Monthly Archives: October 2012

October news

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I have a poem in the anthology On Our Own: Widowhood for Smarties (Silver Boomer Books, 2012) and three poems in the current issue of OVS magazine. I also have poems forthcoming in Poet Lore and in the anthology Southern Ohio Anthology. I’m up in the department’s September newsletter.

An excerpt of my new book Sprung is featured in Extract(s), as well as on the press’s page, and my forthcoming chapbook FIRST WIFE is getting ready to go.

On the first of the month, I read in 100 Thousand Poets for Change with Jeff Alessandrelli, Grace Bauer, J V Brummels, Sarah Chavez, Crystal Gibbins, Neil Harrison, and Kelly Madigan, hosted by Grace Bauer & Rex Walton. I read two poems from GHOST GIRL

and a poem from SPRUNG.

Towards the end of the month, my poem “Ms Behaving” was performanced in Lit Undressed / Omaha Lit Fest in Omaha. Though no video was allowed during the performance, Sally Deskins did a reading of “Ms. Behaving” during their “dressed” performance,

and another performer read my poem “The Purse” that was performed in Lit Undressed in 2011.

My poem “Ms. Behaving” is forthcoming in a LFF feature with photos, poems, and news from the event. I have one other little bit of juicy news to share, but alas, I can’t share it yet. More soon!

blurbs for First Wife, forthcoming Hyacinth Girl Press

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I’ve been working on getting things ready for my forthcoming chapbook FIRST WIFE (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2013). I’ve mentioned the lovely cover art (above) created by the talented Megan Sanders, now I’m happy to share the blurbs from Alicia Ostriker, Leslie Adrienne Miller, and J. Hope Stein.

Like most young poets, I’d been reading Alicia Ostriker’s work for years. The first year I presented in Washington, D.C. at Split this Rock in 2008, Alicia read with a wonderful lineup of poets that included Mark Doty and Naomi Shihab Nye. It was such a treat to hear the readings. Several of her books were on my comprehensive exams reading list, included No Heaven. In the spring semester of 2011, I took Alicia Ostriker’s master poetry workshop at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln when she was the visiting writer here. I adored her class—her craft talks, the writing prompts and discussions on the sacred, the requirement to write a poem (or more) every day, and the one-on-one tutorial. While she was at UNL, I taught The Volcano Sequence to my poetry class and while her master class was in session, I brought her writing prompts to my students. They loved them. It was fun talking with them about what she were teaching, the prompts, and our interpretation of the sacred in poetry and in her work.

During the workshop, I specifically remember Alicia’s comments about the poem I was working on about a gravestone of a widow. I think in many ways, the poems that I started writing in Alicia’s class and the discussions we had about the sacred in that workshop became fodder for what has become my collection FIRST WIFE. Here’s Alicia,

Who is Lilith? Is she the mythic first wife of Adam, who escaped subservience to her husband and her husband’s God and became stigmatized as a demoness? Or is she an ordinary woman preoccupied with gardening, cyberspace, irritation at the requirements of “pretty” and ready to choose herself? Does she know that sometimes “words stand in the way of their meaning?” Yes, yes and yes, in the poetry of Laura Madeline Wiseman’s First Wife, whose words are as lyrical, acerbic, and laden with meaning as an apple tree with apples.
~Alicia Ostriker, author of The Book of Seventy

Like Alicia’s work, Leslie Adrienne Miller’s wonderful book The Resurrection Trade was on my PhD comps reading list. Her work is stunning as it explores issues on the body, gender roles, the representation of the female body by institutions, and historical presentations of the feminine. I was just delighted that Leslie could offer a few words on my forthcoming chapbook:

The haunting poems of Laura Madeline Wiseman’s First Wife radiate from fragments of the apocryphal story of Lilith, Adam’s first wife, and recall Louise Gluck in their intricate segues between a mythical female figure’s surprisingly contemporary inner turmoil and a contemporary woman’s questioning of a stubbornly patriarchal culture.
~Leslie Adrienne Miller, author of Y and The Resurrection Trade

Finally, the last blurber is J. Hope Stein, fellow Dancing Girl Press and, now, Hyacinth Girl Press sister-poet. I read with Stein in Chicago in June in a DGP reading and it was lovely. She’s also interviewed in my blog series on the chapbook. Here’s Stein:

Laura Madeline Wiseman’s First Wife is filled with the rich imagery of Eden and apples and poems of Lilith combined with a vision of a modern marriage marked by the imposed labels: “engagement”, “newlyweds”, “honeymoon”, and “anniversary.” Like Louise Gluck’s Meadowlands, in First Wife Wiseman explores a unique brand of truth that interweaves the disintegration of a marriage with myth.
~J. Hope Stein, author of [Mary]: and [Taking Doll]

The Chapbook Interview: Sarah Reck on the Chapbook Design

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How do you define “chapbook”?

