This is How She Fails - by Lisa J. Cihlar (CC#23)

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Our latest Crisis Chronicles Press chapbook, This Is How She Fails by Lisa J. Cihlar, was published on May 8th, 2012.  It's a cycle of more than two dozen prose poems - often haunting, always gorgeous - comprising 26 pages and featuring a white and dual blue cardstock cover with cover art by Lisa Marie Peaslee.  I imagine you'll love it every bit as much as I do.  While supplies last, we'll throw in a free poetic surprise with every order.


This is How She Fails (CC#23) -- cover art by Lisa Marie Peaslee


Or order via snail mail by sending $7 US (includes shipping) to Crisis Chronicles Press, c/o John Burroughs, 420 Cleveland Street, Elyria, Ohio 44035.

Lisa J. Cihlar's poems have been published in South Dakota Review, Green Mountains Review, In Posse Review, Bluestem, and The Prose-Poem Project. One of her poems was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her first chapbook, The Insomniac’s House, is available from Dancing Girl Press. She lives in rural southern Wisconsin.


Lisa J. Cihlar

In the Church Yard by H. L. Rippingale

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Black as night, wings span as the crow takes flight from life's symbol of an end

Cold; hard and lifeless like the remains beneath, the stone stands to make amends

Words on each grey face stare back as footsteps thump like the beatings of broken hearts that once passed

Reaching beyond the eerie walls; life simply passes by and like the churchyard bells, the beauty will vaguely last.

©2012

2012 Hessler Street Fair Poetry Anthology

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The Hessler Street Fair is coming up on May 19 and 20. Poetry has always played a role at the Hessler Fair, and this year is certainly no exception. The following poets will have work appearing in the 2012 Hessler Street Fair Poetry Anthology:

Vicki Acquah
Lynne Albert
JP Armstrong
Mickey Bey
Dianne Borsenik
Jeffrey Bowen
Steve Brightman
C.M. Brooks
Skylark Bruce
John B. Burroughs
Shelley Chernin
Joanne Cornelius
Catherine D. Criswell
Katie Cutshaw
Lisa Dabrowski
Christine Donofrio
Kaolin Fire
Elise Geither
Michael Goldstein
T.M. Göttl
Anita Herczog
Dwain Higgins
Christine Howey
Steven Isenberg
Clarissa Jakobsons
Azriel Johnson
Jacob King
Mark Kuhar
Geoffrey A. Landis
Melissa Rose Leach
Cate Mullen
Nancy Nixon
Marilyn Oliveras de Ortiz
Jen Pezzo
Tina Puckett
Michael Salinger
S. Renay Sanders
Kevin Frederick Smith
Wanda Sobieska
J.E. Stanley
Dave Stringer
BM Stroud
Carla Thompson
Sarah Tolfo
Mary A. Turzillo
Paige Ward
Batya Weinbaum
Eva Xanthopoulos

The anthology is edited by Joshua Gage and proofread by Vertigo Xavier. This hefty volume will only cost $8. Poets appearing in the anthology will be able to purchase a copy at a reduced price.

The Hessler Poetry contest reading will be held at Mac’s Backs Books on Wednesday, May 9. A panel of judges will select the winners at the reading, and those winners will get to read their poems on the main stage at the fair on Sunday, May 20. This reading will be broadcast live on the web (and possibly on the radio).

NEOpoets will also be at the Hessler Fair both days, with a booth set up in the courtyard behind the Mandel Center. Crisis Chronicles, NightBallet, Poet’s Haven, and Writing Knights will be there with books and more for your perusal and purchase, and we will have poets performing at the booth through most of the festival. A list of the performing poets will be announced once they are all confirmed. :-)

The Poet’s Haven presents "Metamorphosis: Selections" by Jacob Oet

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Jacob Oet's writing and images appear in Cream City Review, Illuminations, Yemassee, Yalobusha Review, and Radioactive Moat, among others. His awards include the 2011 Younkin-Rivera Poetry Prize and the 2011 Ohioana Robert Fox Award. Jacob is the author of two poetry chapbooks: Metamorphosis (Kattywompus Press) and Peeling the Apple (NightBallet Press, forthcoming in Fall 2012). A student by choice, Jacob is never sure which language he speaks. You may spot him in a park, forest, or beach, with planted feet, arms stretched up and shaking in a breeze. But don’t let him see you; he likes to sing to strangers. He takes photos of snow, and hates winter.

Recorded December 2010 in Lakewood, OH

RUNTIME: 15:11

DOWNLOAD HERE

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NEOpoets.org

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One of my missions these days is to get modern poetry out there in front of new audiences, to show people who have not experienced poetry since the two weeks they spent covering Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson in high-school just what they've been missing.

