historical, and combative (“I can defenestrate anything/ except for the window”), these poems and their occasionally patterned nature (section three being composed of “blogpoems” of witty force and technoculture-saturated play) are as original as anything being written today. The first stanza of “Blogpoem After Walter Benjamin”: “Every time you reproduce a piece of art/ you remove some of its aura and that’s why/ your mix tape didn’t impress me much,/ it was so fucking aura-less . . . ”
A Delicious Slant: Simeon Berry on Elisa Gabbert’s The French Exit
"Gabbert has a dizzying number of recommendations for reality, and they range from a Richter scale of quaintness for Amsterdam (“Blogpoem the Litany”), a T-shirt’s alarming imperative of HAVE A KNIFE DAY (“Poem with Negation”), and the proper “nefarious angles” at which pictures should be hung (“Poem with a Superpower”)."
"I ended up taking only one book, a book that I had been wanting to read ever since I got a copy earlier this year...Chris Tonelli's The Trees Around.
After reading the book once through with no pen in hand, no notes, no nothing, I tried to just think for a moment and get a sense of my sense of the book. The best word I could find to describe the feeling the book left me with was "open." I think this sense of openness is more than simply a result of the final poem of the collection being entitled "Bridge." The sense of openness comes from the way these poems reveal themselves to me, the way they don't ask me to look through them, but to look directly at them.
As I reread the book, taking some notes along the way, this sense of openness became more and more apparent. But what exactly do I mean by "open"? Let me try to clarify my sense of the collection by responding (uninvited) to Joe Hall's musings over on HTML Giant. ..."
Elisa Gabbert interviewed by Elizabeth Hildreth oabout her debut poetry collection The French Exit. They discuss, among other things, why Elisa’s poems are like Zoe Saldana, how to give “robots” extra weight in a poem, how good poetry is like good perfume, how writing a poem is like finding the area of a curve, why, in the case that you find your face crashing through a glass door, you may want to stick out your chin, and why you should not read Wikipedia if you want to have fun at slumber parties.
There’s nothing to be sad about. My sadness grows restless, nostalgic
for a better bore, the tragic bore of yesteryear. The stink of the city
grows worse, but at the same rate that we get used to it. ‘Tis a bore
and nothing more. Even the clouds are bored, arrange themselves into more
and more exotic vegetables. Where is the war? I can’t see it.
I feel incredible. What I mean is, I feel like no one would believe me.
Double Review of The Trees Around and The French Exit
Birds, LLC is unique in the landscape of small poetry presses. Run by a group of friends who reside in multiple cities, the underlying aim of the press seems to be to publish within a small circumference of poets with close ties to its editors. Ben Mirov puts this small press under the spotlight.
In other news, Birds, LLC will be representing at AWP. We will be at table K16, Exhibit Hall A, along with fellow dope presses, Rope-a-Dope Press, Brave Men Press, Immaculate Disciples Press and Kitchen Press. Stop by and say hello.
AWP Reading
See Birds, LLC authors Elisa Gabbert and Chris Tonelli read at the badass HISTORIC FALCON reading! Missing this reading could seriously damage your soul. Thursday, April 8, 2010 from 6:30PM-9:00PM: You should definitely come to this reading of six small presses: Birds, LLC; Brave Men Press; Harp & Altar; Immaculate Disciples Press; Mississippi Review Poetry Series; and New Issues Press. Poets include: Julia Cohen, Brian Foley, Elisa Gabbert, Kate Greenstreet, Dan Magers, Justin Marks, Linnea Ogden, Christopher Salerno, Kim Gek Lin Short, Sampson Starkweather, Janaka Stucky, and Chris Tonelli.
BIRDS, LLC MINI-TOUR!! Elisa and Chris will be reading on:
We’re very excited to announce that 
Anne Carson's 
you swallow your pride and put on “Dancing Queen,” you will get laid."
Dan Magers
Birds, LLC is happy to announce GOAT IN THE SNOW has arrived at our offices. Order it now exclusively at 
"...there is so little I can realistically explain without simply saying: read this book. I might only, as a reserve, say what this book is not: Kings of the F**king Sea is not a standard poetry collection. Kings of the F**king Sea is not predictable poetry on any level. And Kings of the F**king Sea is not ever what you expect it to be even when you are starting to expect from it. Dan Boehl has done here what you must sail upon. Buying this book is building a boat."
"Amidst the utter absurdity (which, I suppose one should anticipate, given the title) there are moments of great poignancy, as promised in the book’s epigraph from Whitman, which bears repeating, especially these days:
"One of the most common occurrences of syncope is the coup de foudre, a violent falling in love. So the poem goes, weaving in and out of the rabbit hole, till we’re brought up short in the real world by the odd inversion of that violent final line, the opening of the narrator’s face by the door, instead of what we might have expected when someone falls face first into a hinged object."
Sommer Browning
Dan Boehl’s 
Elisa Gabbert interviewed by Elizabeth Hildreth oabout her debut poetry collection The French Exit. They discuss, among other things, why Elisa’s poems are like Zoe Saldana, how to give “robots” extra weight in a poem, how good poetry is like good perfume, how writing a poem is like finding the area of a curve, why, in the case that you find your face crashing through a glass door, you may want to stick out your chin, and why you should not read Wikipedia if you want to have fun at slumber parties.
Birds, LLC is unique in the landscape of small poetry presses. Run by a group of friends who reside in multiple cities, the underlying aim of the press seems to be to publish within a small circumference of poets with close ties to its editors. Ben Mirov puts this small press under the spotlight.