I tend to consider a chapbook a short collection of poetry or prose by one author that follows, more than likely, one theme or idea or emotion. I’m relatively new to the chapbook scene, though I spent time in college and graduate school reading and working on lit magazines. I don’t know if there’s really a firm definition of either, but in my mind there’s a distinction between the two in that a lit mag pulls in both poetry and prose from multiple authors and therefore they don’t all necessarily fit together perfectly. A chapbook, on the other hand, is a collection of several pieces of one whole.

 

In Margaret Bashaar’s interview she describes the process of turning an electronic chapbook submission to a real chapbook that “Oh! This is where I get to brag about how incredibly amazing Sarah Reck is…I send the manuscript to Sarah, Sarah does some sort of magic that I don’t completely understand, and sends me back a pdf of the manuscript.” Can you talk a little bit about your process and the “sort of magic” that you do?

The first thing I do is read through the poems and to get a feel for the tone and the themes and the overall feeling I get from the poems as I’m reading them. It sounds strange but I often have a font or fonts in mind after a read-through, and I set the poems out as soon as I do. The manuscripts come to me formatted by the poet, and I take care not to lose that formatting, because I know that an indent, a space, or a single word might change the poet’s intent. I’m a pretty visual person, which I think works well when it comes to the spacing and design of a poem on the page. Once I’ve got the entire book laid out, I get it into .pdf form and send it off to Margaret, and then we work together with the poet to make sure we’re all on the same page and everything looks fantastic.

Can you tell me about a few of the chapbooks you’ve designed for Hyacinth Girl Press?

One thing I think Margaret does so well with acquiring collections for HGP is that she finds poets and collections that are so varied and unique. We started with Juliet Cook’s Thirteen Designer Vaginas, and that was my first go at laying out a chapbook. It’s interesting because the poems don’t have individual titles, and each fits like blocks on the pages. It’s a fun design, almost utilitarian, which I think fits the feel of the collection. Niina Pollari’s Book Four is another without titles, and in this case it gave me the opportunity to play with negative space and open up the poetry right there on the page. And Susan Yount’s Catastrophe Theory is a collection of poems, none of which are formatted or designed the same way. It was challenging to produce, but I like the way it translated from my computer screen to the printed page. Visually, it’s really fun and different.

What has been your favorite chapbook to design and why?

Poetically, I love Susan Slaviero’s A Wicked Apple. It’s a wonderful collection of fantastical pieces, very fairy-tale in inspiration. It’s beautiful. Stylistically, Make It So… which is an anthology of poetry inspired by “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” I had the opportunity to play a lot more with font and internal design elements, giving it a feel that really speaks to both my inner geek and to Star Trek.

What current chapbook are you working on?

I just put the finishing touches on J. Hope Stein’s [Mary]:, which will be out soon from Hyacinth Girl Press. I liked designing it because it’s a combination of poetry, prose, and the format of a screenplay or dialogue. And I’ll get started shortly on Deena November’s Dick Wad.

 

Since you started doing the design and layout for HGP, has there been anything new in the publishing industry that has been destructive to the art of chapbook presses? Helpful to the art to chapbook presses?

I don’t think anything has been destructive because I do think there will always be a market for handmade, hand-designed books by talented artists. There’s something comforting and exciting about knowing how a few, real people all touched a chapbook as it comes to life.

 

How does your day job of working as a web publicist for a major publishing house influence your work with HGP, a small feminist press?

In my day job, books come to me already packaged and complete, and I get to market and promote them. What I love about working with Margaret at HGP is that it’s a completely different period in the life of the book. I like the hands-on experience of working with a small press. I mean, I love books and the written word and supporting fellow writers more than anything, and that fits into both my job and my work at HGP. Being able to produce a beautiful piece of art for and with someone else is a wonderful feeling.

 

You’ve been writing young adult novels, correct? What current writing projects are you working on?

My most recent novel, Birthright, just got a rewritten and extended ending. It’s a steampunk adventure set in an alternate NYC. While I’m looking for representation for it and my other novels, I’ve started a new project that explores what faith and religion would look and feel like in an America that forbids and has essentially made it illegal to practice any kind of religion.

 

Number of chapbooks you own: About 10, but full disclosure, the majority of them are from Hyacinth Girl Press. I’m currently working on building my collection and seeing what other small presses are doing. I also have about a dozen several lit mags tucked away from college.

Number of chapbooks you’ve designed: 9

Favorite flavors of cupcake: Red velvet or pink lemonade.

Inspirations and influences: Edith Wharton, Marjane Satrapi, Stephen Dunn, JK Rowling, William Shakespeare, John Donne, Michael Chabon.

Residence: New York City

Job and education: I manage social media and online promotion for three inspirational and religious imprints at a major publishing house. I hold an MFA in Writing and an MA in English from Chapman University, and I did my undergrad work at Lycoming College.

Bio: Sarah Reck’s short stories and poetry have appeared in The Tributary, Elephant Tree, and Make It So: Poetry Inspired by Star Trek The Next Generation chapbook. She is co-founder and managing editor of Litterbox Magazine, now on hiatus. While she calls Pittsburgh her home, she currently lives in New York City with her cat, Lola. You can find her online on Twitter, Pinterest, and at SarahReck.com.