New Books from Chax Press in June 2013
Meditations on the Stations of Mansur al-Hallaj, by Pierre Joris. Cover by Nicole Peyrafitte.
ISBN 978-0-9894316-0-6
Well-versed and well-read in Sufi mysticism, Joris appears throughout these captivating Meditations as a nomadizing poet-scholar — a poeta doctus in the classical sense: whether it is the manners, or pockets of the desert, Baghdad bombings, or Hallaj’s set of stations that caught his eye (a poeta vates?) and fired up the engine of his writing, Joris — poeta faber — also always guides us back to the material flux of language that constitutes these Meditations. — Peter Cockelbergh
Anti M, by Lisa Samuels. ISBN 978-0-9894316-2-0
Lisa Samuels’ beautiful Anti M is a delicate, dark, expansive, and obviously elliptical text that explores not the opposite but the obverse side of memory. In Anti M, memories are broken apart and intensified, they have become charged particles. They flicker, not cinematically (though the lovely, enigmatic images included in the book bring film to mind) but with electricity. It is that exciting play of light, cast by shadows and patches of even darker darkness, that makes the language of Anti M luminous. And it is luminous — this is a gorgeous work. — Lyn Hejinian
Edges of Water, by Maureen Owen. Painting on cover by Elizabeth Murray.
ISBN 978-0-9894316-1-3
In a land where FEELINGS shared is a transgression, we get propelled onward! If Elizabeth Murray’s promise that the subconscious is what we paint about, then Maureen Owen’s promise is by the poems. Always there first, as Freud said, “Where I go I find a poet has been there before me.” Imagine Sigmund meeting up with the latest Owen book. “we think we look back / we just look outside / surface that is a state / of meringue / holiness that is a condition independent / of deity….” — CAConrad
Chax Press has successfully completed an online KICKSTARTER fundraising project to insure the publication of these 3 books, plus a forthcoming anthology edited by Linh Dinh, which will be available in August.
The Chax Press web site is currently being re-visioned. It will launch its new version in a few weeks. Until then the previous site is still available for your viewing, reading, and book purchasing.
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