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Complimentary Tarot Readings by Hoa Nguyen ...

Wed, 25 Jan 2017 11:56:23 -0800

Complimentary Tarot Readings by Hoa Nguyen

AWP 2017, Washington, DC

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 12PM-4PM at the Wave Books table in the Bookfair at the Washington Convention Center

On Saturday, February 11, poet Hoa Nguyen will offer 10 minute tarot consultations at the Wave Books table. All that is required is a focused question and the purchase of two Wave books. Come early on Saturday, purchase two books, and sign up for an afternoon reading–only 16 slots available. Hoa’s tarot interpretations have a loyal, international following. You won’t want to miss this.

Read more about Hoa’s tarot readings here.

Explore Hoa’s books with Wave here (under “Reviews”).

Only a few days left in our sale! Get 40% off select titles and...

Fri, 30 Dec 2016 11:49:04 -0800

Only a few days left in our sale! Get 40% off select titles and a copy of The Wave Papers with all orders through January 1st. To browse all titles on sale, visit our website: http://www.wavepoetry.com/collections/december-sale

From now until January 1st, selected poems,...

Thu, 08 Dec 2016 10:23:52 -0800

From now until January 1^st, selected poems, collected poems and prose, translations, and current and backlist titles from authors and editors that have books coming out with Wave this spring are 40% off.

The New Exercises Broadside Box Set, which is comprised of twelve silk-screened broadsides of aphorisms by Franck André Jamme printed on mirricard paper, is included in the sale! To view all titles included in the sale, visit http://www.wavepoetry.com/collections/december-sale

Reflections On the Lecture Process: Q&A with Rachel Zucker -- Part 2

Mon, 25 Apr 2016 09:31:22 -0700

bagleywrightlectures:

Christine Larusso: You recently mentioned to me that the lectures have changed your thinking, particularly with regards to feminism and the social function of poetry. Can you elaborate?

Rachel Zucker: Well, as usual, I have a twofold (multifold?) response to this question. I didn’t know, beforehand, what giving these lectures would feel like. One thing that became clear was “the lectures” is not one thing. Writing them and delivering them were two very different experiences. Both were rewarding and challenging but in vastly different ways.

Let me talk here about delivering the lectures—which was more fun and less difficult than writing them—and which had a rich but complicated social outcome for me in a very personal way.

Delivering these lectures has been thrilling, stressful, and gratifying. I had a clump of lectures—five lectures in five states in three weeks—which was way more intensive traveling than I’ve done and definitely more than I’ve done since having children. Before this lectureship I had a pretty solitary life except for teaching and the connectedness of my family life. Traveling to give these lectures allowed me the opportunity to have long, uninterrupted conversations with friends and acquaintances, mostly women in their 40s, mostly people with whom I’d corresponded online but not spent much time with in person. These conversations were deeply inspiring and thought-provoking, and I will be thinking about these interactions for a long, long time.

Coming home from the lectures was difficult. I consider myself an outspoken feminist, a powerful, self-actualized woman. And yet. Something new happened for me when traveling to give these lectures. I experienced a kind of appreciation, audience, ambition, connection and feeling of focus that was new for me. I was relieved, when the flurry of lecture travel was over. I was relieved not be under so much pressure, but it was also hard to re-enter my family life. Not having the outside-the-family obligation, the focus, the commitment to a kind of thinking and producing and performing that I don’t feel entitled to without a project like this—losing that (or finishing that) has been painful. I am not sure what to make of this part of the experience. Perhaps it will lead me to a new project. I have been so lucky to have been able to be a part-time teacher, a writer and a mother. I think, though, that perhaps I am ready to prioritize my life outside the family in a new way. This coincides, of course, with being married a long time and with my kids getting older. But, I’m trying to envision a new kind of ambition, outspokenness and productivity that I can inhabit while still being a good wife and mother and not being insane. I think, especially after having spoken to so many women in their 40s, that much of this restlessness, this desire to work more and to be taken seriously and be somehow more in the public and less in the domestic space—I think this is developmental. Coming home felt a bit like emotional whiplash. Let’s just say that shifting from a space/time where I did not have to make anyone any meals, where/when my time was mostly my own and other adults were interested in what I had to say, where/when reading and writing meant I was doing my job (as a writer/lecturer) rather than failing to do my job (as a wife/mother) to—to my “regular” life which is full of joy and chaos and mess and two teenagers and an 8 year old whose needs seem to come before mine every time and in every way, everything is a negotiation, and appreciation is not so much on the menu. Traveling for the lectures made me realize there are a lot of ways to live a life and made me look at the way I’m living mine. I’m not sure what else to say about it at this point.

