Bookwork Book Release: Mary and Aja Oishi’s Rock Paper Scissors

Mother daughter poets, Mary & Aja Oishi, read from their new Swimming With Elephants Publications collection, Rock Paper Scissors.

 

“…this collection carries both the beauty of human resilience and the searing pain of postatomic burning carnage. The poetry, like hope, is an obstinate and sturdy survivor, for ‘what could i do but write songs.’ These verses often push the envelope, asking questions that make more sense than our grammar. ‘are you out there in the stealth night on the edge of blue? listening/ are you loving me for sending you this fix of heartbreak/ slid down metal, taut and wound. electric. are you?’ …haunting, resonant odes and the rhythmic power of promises and truth, poems spread across Hiroshima and Barcelona, Laos and Albuquerque. These poems bring the world into a familial embrace, but spit out the naked power of truth, both personal and political, as if it were a well-chewed chicken bone, gnawed raw. Through it all, this mother-daughter poetic duo reminds us that, in the beauty of human hope, ‘nothing sacred can be lost.’”

–Carmen Tafolla, State Poet Laureate of Texas

 

Mary Oishi has two poetic voices: one stark and simple like that of her Japanese ancestors, and one that echoes the rhythms of preachers from her upbringing by her American father’s fundamentalist relatives. Both voices sing her songs of truth and social justice. She is the author of Spirit Birds They Told Me (2011) and is one of twelve U.S. poets in 12 Poetas: Antologia De Nuevos Poetas Estadounidenses (2017), a project of the Mexican Ministry of Culture. Her poems have appeared in Mas Tequila Review, Malpais Review, Harwood Anthology, Sinister Wisdom, and other print and digital publications. Oishi is a public radio personality since 1996, most at KUNM-FM Albuquerque, where she hosts The Blues Show.

Aja Oishi lives in northern New Mexico. Her writing draws from ecology, anthropology, and the years she spent in Spain, Japan, and New Zealand. She revels in the uncaged world and makes a living (and a life) by fighting for prisoners as an appellate public defender. This is her first collection of poetry.

 

Event date:
Friday, June 8, 2018 – 6:00pm
Event address:
4022 Rio Grande Blvd NW
AlbuquerqueNM 87107

Pick up this new release from Bookworks ABQ or order from Amazon or Barnes and Noble today!

Already own a copy? Please write a review on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Goodreads, or submit a review to swimwithelephants@gmail.com for publications on this site.

 

Beau Williams Live in ABQ

Join New England poet Beau Williams on his Nail Gun and a Love Letter tour as he performs at El Chante: Casa de Cultura on Monday, June 4, 2018 from 7pm-9pm.

Heralding from Portland, Maine, Beau Williams describes himself as a “fairly optimistic” poet, and what better way to describe his newest collection of poetry from Swimming with Elephants Publications than as “fairly optimistic.” Bittersweet journeys to bar floors and the bottoms of bottles, Nail Gun and a Love Letter is reminiscent of beat poetry days and the pilgrimages we must take to find ourselves.

Click here to learn more about this collection by reading the review by Maxine Peseke.

The show will be at El Chante Casa de Cultura (804 Park Ave SW, Albuquerque, NM 87102) on June 4, 2018. It will begin at 7 pm with a short Open Mic, following by the featured performer, Beau Williams.

Copies of his latest release, Nail Gun and a Love Letter, will be available for purchase and signing.

You may also pick up Beau Williams’, Nail Gun and a Love Letter, from Bookworks ABQ or order from Amazon or Barnes and Noble today!

Already own a copy? Please write a review on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Goodreads, or submit a review to swimwithelephants@gmail.com for publications on this site.

Keep your eyes open for Beau Williams as he continues his tour across the country. He may soon be coming to a town near you!

 

 

 

 

Featured SwEP Author: Emily Bjustrom

Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC would like to reintroduce to you to Emily Bjustrom.

Emily Bjustrom’s chapbook, Loved Always Tomorrow, was published in April of 2014 by Swimming with Elephants Publications.

Emily Bjustrom’s work applies truth like healing; the uncovered wound, the blood, the sting, the cool breath, the forehead kisses. The most explicit topics are slid under our vulnerable doors with internal rhymes, consonance, and diction that soothes us into unlocking every lock. We let her in, not because we’re afraid she’ll break down our doors, but because we have to see the face tethered to a voice we know we could never live without. Her sound is the sweet violin amidst burning buildings, the piano in the desert. Loved Always Tomorrow is our moment to smile a tear off our itching cheeks before returning to the rubble.

John S. Blake

– Author of Beautifully Flawed, Pushcart Prize nominee, Teaching Artist

 

 

Pick up Emily Bjustrom’s chapbook, Loved Always Tomorrow, from Bookworks ABQ or order from Amazon or Barnes and Noble today!

Already own a copy? Please write a review on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Goodreads, or submit a review to swimwithelephants@gmail.com for publications on this site.