Francine Witte | First Rain

Francine Witte. Winner of the 2009 Pecan Grove Press National Chapbook Competition. Copyright C 2009 by Francine Witte. All Rights reserved. Cover art: “Shreds of Blue”, Copyright C 2009 by Pecan Grove Press. ISBN: 1-978-931247-61-0. Pecan Grove Press, Box AL, 1 Camino Santa Maria, San Antonio, TX 78022 Continue reading

Larry Smith | The Long River Home | Bottom Dog Press

A Family Saga Set in the Green Heartlands… In this fine Appalachian novel, Larry Smith chronicles four generations of McCalls, their joys and sorrows, their sins and their nobility….Such regional fiction has always been about people: their connections with one another, their home place, their struggles to survive and to prosper. It’s all here, set, in the grand tradition of Wendell Berry and Conrad Richter, against the Ohio landscape: its hills and its rivers, its frontier beginnings and its later industrial development. We care about the place and its people. Finishing the novel, we understand ourselves and our nation with a deeper knowledge. — Annabel Thomas, author of Stone Man Mountain. Continue reading

Mary E. Weems | An Unmistakable Shade of Red & The Obama Chronicles: Poems | Bottom Dog Press

Yes, this writer is a woman, who knows that “every mouth’s its own love language, / lust’s first cousin.” And yes, she is a black woman, for whom the eyes of Barack Obama “are so deep brown / I see blue in them, / ocean water, / bones rising, / right fists raised.” And yes, like the rest of us, she’s getting older, “hair graying in places / I shouldn’t have hair.” But beyond all divisions, she is a poet, who knows that poetry is music, and music is “the first place Black and White / came together like unwritten notes / in a jazz composition.” In these poems Mary Weems both challenges and embraces America in all its turbulence and beauty. We should be grateful. — George Bilgere, author of Haywire. Continue reading

d.a.levy | if i scratch, if i write | the levy film + book | Bottom Dog Press

if i scratch, if i write – the levy film produced & directed by KON PET MOON with Allen Ginsberg, Russell Salamon, Joan Turnbo, Russell Atkins, Martin Simon, Grace Butcher, Kent Taylor, John Scott, John Rose, Tony Walsh, Jake Leed, Dagmar Walter, Steve Ferguson, Ralph Delaney, Robert Carothers, Cleo Malone, Frank Osinski and Gerald Gold. 16-9 Anamorphic Widescreen 104 minutes.

This dvd is part of the d.a.levy & the mimeograph revolution book, edited by Larry Smith and Ingrid Swanberg. Chronology of his life and work, Biographical essays, Photographs, Interviews, Profiles, Statements, Letters, Art Work, Collage, Poems and Critical appreciations of his writing and art levy’s “Cleveland Prints” Eight pages in full color. ISBN -1-933964-07-3 | 276 pages. Continue reading