Category: Shameless Self Promotion

Coming Soon: A Duet of Dying

On By awhitetrashpoetIn News, Publications, Shameless Self Promotion

Down, but not Out

It is no secret that the pandemic has affected Swimming with Elephants Publications in several ways. Since the office has been closed, and will likely remain closed for the rest of the year, creating publications have become difficult and time consuming. However, we are still kicking.

We would like to announce the upcoming release of A Duet of Dying by Shanna Alden and Erin Schick, the first of three chapbooks which were chosen for publication from our 2020 Chapbook Open Call. Originally scheduled for release in May, the pandemic has pushed our release date to August 15, 2020.

Follow our website and Facebook page for upcoming release and performance information.

 

An additional note to our followers:

The ability to publish is a luxury which should not be the top priority of our society at the moment, and it has not been the top priority for our staff. However, we have every intention of fulfilling the contracts we made before the pandemic.

Although we have no idea what the future holds for our small press, we have our fingers crossed that we will survive this difficult time and come out on the other side but it is far too soon to know what we will look like in the next year.

We still have two more chapbooks from last year’s Open Call which we hope to release before the end of 2020 and are hoping to still be able put together our 2020 anthology. We have extended our timeline for these publications and we appreciate the patience of our followers and poets.

You can continue to support us by supporting our poets and supporting independent bookstores.

Now Available from Swimming with Elephants Publications

On By awhitetrashpoetIn News, Shameless Self Promotion

The latest release from

Swimming with Elephants Publications

is now available

Click the link below to order from Bookworks Albuquerque.

 

Cement

 

Sarah Menefee has helped found a Union of the Homeless in the ’80’s and currently is a co-founder of the homeless-led ‘First they came for the homeless.’ She has written articles and published poems on the homeless and their struggles in the People’s Tribune, the newspaper of the League of Revolutionaries for a New America (LRNA).

In this volume she reveals the underlying depth and compassion in her poetic pen for the most vulnerable people in this society. Her method or “style” is to epiphanize the bare fragments of perception seen or felt along the streets, and of the voices she hears there.

The reader will recognize himself and herself immediately in relation to their own fears about the possibility of becoming homeless in the richest of all the thieving governments on earth, and that’s the key to the r e v o l u t I o n a r y intent behind Sarah Menefee’s words.

 

          —Jack Hirschman

from the Introduction to Cement

          Emeritus Poet Laureate of San Francisco

          June 2019

 

Coming in October 2019: The 2020 Open Call for Chapbooks

On By awhitetrashpoetIn Call for Submissions, News, Shameless Self Promotion

THE OPEN CALL

Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC (SwEP) is hosting a chapbook open call to find some fresh work and new voices. With over 70 publications under our belt, SwEP works hard to represent our authors and create publications of which our authors are proud. Please visit our website and check out some of our publications to see if we are a good fit for your writing, then polish up your best pieces to submit.

From our submissions, our guest judges will choose three chapbooks for publication. All our publications include an ISBN, Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC contract, and creative control over cover and production (including release date, cover artwork). For more information on what SwEP provides its authors or to see a general contract, please contact us.

There will not be a ranking system for chosen submissions (1st place, 2nd place, etc), instead, our judges will choose three (3) to publish. All three chosen publications will receive the same award of 25 author copies.

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

SwEP is seeking previously unpublished manuscripts of poems 25-75 pages in length. We are looking for well-crafted, visceral and daring material. We are looking for diverse voices and are particularly interested in poetry that promotes an innate intersectionality of social issues and a deep respect for humanity. We like our poetry achingly raw and true to who YOU are as a writer. We have a goal of promoting marginalized voices and those who are most often overlooked. If you feel your work doesn’t have a place to ‘fit,’ it may be perfect for us.

Open to writers worldwide, the open call is facilitated as a blind submission process via SwEP Submissions Manger. Additionally, only submitted will be considered for further SwEP publications and features. Even if our judges don’t choose your manuscript, you must submit to be considered by SwEP.

HINTS

  • Get to know our press to make sure we are a good fit for you and your publication goals. Explore our website, stalk our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, order some of our publications, review our works on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Goodreads.
  • Send your best work. Make sure your collection is complete, edited, and polished before hitting the submit button. The more polished it is, the more likely it will chosen for publication.
  • Follow the submission guidelines.
  • We insist on blind submissions. If you submit a manuscript with your name on it, it will not be sent to the judges and automatically disqualified.

HOW TO SUBMIT

Swimming with Elephants Publications accepts submissions and payment of the entry fee ($25) exclusively through our online submission manager, Submittable. We are not able to accept submissions via email or postal mail. The submission fee is strictly to cover the price of production and pay our guest judges for their time and hard work. To learn more about why we charge a submission fee, click here.

All entries are read blind. All manuscripts should include a title page (listing only the title of the collection). Manuscripts should be paginated and formatted in an easy-to-read font such as Times New Roman. (More creative fonts may be incorporated during production.)

Identifying information for the author should not be included anywhere on the manuscript itself, including in the name of your file or in the “title” field in Submittable. Please include a brief bio and your publication goals in the cover letter on Submittable, which will be made accessible to the editorial panel only after the Finalist manuscripts have been chosen. It is important to include your publication goals. We are a small press and have limited abilities. If your goals are outside of our abilities, we will let you know.

Simultaneous submissions are acceptable and encouraged, but please notify us by withdrawing your manuscript from Submittable immediately if it is accepted for publication elsewhere.

Multiple submissions (the submission of more than one manuscript to the open call) are permitted. A separate submission fee is required for each submission.

OUR 2020 GUEST JUDGES

 

SaraEve Fermin (she/her) is a performance poet and epilepsy/mental health advocate from northeast New Jersey. A 2015 Best of the Net nominee, she has performed for both local and national events, including the Epilepsy Foundation of Greater Los Angeles 2015 Care and Cure Benefit to End Epilepsy in Children, as a reader for Great Weather for MEDIA at the 2016 NYC Poetry Festival on Governors Island, and in 2019 was a part of the viral #FreeChurroProject. A poetry editor, contributing blogger, and book reviewer, her work can be found or is forthcoming in GERM Magazine, Words Dance, Rising Phoenix Press, Great Weather for MEDIA’s Birds Fall Silent in the Mechanical Sea, and Homology Lit, among others. Her first full length poetry anthology, You Must Be This Tall to Ride, was published by Swimming with Elephants Publishing in 2016 and her follow up, View from the Top of the Ferris Wheel, was publish by Clare Songbird Publishing House in 2017. Her third book of poetry, Trauma Carnival, was released in March 2019 (Swimming with Elephants Publications). She believes in the power of foxes, hair dye and living #furiouslyhappy. She loves Instagram and follows back: @SaraEve41

Kat Heatherington was delighted to join the SwEP Parade in Fall 2017 with the publication of The Bones of This Land (available from amazon.com), which was the first-place winner in the chapbook open call that year. As a guest judge for 2019, she is looking forward to reading a wonderful variety of poetry, ideas and styles. She has been writing her whole life, and performing and publishing poetry for longer than she wants to think about. She lives in Sunflower River intentional community south of Albuquerque. Kat can be found online at sunflowerriver.org, and on instagram at @yarrowkat (photography) and @sometimesaparticle (poetry).