I cannot do this alone.  This is a mission that should unite all the poetry presses of north-east Ohio.

Coming up May 19th and 20th is the Hessler Street Fair in Cleveland.  Crisis Chronicles, NightBallet, and Writing Knights presses will be teaming up with Poet's Haven to present the North-East Ohio Poetry booth, which will be in the courtyard behind the Mandel Center, on Hessler Court.  All four of our presses will have our publications for sale, and we will have poets performing at the booth through most of the festival.  (Our performing poets will be paused while the Hessler Poetry Anthology winners are reading on the main stage.)

As I worked on getting this lined up, one thing became clear:  We need one place on the internet where we all share a presence, where folks can find all of our presses on one site, so when we team up and share space at art festivals or work together to organize other public showings we can be listed under one name.  So, I dug up that old NEOpoets.org site I tried to launch as an event calender site some years back (y'know, right before the need for such a site went away in favor of Facebook's events and Google Calendar) and converted it to a blog that'll automatically import all our presses' news, giving you, our readers, one place where you can find out what's coming up from all four of us.  Check it out at:
http://neopoets.org

If you operate a press based in north-east Ohio and you are interested in joining us in this mission, in taking part in group poetry presentations at area art festivals and organizing some large-scale poetry events of our own (I have a few in the works), contact me.  The more of us that get involved in these projects, the more we all can benefit.

We'll see you at the Hessler Street Fair!  :-)


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desire lines - by Chansonette Buck (CC#22)

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Crisis Chronicles Press published desire lines by Chansonette Buck on 22 April 2012 (also the author's birthday).  One of our finest chapbooks yet, desire lines features 17 poems on high quality ivory paper with a cover consisting of ashen orange and white cardstock.  Dimensions: 8.5 x 7 inches.  It is available for $5 from Crisis Chronicles Press, 420 Cleveland Street, Elyria, Ohio 44035.


desire lines cover bears a foto taken by Steven B. Smith in Oaxaca

Chansonette Buck spent her childhood “on the road” as stepdaughter of a Black Mountain poet, living all over the American West, in England, and in Spain. She holds the PhD in English from the University of California, Berkeley, where she concentrated on 20th-century poetry and poetics and wrote a dissertation on childhood trauma as the source of William Carlos Williams's poetic obsessions. She has a BFA in painting from Massachusetts College of Art, and has won awards for her visual art, her poetry, and her teaching. Chapters of her memoir Unnecessary Turns: Growing Up Beat have appeared in Why We Ride: Women Writers on the Horses in Their Lives (Seal Press, May 2010) and Polarity eMagazine (Fall 2010). Her poems have appeared online and in print, including a feature in the journal tinfoildresses 2012. Her first chapbook, blood oranges (NightBallet Press, 2011), was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She lives in Berkeley with her family, her boa constrictor, and way too many cats and dogs.


Chansonette in Lorain, Ohio, 2011 -- photo by Dianne Borsenik

WOO HOO! GEORGE WALLACE is HARD STUFF!

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Woo hoo and howdy do to YOU!  April is National Poetry Month, and NightBallet Press has been celebrating all month long, with a good number of delectable publications.  Now, we leave April with a BANG:
New York poet George Wallace's brand new chap of audacious, outrageous, ambrosial poetry, the hard stuff is officially published!

Featuring 36 pages of poetry, the hard stuff covers everything from "easy money" to "an american education", and everything from "subway music" to a "toolbox of desire"!  If you've never experienced George Wallace, now is the time.  This is his 25th chapbook of poetry, and the 2nd by NightBallet Press (sleeping beauty's revenge was the first NBP chapbook by Wallace).  the hard stuff is available through PayPal right here on this website, for only $5 plus $2 s/h!

George Wallace will be doing a very special reading in the Cleveland area on Friday, May 11, 2012, where he will be reading from both sleeping beauty's revenge and the hard stuff, among others.  This reading, sponsored by Clevelanders Russ Vidrick and Charlotte Mann, will be at The Gypsy Beans and Baking Company, 6425 Detroit Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio, at 7pm.  The last time Wallace read in Cleveland was during the Tres Versing the Panda event in May of 2009, so you won't want to miss out on this wonderful and rare opportunity.  NightBallet Press will be there.. yes, with copies of the hard stuff and sleeping beauty's revenge!

Many thanks to all the poets and poetry lovers who have celebrated along with NightBallet during this official National Month of Poetry- Poetry lives, poetry rocks!

"You should always be trying to write a poem you are unable to write, a poem you lack the technique, the language, the courage to achieve. Otherwise you're merely imitating yourself, going nowhere, because that's always easiest." - John Berrryman
"We are one species. We are starstuff." - Carl Sagan
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