C.R. Avery's audaciously charismatic second book, 38 Bar Blues, is a tome of poetry loaded with bar stool musicality and brass knuckle poetry. Welcome to a clear glimpse into a motel 50 miles outside of town, a window into the life of a modern troubadour and the courage of a young father trying to keep the highway of diamonds shining while singing the song of innocence. C.R. Avery's writing flows like a Tennessee Williams stage play, from haiku-size poems to longer erotic tales that sink the reader deeper into backstage smoke of Avery’s worlds. 38 Bar Blues is like a Bob Dylan setlist; a play constructed like a Charlie Chaplain silent film; a book built to make the reader laugh and cry. It all comes out as true music. 38 Bar Blues is the perfectly crafted journal of a living legend. Enter the back-room of an old Italian cafe, where dirty dirty politics, outlaw love, and outrageous beauty are all in the cards.

C.R. Avery's audaciously charismatic second book, 38 Bar Blues, is a tome of poetry loaded with bar stool musicality and brass knuckle poetry. Welcome to a clear glimpse into a motel 50 miles outside of town, a window into the life of a modern troubadour and the courage of a young father trying to keep the highway of diamonds shining while singing the song of innocence. C.R. Avery's writing flows like a Tennessee Williams stage play, from haiku-size poems to longer erotic tales that sink the reader deeper into backstage smoke of Averys worlds. 38 Bar Blues is like a Bob Dylan setlist; a play constructed like a Charlie Chaplain silent film; a book built to make the reader laugh and cry. It all comes out as true music. 38 Bar Blues is the perfectly crafted journal of a living legend. Enter the back-room of an old Italian cafe, where dirty dirty politics, outlaw love, and outrageous beauty are all in the cards.

Over The Anvil We Stretch contains swampy, powerful poems that are as exciting as the pocket knife you got for your birthday, the three legged frog on the lawn and the jar of marbles your mother kept in the kitchen. Mojgani's poems are the sound of the river and the stars burning above. He manages to capture the axe in the stump with blood still on the handle. Anis Mojgani has drawn a map of the country in the shape of his wild surreal poems. These are memories of a life, captured through the blue green filter of the bayou. Mojgani's latest poems are tinged with the sound of crickets spying on us in the darkness. They move forward honestly, brutally and sweetly. The reader will be led into briar patches as well as the moonlight just on the other side. Anvil is a book of poetic truth, packed with humor and insight. It is a juggling act of the epic and the intimate. I read it and it echoes. Shut up so I can hear more. -David Gordon Green, filmmaker, All the Real Girls and The Pineapple Express Anis Mojgani, Andrea Gibson, and other young poets of their talent are the future of American poetry and frankly, that fills me with joy! --Thomas Lux, Guggenheim Fellow & recipient of the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award for his book Split Horizons He’s probably the best poetry slammer alive. The intellect, optimism and humility with which he speaks feel like proof of the relevance of “spoken word” as a genre. He processes the world in slices of beauty, frustration and sympathy... -Willamette Week Newspaper

“Tender, jarring and deeply human, Live For A Living is a book of poetry that is pulsing with the same electricity and honesty found in Buddy’s live performances.” - Andrea Gibson; International Poet-Activist

After losing her sister to heart failure, Karen Finneyfrock was unable to write poems for three years. Her voice came back, whispering at first, then screaming. Ceremony for the Choking Ghost contains the sound of that voice returning, bringing poems about grief and its effect on the body, the body politic, memory and, of course, poems about love. From the intensely personal, “How My Family Grieved,” to the political, “What Lot’s Wife Would Have Said (If She Wasn’t a Pillar of Salt),” Finneyfrock engages the reader with the chiseled images of a precise storyteller. Finneyfrock writes poetry with muscular verve and narrative push. The depth and breadth suggested in just a few polished images placed next to each other will make you reconsider what poetry can do. -Paul Constant, editor The Stranger If you've never enjoyed poetry once in your whole life-if even the word "poetry" makes you want to fall asleep, or die-you should read Karen Finneyfrock's new book of poetry, Ceremony for the Choking Ghost. -Paul Constant, editor The Stranger ...Finneyfrock's poems, then, are Shields's perfect novels: a shelf full of long, elaborate, heartfelt books that have been whittled down to their bare, sharp skeletons. -Paul Constant, editor “The Stranger”

The poems in Help in the Dark Season expose lessons of adult and childhood trauma, relationship joys and failures, and the all-around hard work of true togetherness. Help in the Dark Season explores the pathway of human love as it begins in the dark, moves into parental hands, transfers into to experiments of the heart, grows, breaks, and ultimately transforms us more than any other experience we withstand. Each poem walks us into Jacqueline Suskin’s world, where dreams and sacred visions are just as important as reality, where planet earth is an active character and spouse, and every attempt at love adds up as wisdom worth remembering. There are so many ways for us to access love; these poems map this personal process, uncovering the helpful tools and healing realizations that Suskin has gathered while conjuring up and relentlessly believing in love. Even when it hurts us the most and causes the worst confusion, even when it’s laughable and foolish, these poems aim to provide proof that human connection is crucial and always worth the risk.

Hello teachers! We know you work hard. Besides ninjas, you have the hardest job in the world. Between the teaching, the testing, the grading, and the nurturing it’s difficult to seek out new materials for your classroom. We are here to help. As poets and teachers, we know the power of the spoken word in the classroom. All you have to do is attend a youth slam or find a clip of one online and you will see the positive impact modern poetry has on our young people. It is able to engage students from any background in a way that classical poetry simply cannot touch. A complaint we’ve heard from many teachers is that they would love to use spoken word in their classrooms but they are afraid of getting in trouble with rough language and themes. So behold! We asked some of the best contemporary spoken word and slam poets to give us poems that would be appropriate for the classroom. This means you will not have to sift through this book with a highlighter to try and find the F’s and the S’s and the B’s and the Z’s. We’ve provided poems from national slam champs, world slam champs, fellow teachers, and poets we feel are the best of what’s around. We’ve also included some amazing lessons in its companion book for the teacher, sold separately.