Zachary Kluckman, the National Poetry Awards 2014 Slam Artist of the Year and 2015-2016 Slam Organizer of the Year is a Scholastic Art & Writing Awards Gold Medal Poetry Teacher, Red Mountain Press National Poetry Prize recipient and a founding organizer of the 100 Thousand Poets for Change program, now recognized as the largest poetry reading in history. Kluckman has appeared multiple times at the National and Individual World Poetry slams and tours the nation as a spoken word artist. Recently he was one of 3 poets invited to represent the United States at the Kistrech International Poetry Festival in Kenya. He previously served as Spoken Word Editor for Pedestal magazine and has authored two poetry collections; The Animals in Our Flesh, Red Mountain Press 2012 and Some of It is Muscle, Swimming With Elephants Publications 2014.

Now Available: “Sell Me Insanity” by Marcial Delgado

On By awhitetrashpoetIn Authors, News, Shameless Self Promotion

Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC is excited to announce the release of “Sell Me Insanity,’ a chapbook of poetry by Marcial Delgado.

“The brujo knows that magic is not a series of complex alchemical spells or mathematical formulas, but comes from the soil, from the people around him, from the roots and connections to the earth he can draw on. This is what Marcial Delgado does with this collection of poetry. He drinks deep from the wellspring of his own history, and the ties that bind him to his community, and his people. These poems breathe with a rare magic that is at once soft spoken and fierce. This is a wonderful collection of poems from one of New Mexico’s most authentic voices.”

-Zachary Kluckman

Join Marcial this Saturday, June 22 at El Chante Casa de Cultura for the “Voices Of The Barrio: Sell Me Insanity Book Release.” This will be an open mic event so please bring a poem to share or just come and listen. There will also be a potluck. This is a free event and all are welcome.

Marcial will have copies for sale at the release, but his book is also currently available through most major distributors. Find it on Amazon.com by clicking here and it can be Primed to you by Saturday for the event.

New Release: Thalassophile by Abigayle Goldstein

On By awhitetrashpoetIn Authors, Featured Writers, News, Publications, Shameless Self Promotion1 Comment

Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC is excited to announce the release of Thalassophile: a chapbook of poetry by Abigayle Goldstein.

thalassophile, (n.) lover of the sea

With a collection as breathtaking as a calm beach side view, and as striking as a storm at sea, Abigayle Goldstein has perfected the art of this modern-era “diary/dictionary entry” style of writing. From the table of contents, which reads as an introductory poem itself, and onward through each “definition” that follows, there is an undeniable ocean’s flow in the progress of this collection. A story that paints a vivid picture: of tumultuous change, like crashing waves, and perhaps…the eventual calm, and the acceptance of the constant ebb and flow of the sea within us. This collection awakened a new love for the seas of change for me, and I hope it speaks to the thalassophile in each reader. And perhaps in reading, you will find a renewed and empowered love of self.

This beautiful collection, featuring cover art Sima Ijadi, is the first release by Goldstein.

Join Abigayle Goldstein for the release of the publication on April 27, 2019 from 11-12pm at the Title Wave Book Revised (2318 Wisconsin St NE, Albuquerque, NM 87110).

This is a free event.

Copies of the publication will be available for purchase and signing.

Order your copy of Thalassophile today from Amazon or other major book distributors.

Now Available: Trauma Carnival by SaraEve Fermin

On By awhitetrashpoetIn News, Publications, Shameless Self Promotion

Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC is excited to announce the release of Trauma Carnival by SaraEve Fermin.

“Some write for the love of language, its music and images, its journey of discovery. Others write because there is that which must be stated, which must be extracted from the body and documented outside the author as a proof and a lesson. SaraEve Fermin’s third collection, Trauma Carnival, does both. Its relentless honesty is an ode to love and self-possession in a world that wishes to refuse both. For those who long for the answer to SaraEve’s question, “What is magic but to live without shame?” this is a must-have collection you will return to, over and over, for the deep relief of compassionate witness, for the grace of space made around the heart, for the addition of years to your life.”

-Cecily Schuler

This amazing collection, featuring cover art by Mark Sniadecki, is an complementary follow up to Fermin’s 2016 collection, You Must Be This Tall to Ride.

Order your copy of Trauma Carnival today from Amazon or other major book distributors.

 

Note: We encourage our audience to seek our publications through local bookstores or purchasing directly from the author, however, all of our publications are available through major distributors, such as Barnes and Nobel and Amazon.

Light as a Feather; an anthology of resilience is Now Available

On By awhitetrashpoetIn News, Shameless Self Promotion

Now Available from Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC

Light as a Feather:

an anthology of resilience

Available at Bookworks Albuquerque and all major book distributors.

Click here to order today from Amazon.

“This collection is a wrenchingly painful, honest, and ultimately beautiful depiction of what people with eating disorders struggle through. Part of the insidiousness of disordered eating is that it operates so definitively in secrecy. It is characterized by locked bathroom doors, midnight binges, furtively skipped meals, and deeply held shame. Shame thrives in darkness, and this book brings in light. It shines on all the pain that is so often hidden away, and in doing so is a message of resilience, healing, and hope.”

~Amanda Knoll, MA, LPC (Licensed Professional Counselor)

Light as a Feather, Second Edition takes the focus on eating disorders from the mere act of survival into the courageous world of resilience. The authors within, through wit, humor, and ruthless self-reflection, pull back the curtain on what is often misunderstood, even considered too taboo to discuss outside of hushed voices. Eating disorders have long been perceived as a one trick pony. The truth is far more nuanced, spreading across biological sex, gender identity, ethnic background, race, and creed. Light as a Feather feasts its truth before you like a banquet, with prose and poetry shining across the table, delicacies ready to be plucked. Each story is a peek into an individual universe unique in its own existence.

Yes, this book is about disorders, but each writer’s experience could not be more diverse. Yet all are threaded together somehow, with a gentle and raw humanity that will ring true even with the most hesitant of readers. However, do not make the mistake of believing this carefully crafted work will pull its punches. Light as a Feather, Second Edition is violent in its lack of apology. When a group of survivors gather to share their stories, they do so with shocking brutality. In fact, they wear their own flawed humanity so keenly, you cannot help feeling your own internal urgency to unburden the truth.

