July 25, 2008: Chris Vitiello’s Irresponsibility and G.E. Patterson’s To and From are bestsellers at SPD!
July 23, 2008: New reviews! Galatea Resurrects #10 reviews Heidi Lynn Staples’ Dog Girl and Susan Tichy’s Bone Pagoda!
July 15, 2008:
Subscriptions for 2008-2009 Season $75 through Sept. 1!
Ahsahta Press is publishing an unprecedented seven new books of poetry in our 2008–2009 season. Beginning in September, we’ll bring out two collections by poets at the peak of their powers: Stephanie Strickland, whose masterful Zone : Zero is accompanied by an interactive CD, and Charles O. Hartman, whose New & Selected Poems brings together three decades of jazzy innovation. In January, Kathleen Jesme’s new book The Plum-Stone Game gives us work by a poet D.A. Powell calls “refreshingly unafraid of the sensual powers of poetry.” Also in January, we’ll publish our 2008 Sawtooth Poetry Prize–winning book, the whole Marie by Barbara Maloutas, whose work was chosen from 740 submissions by C.D. Wright. Subscribers will receive Ben Doller's FAQ: in March—a follow-up to his Walt Whitman Award–winning first book—as well as first-time author Carrie Olivia Adams’ filmic Intervening Absence. At season’s end in May we publish Rachel Loden's Dick of the Dead, in which Richard Nixon does his tragicomedic best to bring the world to rights.
If you’re a poetry reader, you can ask your bookstore to carry these books as they come out—but why not place a subscription order with us and find them in your mailbox as soon as they’re published? We’ll give you an amazing discount (40%) and pick up the shipping—and you’ll get everything we publish in our 2008–2009 season as they appear in September, January, March, and May.
This year’s subscription will bring you our entire season’s books ($125 if purchased separately) for only $75, including shipping, if you order before September 1, 2008. (Of course, you can order throughout the year, though our subscription price rises to $95 on September 1, 2008—still a great deal at about 25% off. We’ll ship already published books as soon as we receive your order.)
Ahsahta Press poetry consistently surprises, delights, challenges, and stimulates the reader. Don’t miss any of it!
May 12, 2008:
Barbara Maloutas wins 2008 Sawtooth Poetry Prize
Ahsahta Press is delighted to announce the winner of its seventh annual Sawtooth Poetry Prize competition: Barbara Maloutas of Los Angeles, California, whose manuscript the whole Marie was selected by C.D. Wright. She will receive the $1,500 prize in addition to the publication of her book by Ahsahta Press in January 2009.
Wright, whose most recent book, Rising, Falling, Hovering, was published by Copper Canyon Press, selected the manuscript from 740 entrants, 42 of which were named semifinalists. Of that group, 13 were named finalists for the prize. [List follows.]
Maloutas is the author of In a Combination of Practices (New Issues 2004) and a chapbook, Practices (New Michigan/Diagram 2003). Her work has appeared in Aufgabe, FreeVerse, Segue, Tarpaulin Sky, The New Review of Literature, Good Foot, bird dog, dusie, Greatcoat and elsewhere. Her work is anthologized in Intersections: Innovative Poets of Southern California (Green Integer) and Segue’s Fifth Anniversary Issue. Online chapbooks are available from Segue (Aegean.doc) and Beard of Bees (Coffee Hazilly). She teaches in the book arts program at Otis College of Art and Design and lives in Los Angeles.
In addition to Maloutas’ manuscript, Ahsahta Press will publish two runner-up manuscripts, a beautiful name for a girl by Kirsten Kaschock of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Dick of the Dead by Rachel Loden of Palo Alto, California.
Ahsahta Press, named for the Mandan word for “Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep,” was founded in 1974 and publishes six books of poetry per year, one of which is the winner of its annual contest. The 2008 contest, which runs from January 1 to March 1, will be judged by MacArthur-award-winning poet Rae Armantrout, author of Next Life, Up to Speed, and Veil: New and Selected Poems, all from Wesleyan University Press.
Ahsahta Press is based at Boise State University in Boise, Idaho, and is directed by Janet Holmes, who also teaches in the MFA Program for Writers at Boise State.
See guidelines for next year’s contest
Finalists for the 2008 Sawtooth Poetry Prize:
James Belflower, Commuter
Julie Carr, Of Sarah—A Fragment
Adam Clay, A Hotel Room at the Edge of the World
Cody-Rose Clevidence, :proof
Christopher DeWeese, The Confessions
Lucas Farrell, Generations of Bird
Richard Greenfield, Tracer*
Kirsten Kaschock, a beautiful name or a girl (runner-up)
Rachel Loden, Dick of the Dead (runner-up)
Barbara Maloutas, the whole Marie (winner)
Zach Savich, Megachurch
Rob Schlegel, Wrack Lines
Allison Titus, Barter, Fasten
Semifinalists for 2008 Sawtooth Poetry Prize:
Erica Anzalone, Samsara
J. Mae Barizo, Traum
Hadara Bar-Nadav, Architecture at the Mouth
Geri Lynn Baumblatt, Atlas of a Cul-de-sac
Allison Benis, Four Studies of a Baby’s Head
Chad Bennett, I Am Odious (As It Turns Out). I Am Monstrous Glad
Ann E. Buechner, School for Girls
Anya L. Cobler, Prow of Shells
Lisken Van Pelt Dus, S/he
Rebecca Gopoian, Two
Stephanie Heit, Quiet Anatomy
Jacqueline Lalley, Marvelsnatcher
Mark Lamoureux, Sometimes Things Seem Very Dark
Dawn Lonsinger, fatal light awareness
Chloë Joan López, Quelled Communiqués
Christopher Mattison, not Omaha
Karyna McGlynn, I Have to Go Back to 1994 and Kill a Girl*
Amy McNamara, the new head chronometrist
Nick Moudry, Decoy
Benjamin Paloff, The Politics
Emily Pérez, The Thief Downstairs
David Rizzi, 39 boys on ground
Brenda Sieczkowski, Souvenir Palace
Jason Stumpf, A Cloud of Witnesses
Mathias Svalina, Creation Myths
Maureen Thorson, Applies to Oranges
Sara Veglahn, The Called-Back Wreck of Things
A.E. Watkins, Exhibit Kansas
Arianne Zwartjes, The Surfacing of Excess
*manuscripts withdrawn from judging due to publication elsewhere