“Penelope Scambly Schott's Crow Mercies celebrates
the naming of small things in order to know basic truths. An
accumulative momentum rises out of the mercy of an attentive eye: not
for gazing at the surface of things but looking into the heart of what
matters, what keeps us fully engaged as humans. There are no shortcuts
in Crow Mercies.” Yusef Komunyakaa
“There's a knife sharpener in California who ends his notes ‘Stay
sharp and shiny.’ This is what Penelope Schott does with words, images,
stories, memories—sharp! shiny!—she is not afraid to startle or jolt. A reader feels electrified.” Naomi Shihab Nye
The first signed literature in the world is on cuneiform tablets written in 2350 BCE in Sumeria, and it is by a woman. Dr. Cass Dalglish translated the cuneiform of Enheduanna. She was a powerful Sumerian prince in 2350 BCE and her work, Nin-me-sar-ra, begged the god Inanna (who was the first to enter the underworld and return from the dead) for help overcoming an usurper. Adopting a jazz aesthetic, Dalglish improvises on her translations; re-examining the cuneiform through feminist lenses. Enheduanna is not just any writer, she is the first identifiable poet to sign her writing. Lyrically translated from the original cuneiform by Cass Dalglish, the relevance of Enheduanna’s Song to Inanna echoes across millennia as a testament to the timeless power of women’s literature. Giving fresh interpretations to the originals, these poems form rhythmic riffs—like jazz musical improvisations—that carry the reader back to the lands of ancient Iraq during the time when gods were women.
“One can’t help when reading this to think of present-day Iraq and the current cast-of-characters from President Bush on down as stand-ins for Big-Man-in-the-Sky with their hungry Humming the Blues grab for power. The poems are lush and thought provoking. This is a book for any reader fascinated by language and poetry at the intersection of an ancient culture.”
Cary Waterman, The Salamander Migration
This collection of deeply spiritual poetry explores the longings of the soul and tests the penetrable boundary between the living world and the ethereal.
“In Far Beyond Triage, Sarah Lantz has crafted a series of poems whose fierce—indeed icy—clarity is matched by a bitter poignancy. At times visionary (observing, for instance, ‘the chaos of daybreak/and its obsession with the sun’) and at times trenchantly political (noting, for example, that ‘the distinction between/criminals and heroes/is frequently only fashion’), Lantz is always fully in command of complex and acutely relevant lyric material.” -Sandra Gilbert
“Large-hearted, linguistically inventive, historically engaged—these poems have a disarming and daft magic, an unlikely mix of sophistication and folk tale—at times, Chagallian; at others, darkened by historical sorrow" - Eleanor Wilner
Poetry/Asian Studies/Women’s Studies, 132 pages
$13.95+ shipping and handling, ISBN 0934971-90-0 paper
Powerful poems about Cambodia awakening from the killing fields to the dawn of free elections
"At their best these poems are intimately, despairingly human, with fabulous stories to tell." William Vollmann
“In Storytelling in Cambodia Willa Schneberg writes a searing account of one of the darkest moments in modern history. Schneberg’s haunting verse testimony, her portraits of those who dragged a once peaceful country into the nightmare of genocide, her passionate homage to an ancient civilization now irrevocably lost move the reader even as they horrify.” Carolyn Forché
“Femme’s Dictionary takes place in a lineage with Minnie Bruce Pratt’s We Say We Love Each Other, Chrystos’ In Her I Am, and Adrienne Rich’s sequence ‘Twenty-One Love Poems’! Guess is a new lesbian voice who fulfills her longing to ‘Kiss your thighs and call it making history!’ – Lambda Book Report
Poetry/Women’s Studies, 218 pages
$14.95 + shipping and handling, ISBN 0-934971-82-X paper
$29.95 + shipping and handling, ISBN 0934971-83-8 cloth
Edited by Margarita Donnelly, Beverly McFarland,Micki Reaman
A landmark collection