Let reading Light as a Feather make you brave, as brave as the contributors found within these pages.

New Release from Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC

On By awhitetrashpoetIn Authors, News, Publications, Shameless Self Promotion

Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC is excited to announce the release of Provocateur by Jessica Helen Lopez.

“Jessica Helen Lopez‘s poetry is viscerally vulnerable. With grace and poise she fearlessly dances with her demons returning triumphant and beautifully human.”

~Manuel González
City of Albuquerque Poet Laureate Emeritus (2016-2018)

This beautiful collection, featuring cover art by Ben Harrison, contains Lopez’s most popular pieces from 2014 to the present.

“Provocateur is the way the word ‘woman’ feels in the gut– heavy and visceral, the malleable form that is holy and so often taken for granted.  These words are a weapon or a blessing, a warrior or a priestess.  Lopez navigates the landscape of femininity without shying away from it’s most ferocious instincts.  It is the reclamation I want my daughter to read on the days she does not feel good enough.  Jessica Helen Lopez reminds us how to live without sin– one of the greatest lessons we have to offer.  How to find the grace in our everyday selves.  This book is church.” 

~SaraEve Fermin, Author of Trauma Carnival

Join Jessica Helen Lopez and selected guests for the release of the publication on March 23, 2019 from 5-7pm at the Factory On 5th Gallery (1715 5 St NW, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87102).

This is a free event.

Copies of the publication will be available for purchase and signing.

Order your copy of Provocateur today from Amazon or other major book distributors.

Light as a Feather: an anthology of resilience Now Available

On By awhitetrashpoetIn News, Publications, Shameless Self Promotion

Now Available from Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC

Light as a Feather: an anthology of resilience

This collection differs from our first edition of Light as a Feather in that it focuses solely and specifically on eating disorders. We have carried over some of the previous works as well as incorporated many new stories and poems reflecting issues of body dysmorphia, food addiction, and other ailments which fall into the category of eating disorders.

If you have suffered from an eating disorder or know someone who has a disorder, there may be solace in this collection.

Click here to order a copy from Amazon

or

Join us at Bookworks Albuquerque on March 3rd from 3-4 for our book release. 

Edited by Courtney Butler, this collections contains work from writers around North America, including Katrina K Guarascio, SaraEve Fermin, Bassam, Heather Grimes, Blythe Baird, Laura Burgess, Sadof Alexander, and many more!

“This collection is a wrenchingly painful, honest, and ultimately beautiful depiction of what people with eating disorders struggle through. Part of the insidiousness of disordered eating is that it operates so definitively in secrecy. It is characterized by locked bathroom doors, midnight binges, furtively skipped meals, and deeply held shame. Shame thrives in darkness, and this book brings in light. It shines on all the pain that is so often hidden away, and in doing so is a message of resilience, healing, and hope.”

~Amanda Knoll, MA, LPC 

New Release: La Diáspora de un Aztlán norteño: MiChicanidad Creativity as Witnessed in Bilingual Ethno-Poetry and Photography

On By awhitetrashpoetIn News, Publications, Shameless Self Promotion

Now Available from Swimming with Elephants Publications:

La Diáspora de un Aztlán norteño:

MiChicanidad Creativity as Witnessed in Bilingual Ethno-Poetry and Photography

Narrative by Dr. S.L. Rottschafer, Ph.D.
(The University of New Mexico and Aquinas College)
Photography by Mr. Daniel Combs

“La Diáspora de un Aztlán norteño” details the unique ‘MiChicanidad’ experience of life on the border in Michigan. This is another definition of Aztlán, as seen on a Northern Border, this time between Canada and Southwest Detroit’s predominantly Mexican American neighborhood. Growth of this Spanish speaking barrio began in the earlier part of the 20th Century due to the rise of migrant labor and employment at factories. Later, the area prospered as those immigrants began to choose to stay. Their addition to the interpretation of life on the border, as well as the community’s vibrant nature, is unparalleled especially as it is defined through creativity.

In addition to the scholarly research detailed above regarding La Diáspora de un Aztlán norteño, this project employs an interdisciplinary and collaborative approach. In Spring 2017, Dr. Rottschafer led an excursion to Detroit’s Southwest Mexicantown with some of her students.  This time Mexicantown was framed through the lens of her Latinx Literature course which also studied the diaspora of this area.  Specifically, Rottschafer introduced her students to the murals at the Eastern Market, TAP: The Alley Project, and Garage Cultural. Students then created bilingual ethno-poetry to reflect upon their experience of this intersectionality of Mexican and Mexican-American history and Visual Story through Art.

In Spring 2018, Dr. Rottschafer continued this study in her Chicanx Literature course. Referencing Levi Romero, New Mexico’s Centennial Poet and his text Sagrado: A Photopoetics Across the Chicano Homeland, students wrote poetry invoking a sense of place, a cultural fusion or clash, and their right to claim authenticity of belonging.

To culminate the project, Dr. Rottschafer returned to Detroit in June 2018 with her partner and photographer, Daniel Combs. His photographs of the Murals in the Market within the Eastern Market district, TAP: The Alley Project, and the Garage Cultural murals in Mexicantown create a Visual Story. The images accompany the scholarly research on the MiChicanidad experience, which in turn reflect the voice garnered in bilingual ethno-poetry of the MiChicana community.

Find this publication on Amazon or purchase directly from Dr. Rottschafer.

Soon to be discontinued….

On By awhitetrashpoetIn News, Publications, Shameless Self Promotion

Every year, Swimming with Elephants Publications reviews our bookshelves for books which will be discontinued in the new year.  This year, we will announce two books, with discontinuation dates of December 15, 2018.

If you would like to get your hands on either of these fantastic publications, order today or pick up a copy at the Swimming with Elephants Soiree.

**********************************************************
CuntBombCover

Cunt. Bomb.

A Chapbook by Jessica Helen Lopez
Available at Amazon for $10.95.
Available at Bookworks ABQ  $10.00

A little from the foreword:

These precious jewels of epiphany continue to guide me as I uncover for myself women, gender-identified women and allies who advocate for equality, who fight against the oppression and pillage against women and of course who dive whole-heartedly into the vastness and mysterious complexity of unbridled sexuality. Yes, I love the cunt. Yes, I have one. And yes, I will continue to use the word because it is not disparaging but rather has been wrangled into submission for hundreds of years; only to be used against women and girls as a tool for abuse and means of brutal capitulation. For those who recoil at the thought of the title of this humble chapbook, I invite you to sit and listen/read for a bit. The poems included are but a small journey stitched together to create my life as a mother, daughter, sister, poet, and woman of color. Woman. Cunt.