So, that’s more about the people I met while traveling and the experience of being away from my family and then returning. But, in a way that is the experience of the lectures; I can’t separate that from the lectures themselves. In each of the places I went, I felt that the lectures were a conversation—with particular poets and readers I knew would be in attendance, with poets in my community who were not able to attend but who I hope will read or listen to the lectures eventually. It has been more and more important to me to view and experience these lectures as conversations rather than performances. At each location I’ve valued, above all, the questions and answers after each lecture, the reading recommendations given to me by the audience members, the ideas and suggestions offered by the people I met in various locations and the poets who have helped me during the compositional phase. As you can see from my acknowledgments, I did not write these lectures alone. In a way these lectures are a record of these relationships as much or more than an argument or elaboration of my thinking.

CL: Now that you’ve given three different lectures in several cities at a variety of venues – Library of Congress, universities, poetry centers at universities, the creative writing department where you work (NYU) – what has been different about each of these venues? Do you have a preference, now having the experience of lecturing in different spaces? Did the crowds vary much? Which group was the rowdiest? The chattiest? The most poet-filled?

RZ: I have learned something and felt truly honored by and grateful for each audience and every venue. I am not sure what is causal, correlative or coincidental, but the venues that have been the most transformative for me were the ones in which I spent the most time (as opposed to a quick trip in and out) and the places where I also gave a poetry reading and met a lot of people or spent a lot of time with a few people. Again, whenever the lectures felt like conversations rather than performances was gratifying and wonderful.

Another thing I learned is that it is impossible to write for a general audience. Who is a general audience? And I had to think about who I was really trying to talk to. My hope, of course, is that anyone interested in poetry would find something of interest of value in my lectures. But I think the truth is (or at least what I noticed from comparing venues and audiences) is that my lectures are aimed at poets and readers more than PhD students or scholars. On the other hand, what a thrill—what a gift—to get a chance to speak to people who are not the people I usually speak to! Those opportunities were the most challenging and enlightening.

CL: Have you been writing poems during this lecture tour? If so, what has sparked the new poems? I guess I am also asking if you feel distance from poetry in the traditional sense, now that you’re buried in lecture work.

RZ: Yes, I have been writing—are they poems? I don’t know. I’ve been writing these very long (sometimes in lines and sometimes not) poems that take up many of the questions I was exploring in my lectures: confessionality, ethics, disobedience. Also, sex, race, gender, power, and death. You know, light and funny! Haha. The poems are a bit lecture-like but hopefully not pedantic. They scare me and embarrass me so maybe that’s good. Or maybe that’s bad. I really don’t know. In this way writing the lectures has brought me back to poetry because I wasn’t writing poems when I started writing the lectures. On the other hand, yes, I feel somewhat distant from poetry. It has been increasingly important to me to feel that I am writing something that matters, that has a social effect, that is useful. I’m not sure, even after reading, writing and thinking about this for years, whether poetry is useful for not, whether poetry can affect significant social change or not.

CL: If BWLS asked you to do it all over again next year, with totally new lectures, what stones would you want to overturn and explore? Where would you start?

RZ: I would like to write more lectures or essays (I think that despite my efforts to not write essays that three of my four lectures are really essays). I don’t know if I ever will. I’d like to think that doing these lectures has taught me how to write a certain kind of lecture-essay-poetics-criticism and that I can keep doing it even without this kind of organized structure, but I’m not sure I can. I can’t believe I didn’t write about motherhood more explicitly. I want to write about motherhood as a poetics not just motherhood as a subject for poems. I want to write any lecture that provides me with the opportunity to talk about my favorite poems and poets (I never did that explicitly). I want to write a lecture about trying to write lectures that are anti-authoritarian in form and content and nature. I want to write a lecture about various conceptions of the role of the poet. I want to write a lecture about the role of teaching in my life—not the same old “are MFA programs good or bad” conversation but the profound connection for me between teaching (which is to say learning while teaching) and writing. I want to write more directly about poetry and feminism. I can’t believe I didn’t write about collaboration! And, how is it that I never wrote a whole lecture about the long poem as a form?! Ugh, this list is making me feel sad. I guess it should be enlivening. I think I’m realizing I’m sad this is over. I am shocked to hear myself say that.

–This interview was conducted between Rachel Zucker and Christine Larusso in the spring of 2015. Part 1 of this interview is here.

To see a partial list of Rachel Zucker’s sources for these lectures, go here.

To read Rachel Zucker’s acknowledgements for these lectures, go here.

smallpressdistribution: APRIL’S #SPDhandpicked is all about...

Tue, 05 Apr 2016 15:26:06 -0700

smallpressdistribution:

APRIL’S #SPDhandpicked is all about DISCOVERY - how it can expand beyond you to touch others, but also how it might obscure, who it can fail and how wide-ranging its implications may be.

Hardly War / Don Mee Choi (Wave Books)

Hardly War is one of SPD’s handpicked titles this month! We love SPD very much.

poetsorg: Teachers, this week’s Teach This Poem features Mary...