“This is an extraordinary anthology of women’s poetry that is both a landmark and a cause for celebration...powerful.... Highly recommended.” – Tulsa World
“Black Candle is a book that bears witness to the condition of women and to the condition of the world. Rich with colors, sounds, scents, with flowers and spices and fabrics and waters and sorrows and smoke, the world in this book is a necklace of bright pearls that burns the skin, yet is daily lifted up and owned, fastened to the body with a jeweled clasp: the compassion of Chitra Divakaruni’s fiercely seeing heart.” – Jane Hirshfield
Poetry, 96 pages
$12.95 + shipping and handling, ISBN 0-924971-68-4 paper
$26.95 + shipping and handling, ISBN 0-934971-69-2 cloth
“In a culture of too little respect for difference, The Woman of Too Many Days is a compelling and cohesive collection that quite confidently insists on the value and wisdom of the homeless crone at its heart.” – Deb Casey
Poetry/Native American Studies, 96 pages
$11.95 + shipping and handling, ISBN 0-934971-64-1 paper
$23.95 + shipping and handling, ISBN 0-934971-65-X cloth
“In the poems of Sandra Kohler the aubade [or dawn song] tradition is given fresh and surprising shape in poems of rich harmonies where a dark undertow, a sweet languor pulls back towards dream.… Her full-bodied, meditative songs of mother-love, sexuality, desire, and discovery unashamedly unfold a life in these memorable ‘long cadences of morning’” – Eleanor Wilner, author of Otherwise
Poetry/Women’s Studies, 112 pages
$12.95 + shipping and handling, ISBN 0-934971-51-X paper
$23.95 + shipping and handling, ISBN 0-934971-52-8 cloth
Translated by Carolyne Wright, Paramita Banerjee, and
Jyotirmoy Datta
The hot breath of the gods
“It’s a rare pleasure to read translations of poems that convey them as poetry. These versions from the Bengali...evoke that thrill of recognition: that across culture and language we are encountering a great world poet. [Her] vision is simultaneously poetic and political, local and horizonless, moved by love and utterly unsentimental.” – Adrienne Rich
Poetry/Women’s Studies/Health, 96 pages
$11.95 + shipping and handling, ISBN 0-934971-57-9 paper
$23.95 + shipping and handling, ISBN 0-934971-58-7 cloth
“A book of uncompromising emotional integrity, imaginative verve, even virtuosity, and at the heart of each poem is her heart, her poet’s heart, her nurse’s heart – clarifying, celebrating, elegizing. This is a powerful and beautiful book.” – Thomas Lux, author of Split Horizon and The Drowned River
Poetry/Women’s Studies/Jewish Studies, 96 pages
$9.95 + shipping and handling, ISBN 0-934971-33-1 paper
$19.95 + shipping and handling, ISBN 0-934971-34-X cloth
“Notable for its strong feminist, intergenerational, personal, and political messages, this is recommended for all poetry collections.” – Library Journal
The sinewy, emotional beauty of heritage and hearth
“The poet’s control of forms holds her readers in place while Sornberger steals, retells, and resignifies women’s stories.” – Hilda Raz, editor of Prairie Schooner
Poetry/Women’s Studies/Ecology/Nature, 96 pages
$11.95 + shipping and handling, ISBN 0-934971-39-0 paper
$21.95 + shipping and handling, ISBN 0-934971-40-4 cloth
Discover humanity’s meditations and mediations in this tender, intense collection
“Here the personal and the political meet in a fine lyric intensity. Color Documentary is the debut of a poet who makes us believe in ‘the silk line of the voice.’” – Susan Ludvigson
Poetry/Lesbian Studies, 114 pages
$10.00 + shipping and handling, ISBN 0-934971-21-8 paper
$18.95 + shipping and handling, ISBN 0-934971-22-6 cloth
“Christa writes clearly, concisely and unequivocally ... describes an intimacy and an idyll... [that] startles not only men, but women as well.” – EMMA Magazine
Poetry, 75 pages
$23.95 + shipping and handling, ISBN 0-934971-05-6 cloth
“James creates a jazzy, tough-minded voice that is easy to imagine as that of an avant-garde poet of 1550 transported to the late 20th century.” – Seattle Times
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