**********************************************

Light as a feather coverLight as a Feather

Available at Amazon for $12.95.

Hear what is being said about Light as a Feather:

“Light as a Feather transports readers into the bleak landscape experienced by so many of us who suffer from eating disorders and depression. We are swept into an exploration of bones clinking “like wind chimes,” “blubber like chain mail,” “nights so black,”and “making friends with bullets.” These poems are raw and revealing yet communicate hope through perseverance and love.”

Lucretia E. Penny Pence
Associate Professor of Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies

Today I ate“I ate today.” This simple statement, which opens the poem Falling, is the perfect embodiment of the simple necessity and stark power of the work contained in this collection. With themes centered on eating disorders and mental health issues, many may hesitate to pick up this collection, expecting either a morose and somber compendium of struggle, or perhaps thinking there is nothing here they can relate to. They would be wrong on both counts. Light as a Feather is a potent and surprisingly gentle assemblage of voice and experience threaded together with a delicacy that almost belies the harsh, at times almost violent, brutality of body image, external perspectives and self doubt that go hand in hand with the issues being discussed. The authors included herein have strewn themselves in vulnerable and fearless positions throughout these pages to speak truth, empathy and encouragement to anyone reading and frankly the result is an impressive, urgent and altogether timely message. Sometimes the simple act of feeding yourself makes you a lighthouse. There are shipwrecks within these pages, and for every one of them, there is a survivor hugging the coastline of their own body, holding a lifeline and refusing the sea’s invitation to determine their shape.

Zachary Kluckman
Author of Some of it is Muscle and Animals in Our Flesh

The writers in this collection range from poets who have published more than one book, to high school students just embarking on their writing careers, but they all write about these difficult subjects–depression, eating disorders–with passion and honesty. This book, which showcases human experience carefully crafted into poems, ends up being more uplifting than bleak, and reminds us that “everybody wears beauty exquisitely.” An important collection!

Lisa Chavez
Associate Professor at the University of New Mexico

SwEP Poet Bassam Released a New Book!

On By rosesonfridayhotmailcomIn Authors, Featured Writers, News, Publications, Shameless Self Promotion1 Comment

Bassam, Swimming with Elephants poet and author of Bliss in Die/Unbinging the Underglow, has released a new book with GenZ Publishing!

Check out their book with SwEP and their new work titled-

‘_nil:/per.OS – sepukku|smiles + songs for sarah’ 

released on June 15th!

We are so proud of our SwEP authors in all their accomplishments!

to scrub silverware- bassam

Hey Northwest! Mercedez Holtry is Bringing the Resistance Your Way!

On By rosesonfridayhotmailcomIn Authors, Featured Writers, News, Publications, Shameless Self Promotion

I Bloomed a Resistance From My Mouth is spoken word brilliance at its finest! Gut-wrenching, laugh out loud funny, and terribly human, Holtry will leave you chomping at the bit for her next book.

stretch marks mercedez holtry

You don’t want to miss out on Mercedez Holtry sharing her book I Bloomed… and other works. She has dates still coming up in the Northwest. See her schedule below or check out her Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/lapoetacedez/

Mercedez Holtry 2018 Tour Schedule

 

Featured SwEP Author: Mercedez Holtry

On By awhitetrashpoetIn Authors, Daily Share, Featured Writers, News, Shameless Self Promotion

Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC would like to reintroduce to you to Mercedez Holtry.

Mercedez Holtry’s first collection, My Blood is Beautiful, was published in October of 2015 after winning a performance competition for Southwest Shootout, a annual, regional poetry event sponsored by Poetry Slam International. Her second collection, I bloomed a Resistance from my Mouth,was published in early 2018 in anticipation for her 2018 tour.

Listen to Mercedez Holtry perform her poetry here:

 

“Mercedez Holtry’s poetry speaks to the origin stories of her Chican@ and Mestiz@ people. It is a mixed bag of mixed blood and the celebratory songs of family, culture and the history of the la tierra that she has blossomed from. Her poems are resistance and resilience. She is a fierce page poet warrior who also casts her spells from the stage, as a true bruja does. Oppressors beware. Holtry mixes up curses, prayers and incantations with her poetic brew. This is a poet who uses her mas palabras for healing and retribution. Her collection de poesia es muy firme, a true reckoning of what is to come from a generation of woke poets who have much to say and aren’t afraid to say it. “

-Jessica Helen Lopez,
ABQ Poet Laureate

Catch Mercedez Holtry on tour this spring or order one of her publications from Amazon!

 

Mercedez Holtry

Mercedez Holtry is a poet, writer, mentor, and Xicana feminist who focuses on bringing out her roots, experiences and lessons learned through her poetry in hopes they embrace her people and other artists around her.  She has represented ABQ on multiple final and semi final stages for national poetry events. She placed 3rd out of 72 for best woman poet for the year of 2015 and holds multiple Albuquerque Slam Championships. She is a National Poetry Slam Group Piece Champion (2016), the winner of Modesto’s “ILL List Slam” in California (2017), and was featured in Mexico City’s “Diverso” Poetry Festival embracing Mexican voices through poetry (2017). She has worked with youth in poetry workshops in multiple cities around the country including Aspen Words’ “Poetry in the Schools” project since 2015. Mercedez is not only a poet but an outreach coordinator for the youth in Albuquerque in which she organizes workshops and poetry events for the youth to participate in. Since graduating from the University of New Mexico with her bachelors in Chicano Studies and Journalism, she continues to host a monthly poetry reading for the UNM called “Lobo Slam.” She is passionate about spoken word and aspires to continually learn all she can about her art through working, slamming, and organizing for her community.

Featured SwEP author: Kevin Barger

On By awhitetrashpoetIn Authors, Daily Share, News, Shameless Self Promotion

Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC would like to reintroduce to you to Kevin Barger.

Kevin Barger has been a SwEP author since 2015 when his collection, Observable Acts, was published.

Observable Acts had the distinction of ranking up into the top 10 selling poetry collections in its category the week it was release.

“Observable Acts” is an amazing collection of poetry! It moved me and touched my soul. At every page, the ink all but leaped off the page as I learned of the author’s life and points of view. Each poem is artfully crafted and elicits an emotional response in the reader. Read and learn, dear people. Tell your friends and tell your families. Teach this book in your high schools and universities. Kevin Barger’s first foray into the published word is a great success, and I’m hoping to see more.

Review by Brady Reece
via Amazon Customer Reviews

Order Kevin’s book Observable from Amazon or Barnes and Noble today!

