BlazeVOX [books]: A poetic trove turns 10!

Happy TEN years of existence to BlazeVOX [books], my publisher. Here are a few words from publisher Geoffrey Gatza on the anniversary and an opportunity to support poets. Donate and you'll receive a gift. Hoorah! http://www.blazevox.org/donate.htm
From Geoffrey:It's true we are now 10! And to celebrate we are moving forward with new and exciting books, ebooks and other fun projects. Our journal is going strong! We just put out our Spring issue of BlazeVOX2kX, with 100 writers! So if you missed this, it makes for great Spring Reading! http://www.blazevox.org

We are beginning our fundraising season with a real zeal for the future. We are currently full of life and operating within our means. We are looking to publish 1000 new books in the next 12 years and I hope you will be able to help us keep up our fine work. We are looking to develop our board, administrative outlook and business practices so as to move into a larger arena of publishing. I hope you will be able to help us reach our goals!

We have 3 easy ways to donate to BlazeVOX [books]. You can donate $10 and receive a thank you book of your choice! You can donate $25 and receive 1 pound of Handmade Chocolate Covered Popcorn. And we have once again, 10 books for a $100 donation. We brought this back again this year due to overwhelming demand! So here you go, thank you for all of your kind support! This highly successful book sale is much easier than in previous years, because we have set up 8 groups of 10 books for you to choose from. But if you still would like to pick your own, you are very welcome to do so. Yes substitutions are welcome. So hurray! Thank you again and again for your interest in BlazeVOX [books] without you and your support, where would we be? Hurray!

http://www.blazevox.org/donate.htm

Best, Geoffrey

$10 ONE
1 book for a $10 donation

Donate $10 to BlazeVOX [books] and we'll send you any of our titles! This includes shipping to anywhere in the Continental U.S. Go to our full catalog http://www.blazevox.org/catalog.htm and pick out your favorite title. Then email me the title at editor@blazevox.org I'll send it right to you! Thank you!

Chocolate Covered Popcorn
$25 - 1 pound of Handmade Chocolate Covered Popcorn!

Chef Geoff's best treat going! As a thank you for a donation of $25 we'll send you a pound of Fresh Popcorn drizzled with Belgian Milk Chocolate! A limited edition poem broadside by Geoffrey Gatza will accompany each order! This is a delicious way to help out a wonderful press! The sooner you donate the sooner you get eating!!!

This includes shipping to anywhere in the Continental U.S. (But if you cannot live without a box and you are in the Andes, please do email and we'll work something out!)

$100 TEN Collections
10 books for $100

http://www.blazevox.org/donate.htm

The Future Is Happy: a Best Of 2009 Book {Guerilla Girls On Tour!}

Hoorah. The Future Is Happy - my poetry collection from BlazeVOX [books] - made the Guerilla Girls On Tour! Best of 2009 list along with books by poets Marie Ponsot, Lee Ann Roripaugh, Kim Addonizio, Sarah Gambito, Anne Waldman, Rachel Zucker and a slew of others. I agree with you (or my imagined you, resembling my doubting oldest sister, ready to pounce on any achievement of mine) -- it's not as if I'm in a top ten list such as the notorious Publishers Weekly list which recently printed a top ten for fiction writers, each of whom was male.

My publisher Geoffrey Gatza, a most enthusiastic literary world angel e-mailed me: "It's huge." I'll go with that; I didn't know anyone knew about me or my book. I've managed to attract a little attention on Facebook, but haven't had too much feedback on my book yet. Reviews are scheduled. My song of self-pity: I'm not an academic so there is no way I can create a readership - tra la.

Write a book and they will come.

To see the full list go to the Guerilla Girls blog:

http://guerrillagirlsontour.blogspot.com/2009/11/best-books-of-2009.html

First book advice: The Future Is Happy

Now that my first book, the poetry collection The Future Is Happy has its own page on the SPD (Small Press Distribution) website, I am ready to talk.

Now independent bookstores can order it, and independent book readers frequenting independent bookstores can buy it. This is big. At least for me. The Future continues to be available from Amazon, my publisher (BlazeVOX) and from me.

I'm a lucky duck to get published over-the-transom. I did try four or five contests run by literary presses or university presses, didn't win, knew I could not afford the fees and slightly mistrusted the process (not fair of me, really), so I started searching elsewhere.

When my manuscript was accepted I was given a piece of advice, as if advice were a cherry pie I could gobble down. A friend with three books out told me not to try for a perfect book.

"It'll lock you in. You'll always have to live up to it. Who wants precious?"

I appreciated permission to be imperfect. Those gem poems of mine were in the book, but so were poems a little more ragged - though loved by me. Who's to say in the long run which is a more meaningful experience of a poem? Well, the reader is to say. Harold Bloom and Helen Vendler. But really I write for greater closeness and salvation, corporate and always mystical.

The way is sure but it's got to be varied. So many are on the path.

Because my book was accepted during the ongoing economic meltdown, there were delays and more delays. By the time I received the first proof I saw a few things I wanted to change.

With Geoffrey's (my pub.) blessing I swapped out a few poems. As with any project, time away offers perspective. My reasoning in choosing new work, some of it written after the book was accepted, was to make the whole more whole, the more whole stronger, but not to make it perfect.

I am not a perfect person and less so a perfect poet. I am not a perfect poet and less so a perfect person. A stream of hot radiant light is focusing my next book. I have nothing to live up to, in following The Future Is Happy, but nothing to live down. I am proud of it, amazed it ever happened - I am sixty - and ready to be ready.

Note: Cover photograph by Susan Tamany.

SPD: http://www.spdbooks.org/Producte/9781935402350/the-future-is-happy.aspx

BlazeVOX: http://www.blazevox.org/bk-ss2.htm