Review by Kristen D. Scott of The Eater of the Absurd by John Burroughs

NightBallet Press is giving thanks for poets and poetry, for artists and art, for musicians and music this chilly Black Friday.  Kicking off the day is this awesome review of The Eater of the Absurd by John Burroughs.  Thank you, Kristen D. Scott/Knot Magazine!

                                LINK TO THE REVIEW AT KNOT MAGAZINE HERE



John Burroughs is a northeast Ohio poet (Oct Tongue-1, It Takes More Than Chance to Make Change, Barry Merry Baloney, and many others) and host of the monthly Mondays at Mahall's poetry series. Burroughs won the first poetry slam he ever competed in, formed the association known as Poets of Lorain County, has contributed irregularly to the Cleveland Poetics and Ohio Poetry Association blogs, and is perhaps most proud of his work (since 2008) as the founding editor of Crisis Chronicles Press.


The Eater of the Absurd is his first full-length poetry collection, and makes a striking statement of (in Burroughs' own words) "pleasure, pain, and deprogramming."


Kristen D. Scott is a Pushcart Prize nominee for five works from Opiate (Garden Oak Press, 2014).  An award-winning essayist for her work on Federico Garcia Lorca, she has had work translated into Arabic, Turkish, and Sanskrit.  Scott is currently the editor-in-chief and web designer of Knot Magazine.  She holds an MFA in Creative Writing, an MA in English Literature, and is progressing with her PhD in Global Education. 

Pushcart Prize and Ohioana Book Award Nominations, 2014

It's that time of year again, when NightBallet Press must choose from all the excellent manuscripts published in this past year to make nominations for the Pushcart Prize.

As always, it's extremely difficult to narrow the selections to only six nominations.  NBP believes that every single one of its poets deserves the Prize, and if possible, we would heap awards and accolades on each one of you and your amazing and exciting poetry collections.

However, rules are rules, and with much soul-searching (and hair-tearing), these are NBP's six nominations for the 2015 Pushcart Prize:

Jennifer Hambrick—“Painting Lizards Orange” from Lipsmack! A Sampler Platter of Poets from NBP Year 3


Tsaurah Litzky—“Chicken Livers” from Jerry in the Bardo

Heather McNaugher—“The Outsiders” from Lipsmack! A Sampler Platter of Poets from NBP Year 3

Joey Nicoletti—“ To Diane di Prima” from Shadow Traffic

Amanda Oaks—“How to Pick Up the Pieces” from Hurricane Mouth

George Wallace—“Riding with Boom Boom” from Riding with Boom Boom


Please join with NBP in congratulating these wonderful poets, and wish them luck in the Pushcart Prize judging process!

This year, in addition to nominations for the Pushcart Prize, NBP has made nominations for the Ohioana Book Award, as well.

The following books have been sent to the Ohioana Library* in Columbus, Ohio, and have been nominated by NBP for the Ohioana Book Award:


In Brilliant Explosions Alone by Steve Brightman

The Eater of the Absurd by John Burroughs

As the Caffeine Kicks In by Christopher Franke

Blossoms by Alex Gildzen

Unscathed by Jennifer Hambrick

Unfinished by Jack McGuane

The Green World by Andy Roberts

Mosaic by Margie Shaheed

Selected Regions of the Moon by J. E. Stanley
and

Songs in the Key of Cleveland, published by Crisis Chronicles Press

Please join with NBP in congratulating the authors of these books, and wish them luck in the Ohioana Book Award judging process!

(*Please note:  If you are an Ohioan, or if you have resided in Ohio for five or more years, your book has already been, or will be, placed in the Ohioana Library's permanent collection in Columbus, Ohio.  Only the books they've received this past year are eligible for Book Award nominations.  We are working hard to make sure the Library receives copies of all Ohio-based or Ohio-connected books published by NBP.)


Once again, to all the NightBallet Press poets, I wish we could nominate every poet, every poem, every book.  I am honored and humbled to have had the opportunity to publish your wonderful words.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart. 

Wallace Rides With Boom Boom and Everything's Turning Green!

On October 24-October 26, an exciting event took place in Cleveland, Ohio, as people from all over the United States gathered to celebrate poetry, small presses, and the "mimeograph revolution" poet d.a. levy.

 

                                                      poster designed by Hydeout Press

 

The excitement and celebration of the weekend included the hot-off-the-press book release of George Wallace's Riding with Boom Boom,
and Gimme Back My Radio by Russ Green!