 

Kevin Barger

Kevin BKevin Barger is a performance poet, writer, and retired slam organizer based in Asheville, NC. He was instrumental in bringing slam poetry back to popularity in Asheville after its rise, fall, and subsequent misfirings in the area by helping to lay the groundwork for Poetry Slam Asheville from 2008 through 2011. He has also appeared on many other stages in and around the Carolinas including the Lake Eden Arts Festival, Lexington Avenue Arts and Fun Festival, the Individual World Poetry Slam, and Southern Fried in which he was on the first team from Asheville sent to Southern Fried in nearly a decade. Now, semi-retired from the slam scene but itching to get back on stage again, he has compiled old favorites and new material in Observable Acts; his first endeavor onto the published page.

Featured SwEP author: Courtney Butler

On By awhitetrashpoetIn Authors, Daily Share, Featured Writers, News, Publications, Shameless Self Promotion

Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC would like to reintroduce to you to Courtney A. Butler.

Courtney Butler’s collection, Wild Horses, was published in late 2017 after winning third place in a SwEP’s 2017 chapbook competition.

“Courtney A. Butler has written a book that manages to be strong and fierce while remaining innocent and full of wonder. Balancing the line between jaded adult and hopeful youth while painting the clearest picture of why the writing evokes that same sentiment- this is a fun, emotionally fulfilling collection that I will enjoy the 37th time as much as the 1st. I’ll be pre-ordering her next book, as there will surely be many more.”

-Review by Wil Gibson,
Author of Quitting Smoking, Falling In and Out of Love, and Other Thoughts About Death

Order Courtney A Butler’s Wild Horses from Amazon or Barnes and Noble today!

 

Courtney A Butler

Courtney Alyssa Butler grew up in south Texas, which accounts for her very decisive twang when she’s been drinking just a little too much, or supremely pissed off. Her family moved to New Mexico, where she developed a strong affinity for performance poetry and theater. She attended St. Andrew’s University in North Carolina, mostly because it had ponies and green grass to play in, but ended up with a double major in English and Creative Writing nonetheless. To continue her sordid love affair with the written word, she earned her master’s in Creative and Media Writing from the University of Swansea in Wales. She moved to Chicago, Illinois and worked as an English instructor and tutor, and earned her cosmetology license, before moving back to New Mexico in 2013. Now, she works in the non-profit sector by day, while doing hair, special effects makeup, and writing at night…like Batman but with more flair. You can find her first book of poetry Season for Season at St. Andrew’s University Press, Laurinburg, NC.

If you’re interested in poetry-in-progress, or the rambles of a mad woman, you can also check out her blogs:

TheCourtRose at thecourtrose.blogspot.com

and

Un Bel Mondo at thecourtrose-abeautifulworld.blogspot.com

Featured SwEP Author: Gigi Bella

On By awhitetrashpoetIn Authors, Daily Share, Featured Writers, News, Shameless Self Promotion

Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC would like to reintroduce to you to Gigi Bella.

Gigi Bella’s collection, 22, was published from Swimming with Elephants Publications in January 2017 in preparation for her move to New York City.

Listen to Gigi perform a poem from her collection here:

Pick up Gigi Bella’s collection, 22, 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.

Gigi Bella

GiGi Guajardo//{gigi bella} is an award-winning poet, musical theatre actress, and educator of the arts. She recently earned the title of Albuquerque’s Woman of the World 2017 representative. She was named a group piece champion at the 2016 National Poetry Slam and a National Semi-Finalist at the 2013 National Poetry Slam as a member of the Albuquerque Slam Team. She is a student at the University of New Mexico pursuing a bachelor’s degree in American Studies with a Theatre minor. She loves marshmallows, sparkling purple lipstick, and Wes Anderson movies. She continues to be a hopeless romantic.

 

Featured SwEP Author: Kat Heatherington

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Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC would like to reintroduce to you to Kat Heatherington.

Kat Heatherington’s collection, the bones of this land, was published in 2017 after winning first place in a SwEP’s 2017 chapbook competition.

“The Bones of this Land is an exquisite collection of poetry and craft at its apex. Heatherington is an expert at subtle but powerful verse. Her words read like a whisper but resonate like a bomb. Here is a book that will leave you satiated, but curiously enough, hungry for more. ”

~Jessica Helen Lopez,
author of Always Messing With Them Boys and a recipient of the Zia Book Award

Pick up Kat Heatherington’s the bones of this land from Bookworks ABQ

or order from Amazon or Barnes and Noble today!

 

Kat Heatherington

Kat Heatherington is a queer ecofeminist poet, sometime artist, pagan, and organic gardener.    She has been living in Albuquerque since 1998, when she moved here to earn a Master’s in English at UNM.

In 2007 she collaborated with a group of three other unrelated adults to buy land in the Rio Grande Valley and form Sunflower River intentional community, sunflowerriver.org.  Ten years and many life lessons later, Sunflower River is still going strong, and still providing plenty of material to write poems about.

Kat’s work primarily addresses the interstices of human relationships and the natural world.  She has several self-published chapbooks, available from the author at yarrow@sunflowerriver.org.  Her work can be read at https://sometimesaparticle.org.

Featured SwEP Author: Jessica Helen Lopez

On By awhitetrashpoetIn Authors, Daily Share, Featured Writers, News, Shameless Self Promotion

Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC would like to reintroduce to you to Jessica Helen Lopez.

Jessica Helen Lopez’s chapbook, cunt.bomb., was the first book published by Swimming with Elephants Publications in December of 2013. Her follow up collection, The Language of Bleeding, was published with SwEP in preparation for her travels to Nicaragua.

Listen to Jessica Helen Lopez perform at Ted X ABQ:

Jessica Helen Lopez’s chapbook, cunt.bomb. and The Language of Bleeding, 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.

 

 

Jessica Helen Lopez

JessicaRecently named one of 30 Poets in their 30’s to watch by MUZZLE magazine, Jessica Helen Lopez is a nationally recognized award-winning slam poet, and holds the title of 2012 and 2014 Women of the World (WOW) City of ABQ Champion.

She’s also a member of the Macondo Foundation. Founded by Sandra Cisneros, it is an association of socially engaged writers united to advance creativity, foster generosity, and honor community.

Her first collection of poetry, Always Messing With Them Boys (West End Press, 2011) made the Southwest Book of the Year reading list and was also awarded the Zia Book Award presented by NM Women Press.

She is the founder of La Palabra – The Word is a Woman collective created for and by women and gender-identified women. Lopez is a Ted Talk speaker alum.

You may find some of Lopez’s work at these sites –LaPalabra.abqnorthwest.com, thebakerypoetry.com, and asusjournal.org.

