Each of the 32 poems in Here to Be Remade owes its vocabulary to a separate book of poems taken from the writer’s bookshelf—usually the first and last lines in that collection. The author set herself the challenge of creating a coherent poem from these word sets without borrowing lines or phrases from the collection from which the words were taken.
The poems are condensed and diverse, reflecting the mind of a poet as collage artist. Paintings, also created by the author, are interspersed among the poems.
Here to Be Remade by Lavina Blossom is available now.
Lavina Blossom grew up in rural Michigan and now lives in Southern California where she is growing a native California garden of drought-tolerant plants that support local birds and insects, as well as many spiders, lizards, and an occasional field mouse. She has written articles on the writing process for the Inlandia Institute and was a poetry editor for Inlandia’s online journal. Her poems have appeared in various publications, including The Paris Review, Poemeleon, Common Ground Review, Gyroscope Review, and Book of Matches. Her flash fiction has appeared in 10 by 10 Flash, Every Day Fiction, and Okay Donkey.
Instagram: @lavinablossom
Facebook: @lavina.blossom
Website: www.dailypaintworks.com
In What We Leave Behind, Peter Wortsman’s fourth book of cut-ups, he lets the words run wild, in some cases, as in French poet Guillaume Apollinaire’s Calligrames (1918), letting words break ranks and dance on the page; in other cases, coupling word and image; and finally, succumbing to the lure of the visual in collages in which words play a subordinate role or disappear altogether. If, as this book’s first poem maintains, “we know each other from what we leave behind,” Wortsman writes, “I will hope these cut-up words and images bestir a smile or two on the face of the reader and perhaps a knowing nod.”
What We Leave Behind by Peter Wortsman is available now.
Author of work in multiple modes, including fiction, plays, poetry, and translation from the German, most recently Odd Birds & Fat Cats, An Urban Bestiary, created in collaboration with his daughter, artist-illustrator Aurélie Bernard Wortsman, short listed for an Eric Hoffer Book Award, Peter Wortsman was a fellow of the Fulbright (1973) and Thomas J. Watson Foundations (1974), and a Holtzbrinck Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin (2010). His work has garnered a Beard’s Fund Short Story (1985) Award and an Independent Publishers Book Award (2014), among other honors.
Website: https://www.peterwortsman.com
Facebook: @peter.wortsman
Instagram: @peter_wortsman
What began as countless daily texts from Brutus to make Stevo laugh at work soon evolved into their final collaborative venture. The pair’s original scheme, Stevo working at a fortune cookie factory swapping standard fortunes for Brutus’ quotes, failed when he was fired for refusing to wear a hair net. They quickly moved on to plan B, a page-a-day calendar, and Stevo began illustrating Brutus’ texts. That project was paused when Brutus passed in 2023, then restarted when Kevin Ausmus selected the strongest entries for a chapbook. The final product, The Gospel According To Bombastus, explores topics from biology to theology with wit, wisdom, and weirdness.
The Gospel According To Bombastus by Brutus Chieftain and Stevo Lution is available now.
Bombastus is:
Poet and doghouse-bass player Johnny Bender, (AKA Brutus Chieftain), followed the Beat tradition in attitude but also enjoyed fiddling with form. He lived with his longtime wife, René, near the Box Springs Mountains in beautiful Moreno Valley. A short workshop he took with Allen Ginsberg at Naropa Institute in summer 1982 inspired Bender to start the poetry performance troupe "Poets in Distress" that same year. The group still gives raucous readings throughout Southern California. Bender also used the names Brutus Chieftain, Bombastus, Henry Heaven, Brutusaurus Rex Chieftain, Wunderbender, and John.
Born in Pomona, CA, Steve Lossing, (AKA Stevo Lution), received his first rejection notice at 16, when the high school newspaper refused to run his comic strip “Tommy the dead Trojan cat,“ featuring the school’s deceased mascot. He received a BA in general studio art from CSUF, focusing on painting and assemblage. A long term member of performance troupe Poets in Distress, Steve currently serves as their Minister of Propaganda, drawing fliers, spray-painting signage, illustrating poetry books, designing clothing, and creating musical instruments. His political art can be spotted throughout the Inland Empire on light poles, signposts, and Jane Wiedlin’s guitar at Coachella. Steve lives in Riverside, CA with his wife Andrea, their daughter, Afton, Prince Shiny the chug, and countless feral cats.
Email: sflossing@gmail.com
Instagram: stevo_lution
The lyrical nature of the stories in Patrick John Brayer's The Cold Coin Heart create a rhythm, like that of thump of the asphalt under your troubled lost wheels down a ditch of highway with Brayer as a brimstone DJ delivering an imagined history of Fontana, California. In his hands, Cold Coin Heart is a Terrence Malick yarn or maybe a Roberto Bolaño mystery that keeps knocking at the core of things and with every knock the core packs up and moves away across expanses that could be Oklahoma, or maybe San Bernardino. If you are familiar with Brayer's lyrics, you will relish the larger canvas that he explodes herein. Psalms of the working class, narratives and characters colliding with a world out of time.
This book is made up of magical realism origin stories on the eve of annihilation.