Tue, 05 Apr 2016 13:35:31 -0700

poetsorg:

Teachers, this week’s Teach This Poem features Mary Ruefle’s poem “The Hand” accompanied by interdisciplinary resources about artist Edgar Degas. Read more here: http://bit.ly/1OD5vgW

Originally handwritten in a hardcover journal, featured here we...

Mon, 28 Mar 2016 14:12:52 -0700

Originally handwritten in a hardcover journal, featured here we have a couple of poems from Anselm Berrigan’s forthcoming collection, Come In Alone (Spring 2016).

Each page of Come In Alone features a different poem infinitely looping around the page, with each word beginning and ending beside another, creating space and an invitation for the reader to engage.

Through April 1st, you can get a copy of Anselm Berrigan’s Come In Alone for 33% off through our site.

Don Mee Choi’s forthcoming collection, Hardly War, features...

Mon, 21 Mar 2016 17:30:07 -0700

“With Her Brother on Her Back," courtesy of National Archives

Don Mee Choi’s forthcoming collection, Hardly War, features artifacts from her father, a professional photographer during the Korean and Vietnam wars. The images featured in this post all appear in her highly anticipated collection. Through memoir, image, and opera, Don Mee Choi explores her heritage and creates a collection unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.

Through April 1st, you can get Hardly War 33% off (plus free shipping!).

“With Her Brother on Her Back” is courtesy National Archives.
All other images featured in this post are from the author’s personal collection.

Take a look at Ron Padgett and Joan Simon’s press release from...

Sun, 20 Mar 2016 17:54:35 -0700

Take a look at Ron Padgett and Joan Simon’s press release from 1982 regarding John Godfrey’s first collection, Dabble: Poems 1966-1980.

Wave books is honored to be publishing John Godfrey’s forthcoming collection, The City Keeps: Selected and New Poems 1966-2014:, this spring! Through April 1st, you can grab The City Keeps in softcover for 33% off, or 20% for a hardcover.

P.S. - purchase any of our spring releases at 20% off, and you also get a free signed and limited edition hardcover of John Godfrey’s City of Corners.

Our Spring books have arrived, and we’re selling them at a...

Sun, 13 Mar 2016 14:12:44 -0700

Our Spring books have arrived, and we’re selling them at a discount through April 1st!

Paperbacks are 33% off. Hardcovers are 20% off and include a free hardcover of City of Corners by John Godfrey. And, as always, we offer free domestic shipping.

Our Spring releases include: Olio by Tyehimba Jess, Hardly War by Don Mee Choi, Come In Alone by Anselm Berrigan, Phantom Pains of Madness by Noelle Kocot, and The City Keeps: Selected and New Poems 1966-2014 by John Godfrey.

Looking for a larger discount? The 2016 paperback subscription gathers the entire year’s catalog of Wave softcover publications (10 titles at more than 40% off the total cover price).

The subscription also includes all of the titles we will publish in the fall: My Private Property by Mary Ruefle, Calamities by Renee Gladman, Violet Energy Ingots by Hoa Nguyen, Power Ballads by Garrett Caples, and Cities at Dawn by Geoffrey Nutter.

Congratulations to writer and artist Renee Gladman, who has been...

Tue, 02 Feb 2016 10:00:38 -0800

Congratulations to writer and artist Renee Gladman, who has been recognized by the Foundation for Contemporary Arts for her work in poetry and prose architectures, and ultimately awarding her with a 2016 grant for poetry.

The drawing featured above is from her Prose Architectures collection, an interdisciplinary project exploring the continuum between sentences and drawings–click here for more drawings and the full artist statement.

Wave Books will be publishing her forthcoming collection, Calamities, this fall.

Artist Melanie Janisse-Barlow’s Poets Series celebrates...

Fri, 29 Jan 2016 14:26:45 -0800

A portrait of Toronto poet Hoa Nguyen. Part of Melanie Janisse-Barlow's Poets Series.

A portrait of Detroit poet Damian Rogers. Part of Melanie Janisse-Barlow's Poets Series.

A portrait of Toronto poet Dani Couture. Part of Melanie Janisse-Barlow's Poets Series.

Artist Melanie Janisse-Barlow’s Poets Series celebrates contemporary poetry by archiving and painting the portraits of living poets.

Janisse-Barlow’s collection so far has included Wave Poet Hoa Nguyen, who’s forthcoming collection, Violet Energy Ingots, will be released this fall.

According the the Windsor Star, Janisse-Barlow believes the collection will provide “an amazing narrative of contemporary poetry,” and anticipates a total of 80 portraits the series.

Watch this teaser trailer featuring Wave poet CACONRAD reading...

Mon, 25 Jan 2016 12:30:37 -0800

Watch this teaser trailer featuring Wave poet CACONRAD reading from SUPPLICATION: SELECTED POEMS OF JOHN WIENERS (Wave Books, 2015).