Her work has been anthologized in A Bigger Boat: The Unlikely Success of the Albuquerque Slam Scene (UNM Press), Earth Ships: A New Mecca Poetry Collection (NM Book Award Finalist), Tandem Lit Slam (San Francisco), Adobe Walls, Malpais Review, SLAB Literary Magazine and the upcoming Courage Anthology: Daring Poems for Gutsy Girls (Write Bloody Press).

Featured SwEP Author: Wil Gibson

On By awhitetrashpoetIn Authors, Featured Writers, Local Events, News, Shameless Self Promotion

Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC would like to reintroduce to you to Wil Gibson.

Wil Gibson’s full length poetry collection, Quitting smoking, falling in and out of love, and other thoughts about death, was published by Swimming with Elephants Publications in April 2016.

Listen to Wil Gibson perform his poetry here:

Wil Gibson’s full length poetry collection, Quitting smoking, falling in and out of love, and other thoughts about death, 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.

 

Wil Gibson

WilWil Gibson was born from a good idea and a bottle of bourbon and raised in some of the poorest communities in northern Illinois and eastern Arkansas. He has had work appear with Midwestern Gothic, Radius, Yellow Chair Review, Drunk in a Midnight Choir, and Electric Cereal (among others), was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net 2015. He would like to talk to you for hours on end about lighthouses and random other things. (also, in the interest of full disclosure, he has already started smoking again) He currently lives in California, but the locals call it Jefferson.

Featured SwEP Author: Jack Hirschman

On By awhitetrashpoetIn Authors, Featured Writers, News, Shameless Self Promotion

Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC would like to reintroduce to you to Jack Hirschman.

Jack Hirschman is an emeritus poet laureate of San Francisco, a member of the Revolutionary Poets Brigade, and the League of Revolutionaries for a New America. Both his publications with Swimming with Elephants Publications honor the work and words of revolutionaries from around the world.

His first collection with SwEP, entitled Passion, Provocation and Prophecy,  serves as an ode to Pier Paolo Pasolini. It contains an interview between Jack Hirschman and Justin Desmangles discussing the work of Pasolini and the influence his work has had over time. The interview is followed by two arcanes written by Hirschman which reflect on the man Pasolini was.

 

Jack Hirschman’s newest release from Swimming with Elephants Publications is a translation of the poetry from Jusef Gërvalla, known as a journalist and a musician as well as a poet, novelist, and founder of the Marxist-Leninist group, the National Movement for the Liberation of Kosovo. In collection, entitled BEKIMI I NËNËS / A Mother’s Blessing, Jack Hirschman and Idlir Azizaj present a the first translation of Jusef Gërvalla’s poetry in the English Language.

Find Jack Hirschman’s newest translation, BEKIMI I NËNËS / A Mother’s Blessing

from Bookworks ABQ or order from Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

 

 

Jack Hirschman

Jack HirshmanJack Hirschman (b. NYC, 1933) is the emeritus 4th Poet Laureate of the City of San Francisco (2006-2009). He has published or edited more than 100 books of poetry and essays, including translations from ten languages: Mayakovski (Russian), Neruda (Spanish), Artaud (French), Lombardo (Italian), Celan (German), Laraque (Haitian), Gjakova (Albanian), Gogou (Greek), Glik (Yiddish) and Nwadike (Swedish), among many others.

His own major work is The Arcanes, (2006) published by Multimedia Edizioni of Salerno, Italy in the American language in which the two Arcanes in this book appear. It is a 1,000 page book of his longer poems, which he calls Arcanes, and a 2nd massive volume of more than 150 new Arcanes are scheduled to be published by the same publisher in 2015.

He is a founding member of the Revolutionary Poets Brigade of San Francisco, and the World Poetry Movement in Medellin, Colombia.

Featured SwEP Author: Kai Coggin

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Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC would like to reintroduce to you to Kai Coggin.

Kai Coggin’s collection, Periscope Heart, was published in late 2014 after winning first place in a SwEP’s 2014 chapbook competition.

“Kai Coggin’s first full-length collection, Periscope Heart – as the title may suggest – overflows with intimate reflections on life and love that offer the reader heartfelt observations into places ordinarily beyond our range of vision. Through sensual chronicles that beautifully illuminate taboo subjects, Coggin’s poetry draws from nature and personal narratives to intimate us with her passion for justice, social change and spirituality, in dynamic, seductive strokes.”

– Catherine Ghosh

Editor of Journey of the Heart: An Anthology of Spiritual Poetry by Women

 

Listen to her read here:

Order Kai Coggin’s Periscope Heart directly from her per her website: kaicoggin.com

or from Amazon or Barnes and Noble today!

 

Kai Coggin

Kai Coggin is a poet and the author of PERISCOPE HEART, her stunning debut collection released by Swimming with Elephants Publications, (2014). Her second full-length collection is entitled Wingspan, a deeper dive into the soul and sound of this woman, this activist, this lover, this spirit. Wingspan was released on Earth Day, April 22, 2016, by Golden Dragonfly Press. 2017 brings the poet off the page into sound with the much anticipated release of her debut spoken world album SILHOUETTE.

Kai was born Kimberly Katherine Coggin on New Year’s Day 1980 in Bangkok, Thailand. She was raised in Southwest Houston (Alief), and is currently a happy blip in the 3-million-acre Ouachita National Forest in Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas.

Before transitioning to a career in writing, Kai was first a 9th and 10th grade English teacher, who took her students outside for poetry and drum circles on the lawn, and built a life-size balcony, and meter-stick-aluminum-foil-wrapped swords in her classroom for Romeo and Juliet. People wondered about her methods… but the students learned… and loved her. She convinced her students of the power of their own writing with a poetry and persuasive writing project that culminated with a visit from the internationally acclaimed author of The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros.

Kai believes that learning is a personal journey for everyone, that cannot be constricted and confined by the classifications and labels of standardized testing. She strives to, someday, help change the paradigm of education as a whole. In Houston, despite (or because of) her radical methods, she was recognized as Teacher of the Year, District Secondary Teacher of the Year, and competed for Regional Teacher of the Year against 5, out of 85,000 teachers.

Presently, with her focus shifted more towards poetry, Kai is a specialized Teaching Artist of Creative Writing, on the Arts in Education Roster for the Arkansas Arts Council and Arkansas Learning for the Arts. She also teaches a community adult creative writing class at Emergent Arts called Words & Wine.

Kai holds a Bachelor of Arts in Poetry and Creative Writing from Texas A&M University, and an honorary degree from the school of Hard Knocks. She writes poems of love, spirituality, the striving of the soul, feminism, race, sexuality, global injustice, metaphysics, and beauty. Everything that she writes is infused with Heart and Light.

Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Blue Heron Review, Lavender Review, Broad!, The Tattooed Buddha, Split This Rock, Yellow Chair Review, Drunk Monkeys, Snapdragon, ANIMA, Elephant Journal, and many other literary journals and anthologies. Her poetry has recently been nominated twice for The Pushcart Prize, as well as Bettering American Poetry 2015, and Best of the Net 2016.

Kai knows that words hold the potential to create monumental and global change, and she uses her words like a sword of Beauty. She can be found most Wednesdays at a local venue, reading her poems into an open mic, hoping the wind carries her words out to the world.

⌘

MJR Montoya Will Be at Bookworks for Poetry Month on Saturday, April 21st!

On By rosesonfridayhotmailcomIn Authors, Featured Writers, News, Shameless Self Promotion

The Promethean Clock or Love Poems of a Wooden Boy is a poetry book that took third place in the SwEP chapbook competition in 2017 and is simply a stellar piece of work!

MJR Montoya will be performing at Bookworks in Albuquerque, New Mexico on Saturday, April 21st for Poetry Month!

It’s your chance to buy a copy in person and talk to the poet!

Join us from 3-5pm.

binary star- mjr montoya

MJR Montoya Will Be Performing at Bookworks!

On By rosesonfridayhotmailcomIn Authors, Featured Writers, News, Shameless Self Promotion1 Comment

The Promethean Clock or Love Poems of a Wooden Boy is a poetry book that took third place in the SwEP chapbook competition in 2017 and is simply a stellar piece of work! MJR Montoya will be performing at Bookworks on Saturday, April 21st for Poetry Month! It’s your chance to buy a copy in person and talk to the poet! Join us from 3-5pm.

binary star- mjr montoya

Featured SwEP Author: Matthew Brown

On By awhitetrashpoetIn Authors, Daily Share, Featured Writers, News, Shameless Self Promotion

Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC would like to reintroduce to you to Matthew Brown.

Matthew Brown’s collection, Verbrennen, was published from Swimming with Elephants Publications in January 2014 marking it one of the earliest publications by SwEP.

Listen to Matthew Brown perform a poem from his collection here:

Pick up Matthew Brown’s collection, Verbrennen, 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.

 

MattMatthew Brown

Matthew Brown is a young poet born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Though relatively new to slam poetry, he has preformed alongside some of Albuquerque’s most seasoned poets, and represented New Mexico two years in a row as a member Unidos Poetry Collective at Brave New Voices. Matthew Brown’s poems expose social, racial, and economic inequalities from both a Hispanic and African American perspective.

SwEP Featured Author: MJR Montoya

On By awhitetrashpoetIn Authors, Featured Writers, News, Shameless Self Promotion

Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC would like to reintroduce to you to MJR Montoya.

MJR Montoya’s collection, The Promethean Clock or Love Poems of a Wooden Boy, was published in late 2017 by Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC after winning 2nd place in our 2017 chapbook competition.

“These poems are a way of telling you what I saw, at least the remnants of those things. My poems have codes in them. They have forms that have long since lost favor. They have rhyme schemes and syllabic structures of old and new places. They have formlessness that abides by current trends, but embraces none of them wholesale. They are, as Milton once wrote, poems that attempt to champion the unnamable and the indeterminable. Mine are the equations of empty sets and irrational numbers as much as they are of ritual and nostalgia. I have decided not to appease all critique. I am at rest, because the people I trust most have said that there is something in them, something of where I am from, what became of my home, and what is becoming in the world. And for the first time in a long time I’m not ashamed of my part in this story. With all that I am, let these poems be a part of my apology to the world and to my beloveds, an apology for each moment as it passes to the next…” 

 

Pick up  MJR Montoya’s collection, The Promethean Clock or Love Poems of a Wooden Boy, from Amazon  or Barnes and Noble today!


Manuel (MJR) Montoya

Manuel (MJR) Montoya, was born and raised in Mora, New Mexico.  He is a professor at the University of New Mexico.  He blends studies of philosophy and literature with studies of international relations, economics and management to understand the evolution of the global political economy.  He received his undergraduate degree at UNM, with graduate schooling from New York University, Oxford University, and Emory University.  He is engaged in community work to support the creative economy, he is dedicated to work that eliminates child exploitation worldwide, and he is passionate about handmade craft – he has been an amateur watchmaker for 12 years.  He has published poetry and short stories in various national publications.

 

 

Featured SwEP Author: Paulie Lipman

On By awhitetrashpoetIn Authors, Featured Writers, News, Shameless Self Promotion

Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC would like to reintroduce to you to Paulie Lipman.

Paulie Lipman’s chapbook, from below/denied the light, is fresh of the presses being published in January of 2018. Lipman’s chapbook was the first collaboration between Sugar Booking Entertainment and Swimming with Elephants Publications.

Listen to Paulie read from his collections here:

Pick up Paulie Lipman’s chapbook, from below/denied the light from Bookworks ABQ

or order from Amazon or Barnes and Noble today!

Keep your eyes open for Paulie Lipman coming to a town near you!

 

Paulie Lipman

Paulie Lipman is a former bartender/bouncer/record store employee/Renaissance Fair worker/two time National Poetry Slam finalist and a current loud Jewish/Queer/ poet/writer/performer. His work has appeared in the anthology ‘We Will Be Shelter’ (Write Bloody Publishing) as well as The Emerson Review, Drunk in a Midnight Choir, Voicemail Poems, pressure gauge, and Prisma (Zeitblatt Fur Text & Sprache).

 

Featured SwEP Author: Lori DeSanti

On By awhitetrashpoetIn Authors, Featured Writers, News, Shameless Self Promotion

Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC would like to reintroduce to you to Lori DeSanti.

Lori DeSanti’s chapbook collection, Saltwater Under Brittle Sky, was published in the fall of 2015 by Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC.

Saltwater

Lori DeSanti’s Saltwater Under Brittle Sky is a lot like taking a walk through a  sun shower on your own island, like waiting for the clouds to break and dry any wet that remains on your cheek—from dew to tears.  This collection of poems is compact but beautiful, unpretentious in their succinct on page presentation.  Each of the nineteen pages is no more than two pages long, and the collection is small enough to tuck into a back or inside coat pocket, a collection asking to be read in the open air, under trees and next to running streams.

 

Pick up Lori DeSanti’s Saltwater Under Brittle Sky from Amazon  today!

 

 

Lori DeSanti

Lori DeSanti graduated with her MFA Degree in Poetry from Southern Connecticut State University in 2014. She’s the recipient of the 2014 William Kloefkorn Award.

Her work has been anthologized in Wising Up Press’ 2015 Anthology, “Siblings: Our First Macrocosm”, and the 2014 Writer’s Digest “Poem Your Heart Out Anthology”.