 

 

Gimme Back My Radio by New York poet Russ Green contains 36 pages of dynamic and seductive poems.  Boasting a gorgeous photo by the internationally-known photographer-cinematographer-producer-director Lynn Spinnato, the heavy white cardstock cover is paired with a deep blue cardstock insert.  The 30 poems are printed on thick white paper.  Matt Pasca, Pushcart nominee and author of A Thousand Doors, says:

"In Gimme Back My Radio, Russ Green plays conductor and meteorologist to the awesome fronts colliding in his mind—the smashed barometric boundary where Himalayan flags, American greed, Bayou lovers and city tow trucks squall—where his relentless  attention spins in tricked-out cyclones of alliterative rapture, in tornados of prayer from which Green emerges triumphant—baton both broken and glowing."

In Gimme Back My Radio, Green writes about John Lennon, Jack Kennedy, Amiri Baraka, New York City, Starbucks, "Sultry Tongues" and "High-heeled Honeys" and much more, with keen observation and a unique sense of humor.  His poems at the same time satisfy and leave you hungry for more!

                                          Russ Green at the  Lit Café reading Saturday night.


Gimme Back My Radio is Russ Green's first collection of poems, but he's no stranger to the poetry scene.  Green is co-editor at Great Weather for Media based in New York City.  He hosts, along with his fellow editors, at their weekly Spoken Word Sundays at Parkside Lounge on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.  He also hosts and curates the Green's Revolution reading series at Cornucopia's Noshery in Amityville, NY,  and a quarterly music and poetry series at BrickHouse Brewery in Patchogue, NY.  He has done readings from Sante Fe to Cleveland, New Orleans, NYC, and Lowell Celebrates Kerouac in Lowell, MA.  His work has been published in several print and online anthologies including Long Island Quarterly and the PPA Literary Review.  A graduate of Hofstra University, he lives in Port Jefferson, Long Island.



Gimme Back My Radio is available through PayPal (see column to the right of this posting) for only $10 plus $4 shipping/handling, and is also sold on Amazon!  Get your copy today!  

     

The second fantastic publication released this past week by NBP is
Riding with Boom Boom by George Wallace!

Riding with Boom Boom contains 36 pages of (21) kick-ass poems.  The striking cover image is an artfully-altered photograph by Wallace, printed on a leatherette-textured heavy ivory cardstock.  The second cardstock insert is a rich purple, and the text is printed on thick white paper.  And the poems...ah, the poems!  With lines like

...& I want
my share so walk with me
ice my heart bleed me twice

on Bleecker Street

on Down & Out Avenue
on Mushroom Cloud
on Chili Pepper Red Hot
Panic Button Street

you're Grade A ammunition baby

and titles like "Mad with the Mad-eyed Hipsters" and "Outlaw Angels, Asleep at the Wheel", you know you're in for a very special kind of treat!

George Wallace is a writer and performer living and working in NYC.  He maintains a regular reading, lecture, and poetry workshop touring schedule across the US and Europe.  A frequent perfomer on the NYC scene, he has appeared nationally and internationally in such venues as the Beat Museum, Woody Guthrie Festival, Lowell Celebrates Kerouac, Rexroth Festival, Insomniacathon, Howlfest, John Steinbeck Center, Robbie Burns Center and the Dylan Thomas Centre.  His work has appeared in Poets Against The War, About.com, Socialism and Democracy, Citizen 32, American Watchdog, Sous Surveillance, Pemmican, Pedestal and other publications.  He is First Poet Laureate of Suffolk County, NY and Writer in Residence at the Walt Whitman Birthplace in West Hills.  He has more than 25 chapbooks and books of poems published...Riding with Boom Boom is his fourth chapbook of poems from NightBallet Press. 

 

 George Wallace at the Lit Café reading Saturday night. 

 

 

Riding with Boom Boom is available through PayPal (see column to the right of this posting) for only $10 plus $4 shipping/handling, and is also sold on Amazon!  Don't wait to order!

The only thing better than reading the poems in these books is hearing them from the mouths of the poets themselves...so if you have the opportunity to hear these amazing poets read their work, do not miss it!  Until then, get your own copies of Gimme Back My Radio and Riding with Boom Boom and prepare yourself for a wicked, wild, wonderful, witty wordfest!

Autumn 2014 readings from Riding With Boom-Boom:

Fri Nov 7, 6 pm Four Horsemen, Cornelia Street Café NYC NY
Sat Nov 8, 11 am Whispers Vineyard St James NY
Mon Nov 10, 8 pm Saturn Poetry Series, Shades of Green NYC NY
Fri Nov 14, 8 pm Book Party, Molasses Books Brooklyn NY
Sat Nov 15, 5 pm BJ’s Fredonia nr Buffalo NY
Sat Nov 29, TBA Pittsburgh Pa
Fri Dec 5, 8 pm Dire Literary Series, Cambridge Mass

Autumn 2014 readings from Gimme Back My Radio: 

Wed Nov 5, Matt and Terri's in Bayshore w/ Verless Doran