Supplication: Selected Poems of John Wieners gathers work by one of the most significant poets of the Black Mountain and Beat generation. Includes the full text of the 1958 edition of his influential The Hotel Wentley Poems, plus poems from rare sources, facsimiles, notes, and collages by Wieners. An invaluable collection for new and old fans.

Supplication was co-edited by CAConrad, Robert Dewhurst, and Joshua Beckman.

We are happy to announce the availability of our 2016 SOFTCOVER...

Tue, 01 Dec 2015 09:50:59 -0800

We are happy to announce the availability of our 2016 SOFTCOVER SUBSCRIPTION! At more than a 40% discount, the subscription will feature all of our 2016 publications, which will be listed below! In addition, we’ve also put together ephemera packs for the first 50 people to sign up. These packs include an array of broadsides, handmade materials from Wave events and the Poetry Bus Tour, booklets, and small publications. You can see a few varied examples attached to this post!

These are the forthcoming titles for our tenth year anniversary: in the spring we will be publishing OLIO by TYEHIMBA JESS, HARDLY WAR by DON MEE CHOI, COME IN ALONE BY ANSELM BERRIGAN, PHANTOM PAINS OF MADNESS by NOELLE KOCOT, and THE CITY KEEPS: SELECTED AND NEW POEMS 1966-2014 by JOHN GODFREY.

Next fall’s season will include CALAMITIES BY RENEE GLADMAN, VIOLET ENERGY INGOTS by HOA NGUYEN, POWER BALLADS by GARRETT CAPLES, CITIES AT DAWN by GEOFFREY NUTTER, and MY PRIVATE PROPERTY by MARY RUEFLE.

All titles are also available in signed and numbered limited edition volumes through the 2016 HARDCOVER SUBSCRIPTION.

Happy 100th birthday, ROBERT LAX! For the centennial...

Mon, 30 Nov 2015 17:32:33 -0800

Happy 100th birthday, ROBERT LAX! For the centennial celebration, we’re offering a 40% DISCOUNT on his most recent selected, POEMS (1962-1997). This sale ends of Friday, so don’t sit on it too long!

Poems (1962-1997) gathers 35 years of ROBERT LAX’s work, rarely published and largely composed in solitude on the island of Patmos. Compiled and edited by the poet’s former assistant JOHN BEER, this selection reflects–through meditative sequences in striking vertical columns–Lax’s rigorous attention to the world around him, and his relentless aspiration to new ways of writing. The New York Times called Lax one of “America’s greatest experimental poets, a true minimalist who can weave awesome poems from remarkably few words.”

Handwritten notes and poems by Robert Lax, courtesy of the Lax archives at St. Bonaventure University.

Nachsteller Verlag, a press in Austria, sent us their gorgeous...

Fri, 30 Oct 2015 13:55:32 -0700

Nachsteller Verlag, a press in Austria, sent us their gorgeous German translation of CA Conrad’s The Book of Frank by Chris Michalski, complete with photographs, in an envelope decorated with a quote by Robert Walser.

Thanks to our Austrian friends!

Sneak peek of Ernst Meister’s forthcoming collection, Of...

Tue, 29 Sep 2015 12:34:54 -0700

Sneak peek of Ernst Meister’s forthcoming collection, Of Entirety Say the Sentence (pg 43), during golden hour. You can currently get Meister’s entire informal trilogy for 33% off on at wavepoetry.com/collections/forthcoming through October 6th. This includes limited-edition hardcover and paperback editions, too!

Waking up with John Wieners: excerpt from “A Poem for...

Mon, 21 Sep 2015 07:27:29 -0700

Waking up with John Wieners: excerpt from “A Poem for Trapped Things” pulled from his forthcoming collection Supplication: Selected Poems of John Wieners. |

You can currently get copies of Supplication (paperback and limited-edition hardcover) for 33% off through our site until October 6th: wavepoetry.com/collections/forthcoming

Beginning today through October 6th, our forthcoming October...

Tue, 15 Sep 2015 10:50:06 -0700

Beginning today through October 6th, our forthcoming October releases (plus the rest of MEISTER’s informal trilogy shown on the bottom half of this picture) are 33% off!

This sale includes paperback and limited-edition hardcover versions as well!

To take advantage of this deal, go to wavepoetry.com/collections/forthcoming

Sneak peek from Joseph Massey’s poem titled “An...

Tue, 01 Sep 2015 20:13:28 -0700

Sneak peek from Joseph Massey’s poem titled “An Interim”, which is featured in his new collection, Illocality. | Today is the last day to get Illocality and our other September releases 33% off through our site! (Link in bio) | #poetry #lit #currentlyreading #josephmassey #quote #poem #wavebooks #wavepoetry