Original M&C Series Now in Digital Archive

Forty-five titles from the original Ahsahta Press Modern and Contemporary Poetry of the American West Series, which ran 1975–2000, are now available through the ScholarWorks archive at Boise State University's Albertson Library. This includes historically significant work by Peggy Pond Church, H.L. Davis, Hazel Hall, Gwendolen Haste, Haniel Long, and Genevieve Taggard, as well as early work by such contemporary writers as David Baker, Linda Bierds, Richard Blessing, Gretel Ehrlich, and Linda Dyer. In most cases there are still physical copies of the books available from Ahsahta Press, but most of this work will not be reprinted.

We love your feedback!

This came to Julie Carr after our promotional mailing:

I received a promotional email from Ahsahta this week for 100 NOTES ON VIOLENCE.  I just wanted to drop you a quick note to let you know that I will buy the book for a lot of reasons, but the primary reason that  I will buy it today (as opposed to thinking about it for awhile [and, most likely forgetting it] is your extended biography on the website.  I shall copy it and take it into share with my dance colleagues at the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts where I teach creative writing.   (The dance and creative writing departments collaborate from time to time, including during our new student orientations.)  But that is not why I'll by the book; I'll buy it because, after reading your longer-than-usual bio, I feel a kinship with you on a number of levels, and I LOVE the fact that you're up writing before the crack of dawn.  I did the same thing when my kids were young; the difference: it never occurred to me to get them up to write with me.  I find myself feeling downright sorrowful that I never thought of that...that, in fact, I wrote during those early morning hours to avoid the complications-and-chaos of children. In addition, I have always been on the minority side of the argument about literature and biography; I think the literature is always enhanced and enriched by knowing something about the writer...that while literature CAN (and probably should be able to) stand alone, it's always more interesting (to me, at least) when it doesn't have to.  And, in addition to all that, I find that how people choose to live their lives (and go about living them) is at least as interesting as their art in this complex world.

Publishers of both books and journals all seem to have very firm ideas about what they want from a writer in terms of a bio. I think that having an extended bio accompanying a promotion for a book of poems is very effective in providing not only a context for the book, but also in creating interest for it. Whether it was your idea or Ahsahta's or a combination, I think it was a fine idea.  I look forward to reading your book.

Best regards
Pit Pinegar

Thank you, Pit!

Do you teach poetry?

I've used Charles O. Hartman's Island in my classroom several times when teaching OuLiPo methodology—his poem "Tambourine" in that volume is a pi mnemonic (that is, the lengths of the words in letters corresponds to the digits of pi) that goes on for some 30 pages. (It's a wonderful poem, besides!) Students love it, and it sets them to trying their own experiments. Here are a few suggestions for books you might want to use as examples to illustrate what you're teaching: 

Teaching the prose poem: Brigitte Byrd's Fence Above the Sea and Song of a Living Room; Kate Greenstreet's case sensitive and The Last 4 Things; Ben Doller's FAQ:; Kathleen Jesme's The Plum-Stone Game; Paige Ackerson-Kiely's In No One's Land; Linda Dyer's Fictional Teeth.

Teaching traditional forms: Rachel Loden's Dick of the Dead; Charles O. Hartman's New & Selected Poems; G.E. Patterson's To and From; Ed Allen's 67 Mixed Messages; Noah Eli Gordon's The Area of Sound Called the Subtone.

Teaching formalism & nonce forms: Rusty Morrison's the true keeps calm biding its story; Brian Henry's Quarantine; Charles O. Hartman's Island.

Using literature, recent history & social issues: Brenda Iijima's If Not Metamorphic; Julie Carr's 100 Notes on Violence; Rachel Loden's Dick of the Dead; Susan Tichy's Bone Pagoda, Susan Briante's Pioneers in the Study of Motion; Dan Beachy-Quick's Spell; Peggy Hamilton's Forbidden City.

Poetry with a sense of humor: Rachel Loden's Dick of the Dead; Chris Vitiello's Irresponsibility; Heidi Lynn Staples' Dog Girl; Ed Allen's 67 Mixed Messages.

Teaching "how to use the page": Sandra Miller, Oriflamme; Karla Kelsey, Knowledge, Forms, the Aviary; Dan Beachy-Quick, Spell

20% discount on books with media: $15.20! Stephanie Strickland's Zone : Zero   Kate Greenstreet's The Last 4 Things

Plan Ahead for AWP!

If you're going to AWP, please join Ahsahta Press at two reading events:

The Ahsahta/Omnidawn Reading
Wed., April 7, 7–9pm
The Dikeou Collection, in the Colorado Building
1615 California Street (at 16th Street), Suite 515.

The readers include: Christopher Arigo, Susan Briante, Dan Beachy-Quick, Maxine Chernoff & Paul Hoover, Gillian Conoley, Ben Doller, Noah Eli Gordon, Richard Greenfield, Hank Lazer, Laura Moriarty, Rusty Morrison, G.E. Patterson, Craig Santos Perez, Bin Ramke, Donald Revell, Heather Sellers, Heidi Lynn Staples, and Michelle Taransky.

The Ahsahta Press 35th Anniversary Reading
Thurs., April 8, 10:30–11:45am
Rooms 301, 302 Colorado Convention Center

The readers include: Sandra Doller, Brigitte Byrd, Kate Greenstreet, Brenda Iijima, Julie Carr, Susan Tichy, and Rachel Loden.