"Ungentle and In-between": An Interview with TC Tolbert on Gephyromania
With his poetry collection, Gephyromania, recently chosen for Entropy’s Best of 2014 Poetry list, TC Tolbert is on fire. But he doesn’t use that fire to burn any bridges. He uses it to create them. According to TC Tolbert’s website, Tolbert “is a genderqueer, feminist poet and teacher committed to social justice. S/he believes in working across communities—building bridges wherever possible” (http://www.tctolbert.com/about.html). Gephyromania (which is defined as an addiction
Spring is Coming! (eventually)
And with it, the GGP editors have some exciting announcements, including: an off-site reading at AWP 2015 Minneapolis the judges for 2015 our poetry and prose chapbook contests see above: OUR FIRST ANNUAL PROSE CHAPBOOK CONTEST Check back here soon for AWP and contest details, and in the meantime, get caught up with all of the current GGP titles by visiting our store. #Announcements #Contests #Prose #Poetry
Feminist Resource Feature: Belladonna* featuring HR Hegnauer
Belladonna* is a feminist avant-garde collective, founded in 1999 by Rachel Levitsky. This week, Gazing Grain editor Kathy Goodkin spoke with Belladonna* member HR Hegnauer about the collective's work, and the role of radical conversation. Kathy Goodkin: For you, what is the most important part of Belladonna’s mission? HR Hegnauer: I love the Belladonna* mission! Below is our mission statement, and while it is all important, that first line jumps out for me. It’s about promot
Chapbook Review: Sarah Certa's Juliet (I)
Sarah Certa
Juliet (I)
H_NGM_N, 2014
portable document format, free If you haven’t had a chance to check out H_NGM_N’s digital chapbook series, may I heartily recommend that you do so. The press is publishing 6 chaps per year in free, downloadable pdf format, which is an amazing opportunity to read fresh work regularly. The most recent release (Dec. 2014) is a new chap by H_NGM_N’s Associate Poetry Editor Sarah Certa, who has a full length collection, NOTHING TO DO WITH ME (
An Interview with Sivan Butler-Rotholz
Sarah Marcus: You are the Contributing Editor of the Saturday Poetry Series on As It Ought To Be. I am a huge fan of this series and of the poets you choose to feature. What is your process for choosing featured work? What value do you see in giving voice to feminist work? Sivan Butler-Rotholz: Thank you, Sarah. I am so happy to have you among my readers! There are a variety of ways I select features for this series, but they all boil down to one thing: I read and engage with
Interview with GGP Miniature Author Kevin McLellan
Kate Partridge: What role does poetry have in feminist dialogue? How do you see your work as a writer participating in feminist dialogue? Kevin McLellan: Considering the history—the demographics of publishers and the demographics of published poets — and considering that poems are artifacts, underrepresented populations have a responsibility to not only themselves, but also to future generations and generations past, to publish representative work. Considering this, poetry ca
Chapbook Review: Ashley Toliver's Ideal Machine
Ashley Toliver
Ideal Machine
Poor Claudia, 2014
Hand sewn, $10 What I actually want to tell you is that I like this book. You should buy it and read it. The poems are beautifully made and surprising. The sequence includes illustrations that complement the poems' image-making. The whole thing makes me feel feelings. But in case my personal recommendation doesn’t carry much weight and you want to know a little more about the book, it seems only fair to tell you that, too.
Shanna Compton Talks Bloof Books, Poetry, Labeling & Feminisms
Sarah Marcus: You’ve said that you left Soft Skull Press and began your own press, Bloof Books, so that you could focus on poetry. Can you tell us about the history of the press? What kind of poetry do you publish, and as an editor, what do you look for in a manuscript or collection of poems? Many of the beautiful chapbooks you publish are handmade. Can you please tell us about this process? Shanna Compton: The press happened sort of quickly, but it was actually something I'd
Chapbook Review: Baby-Doll Under Ice by Katie Jean Shinkle
Katie Jean Shinkle
Baby-Doll Under Ice
Hyacinth Girl, 2014
Paperback, $6.00 In Katie Jean Shinkle’s brief and beautiful Baby-Doll Under Ice, address to the beloved is equal parts lyric and fable. Shinkle’s poems navigate a lyrical and often erotic tension between submergence and emergence of the self and the other. Throughout the poems, the speaker/s are not constant in their pronouns and antecedents, pushing the reader to consider unified identity and embodiment. We encoun
Come #femsummer with Gazing Grain Press!
Earlier this #femsummer, the editors at Gazing Grain Press tweeted and shared on Facebook their top picks for a feminist summer reading list—and a few of our friends and followers chimed in with theirs as well! Here’s the list; curl up in your favorite shady spot and read on, because there’s still time this summer to make it a #femsummer! The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, recommended by GGP co-editor Liz Women’s rights evaporate in this dystopia, where women able to bea