She is the feature poet at Erbacce Press for October 2015.   Her work has appeared in Spry Literary Journal, Mouse Tales Press, Adanna, Drunk Monkeys, East Coast Literary Review, Winter Tangerine Review, Ekphrasis and elsewhere.

Website: loridesantipoetry.wordpress.com

Now Available: BEKIMI I NËNËS / A Mother’s Blessing

On By awhitetrashpoetIn News, Shameless Self Promotion

In the battle and stand of this people sacrificing and dying to realize its aspiration, we seem like immortals more beautiful and gallant than anyone alive. And there is no power that can stop us on our luminous road.

~Jusuf Gërvalla

Swimming with Elephants Publications is honored to introduce you to our most recent release: Bekimi I Nënës, A Mother’s Blessing, poetry by Jusef Gërvalla, translated by Jack Hirschman and Idlir Azizaj. This is the first time this collection, originally published by the Naim Frashëri Publishing House, in Tirana, Albania in 1983, is translated in the English Language.

Gërvalla was known as a journalist and a musician as well as a poet, novelist, and founder of the Marxist-Leninist group, the National Movement for the Liberation of Kosovo. In 1983, a year after the original publication in his native Kosovo Albanian, Jusuf Gërvalla, his brother Bardhosh, and comrade Kadri Zeka were allegedly murdered by the Serbian secret service in their exile in Germany.

With the publication of Bekimi I Nënës, A Mother’s Blessing, Jusuf Gërvalla’s poetry, including selections from his three books: They Fly and Fall, Green Stork, and Sacred Marks, can be shared by the English-speaking population.

Bekimi I Nënës, A Mother’s Blessing will soon be available at City Lights Bookstore and The Beat Museum Bookstore in San Francisco, along with Bookwork ABQ, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble.

You can also find Hirschman’s first publication with Swimming with Elephants Publications, Passion, Provocation & Prophecy at Bookworks ABQ, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble.

 

Jack Hirschman

Biography Adapted from The Poetry Foundation 

Hailed as “one of the left’s most prolific and consistent poetic voices,” by Contemporary Poets, Jack Hirschman was born in 1933 in New York City and grew up in the Bronx.

He is known for his radical engagement with both poetry and politics: he is a member of the Union of Street Poets, a group that distributes leaflets of poems to people on the streets. He has also been instrumental in the formation of the Union of Left Writers of San Francisco.

The former poet laureate of San Francisco, Hirschman’s style has been compared to poets ranging from Walt Whitman, Hart Crane, Dylan Thomas, and Beat poets such as Allen Ginsberg. His poems’ commitment to leftist politics draws comparisons to Vachel Lindsay and Pablo Neruda.

In keeping with his political values, Hirschman’s books are published with small, independent presses, often in small runs (such as Swimming with Elephants Publications). According to the poet David Meltzer, Hirschman is “a great teacher who refuses to work in the university, a scholar of great merit who refuses to publish in the mainstream presses; most everything is published by himself, 150 copies.”

Though Hirschman has rejected mainstream success, he has published prolifically. His 50-plus volumes of poetry include A Correspondence of Americans (1960), Lyripol (1976), Front Lines: Selected Poems (2002), and All That’s Left (2008). His 1,000-page masterpiece, The Arcanes, was published in 2006. The work, written over decades, was heralded by Alan Kaufman in the San Francisco Gate as “unlikely and historically significant a literary production as, say, the appearance of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass or James Joyce’s Ulysses… like Whitman’s and Joyce’s masterpieces, it traces the progress of an individual consciousness through landscapes teeming with the horrible glory of modern life.”

But while he is known throughout San Francisco, his real literary fame has blossomed in Europe, where he frequently publishes both his original work and volumes of translation. Meltzer noted that in France “they consider him a major Communist poet.” Part of Hirschman’s dedication to politics and poetry can be traced to his numerous translations of radical poets from around the world.

Hirschman continues translating the work of radical poets with the publication of Bekimi I Nënës, A Mother’s Blessing.

Featured SwEP Author: Kristian Ashley Macaron

On By awhitetrashpoetIn Authors, Featured Writers, Local Events, News, Shameless Self Promotion

Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC would like to reintroduce to you to Kristian Ashley Macaron.

Kristian Ashley Macaron’s chapbook, Storm, was published by Swimming with Elephants Publications in June 2015.

 

Kristian Macaron’s first chapbook of poetry features her various experiences in New England during the midst of some of the most powerful storms to pass through in the last several years. Her poetry is raw, honest, and revealing. This is a wonderful for collection for anyone who has experience the confusing effects of natural disaster as well as those who may have never had such an experience.

Kristian Ashley Macaron’s chapbook, Storm, 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.

Kristian Ashley Macaron

KristianOriginally from Albuquerque, NM where she attended the University of New Mexico, Kristian received her MFA from Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts and thus melded her love for the colorful Southwest with the stunning New England coast.

Kristian’s first poetry chapbook, Storm (amazon), was released in July 2015 from Swimming With Elephants Publications in Albuquerque, NM. Her other publications of fiction and poetry are published in The Winter Tangerine Review, Philadelphia Stories, Duke City Fix: The Sunday Poem, Lightning Cake Journal, The Bellows American Review (The [BAR]), Ginosko Literary Journal, Elbow Room New Mexico, Watermelon Isotope, and Medusa’s Laugh Press.

She has taught scriptwriting at the Emerson College Pre-College Creative Writers’ Workshop and currently teaches English at the University of New Mexico-Valencia Branch. View Kristian’s work at Kristianmacaron.com

Featured SwEP Author: Beau Williams

On By awhitetrashpoetIn Authors, Featured Writers, News, Shameless Self Promotion1 Comment

Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC would like to reintroduce to you to Beau Williams.

Beau Williams’ full length poetry collection, Nail Gun and a Love Letter, is fresh of the presses being published in January of 2018. Williams’ chapbook is the result of a collaboration between Sugar Booking Entertainment and Swimming with Elephants Publications.

Listen to Beau Williams here:

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 coming to a town near you!

 

Beau Williams

Beau Williams is a fairly optimistic poet based out of Portland Maine. He co-runs a weekly poetry class at Sweetser Academy and facilitates workshops at high schools and colleges around the New England area. His work has been published in numerous poetry websites and journals.

Beau has performed internationally and nationally both as a solo artist and with the performance poetry collectives Uncomfortable Laughter and GUYSLIKEYOU. He was the Grand Slam Champion at Port Veritas in 2014 and was the Artist in Residence at Burren College in Ballyvaughan, Ireland in January of 2017. Beau’s book, Rumham, is available for purchase on Amazon.com.