The Undisputed Greatest Writer of All Time

The Undisputed Greatest Writer of All Time
Author: Beau Sia
Publisher: SCB Distributors
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2010-08-13
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 1935904213

"This is the greatest fucking book of poetry ever!" is how Beau would have described this book ten years ago. In truth, this collection of poems from 1997-2005 simply reflects a time when he was wrestling with the power he'd given his ego, struggling to break from the idealizing of love, and beating himself up for his shame and insecurities. He allows us into places most poets would edit out, exposing his limitations in his choices and in what's absent from each selection. Unafraid to live in fear, willing to share the empty of glory, and pushing to include the minutia as integral parts of one's process, these poems bring a mirror to his past, sans heroic declarations and beautiful decorations. Beau Sia's new collection of old work seeks to give a fuller picture for the reader who is looking for glimpses of the dark places growth begins, and who wants to feel like they are beautiful, without having to lie in the extremes of tragedy or enlightenment. Beau Sia swings gravity like a bat (aluminum, whiffle ball, and fruit). I hope to experience everything in this life, but if I leave this world before I get to hang glide the high points, it won't matter... I read Beau Sia. -Buddy Wakefield, "Live for a Living" Beau Sia mixes serious commentary, outrageous theatrics, and downright outrage into a potent, entertaining, and memorable cocktail. He is both the spoonful of sugar and the medicine, and he goes down in the most delightful way. - Taylor Mali, "Last Time As We Are” Beau Sia has forged a poetic voice unlike any other-- a 7th level hybrid of deep-sea-mind-diving and hip-hop-spelunking and time-travel-reporting that is once riveting, humbling and inspiring; a firey worship of the life you have to live. - Mindy Nettifee, "Rise of the Trust Fall”

38 Bar Blues

38 Bar Blues
Author: C.R. Avery
Publisher: SCB Distributors
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2010-08-13
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 1935904094

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.

The Constant Velocity of Trains

The Constant Velocity of Trains
Author: Lea C. Deschenes
Publisher: SCB Distributors
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2010-08-13
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 1935904825

Author Lea Deschenes' collection of honest, inquisitive poetry takes readers on a tour from the front steps in her native New England to uncharted jungles and beyond the edge of the universe, accompanied by Einstein, Marcus Aurelius and Rumi. Poetically, she balances precise craft with heartfelt meaning. From studies of a culture moving at the speed of light to meditations upon capital-L Love, The Constant Velocity of Trains finds its heart in relativity: the intersecting, interlocking, and often exasperating perspectives that make up reality. Lea Deschenes is flirting with perfection. It’s taken much too long for her words to reach a larger audience, an audience that’s been searching fruitlessly for what her work has always offered – bold glimpses of what exhilarates, frightens and moves us. -Patricia Smith, “Blood Dazzler” Lea Deschenes throws the well-aimed stone of her poetry through the glass houses of hypocrisy and human coldness... she is at all times intelligent, tender, and wedded to the quest for self-knowledge...There's wisdom at work, and at play, in this book. -Alicia Ostriker, “No Heaven" every poem feels entirely free to find its own voice, its own form. ...this latest volume adds an absolute precision in charting our emotional minefields; a wisdom and a surety of touch that make these poems utterly convincing. -Jack McCarthy, “Good Night”

Learn Then Burn

Learn Then Burn
Author: Derrick Brown
Publisher: SCB Distributors
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2010-08-13
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 1935904027

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.

Live For A Living

Live For A Living
Author: Buddy Wakefield
Publisher: SCB Distributors
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2010-08-13
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 1935904876

“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

Yesterday Won't Goodbye

Yesterday Won't Goodbye
Author: Brian S. Ellis
Publisher: SCB Distributors
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2010-08-13
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 1935904132

Brian S. Ellis' second book, Yesterday Won't Goodbye, explores the author’s wild origins and punk rock Americana in powerful poetic form. Brian Stephen Ellis is borne of Gelfling and gutter punk. Unwashable stain ...His poems speak with an unbridled urgency yet come to you patient, coy, brimming with wisdom-and acutely aware of their own necessity. Read these poems. You've never been so alive." -Jeanann Verlee, "Racing Hummingbirds" ...Ellis expertly shifts between free verse poetry and creative non-fiction, consistently producing work that is captivating and original, all while having one of the most dynamic, affective, and unapologetically raw live performances anywhere. -Jared Paul, "Prayers For Atheist"

Scandalabra

Scandalabra
Author: Derrick Brown
Publisher: SCB Distributors
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2010-08-13
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 1935904922

Derrick Brown’s long awaited new collection of poetry and prose, Scandalabra, is a book that boils with true grit Americana, sensual power and black oceanic wildness. About.com rated his newest collection 'Scandalabra' as one of the top poetry books of 2009. Written at sea aboard a fishing vessel and in the hills of Tennessee, these poems roar in six unique sections never before seen from this acclaimed writer. I wish I had written “Patience”. I mean written it down on paper. I’ve thought it to myself several times in different countries, but now Derrick has re-earned my trust after initially losing it by naming his book with a pun. -Comedian David Cross Brown is leading a revolution to inject poetry, both written and spoken, with the raucous and booze-infused spirit of rock n’ roll. -Sara Graham, VenusZine

Spiking the Sucker Punch

Spiking the Sucker Punch
Author: Robbie Q. Telfer
Publisher: SCB Distributors
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2010-08-13
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 1935904930

In Spiking the Sucker Punch, Robbie Q. Telfer's first published collection, the author profiles the modern comedian from the inside out - starting with the innards and moving toward a damaged laughter. His work blends surrealism and narrative, bending grammar and expectations along the way. These pieces interrogate identity, place, and lead the reader to a much higher understanding of bears. This gloriously bellowed lyrical and linguistic chaos, this ‘mess of crossed wires and mixed seagulls,’ will make your status quo ache, your perceptions implode, your horizons widen and shatter. -Patricia Smith, “Blood Dazzler” Robbie Q, our dazzling shooting star sparking the gritty Chicago heavens, crackling with the surprising and contradictory rhythms of life on the run and in the heat. Keep on, Brother Q, dance the dialectic, your wild inspired unruly convergence and conspiracy. -Bill Ayers, activist/educator/author In Spiking the Sucker Punch, Robbie Q. Telfer rocks out a bestiary of antic poetics all his own. In his open and generous hands, speech acts zoom in and out of our collective desire to live and love. You will feel alive again reading it. -Daniel Nester, “How to Be Inappropriate”

Over the Anvil We Stretch

Over the Anvil We Stretch
Author: Anis Mojgani
Publisher: SCB Distributors
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2010-08-13
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 1935904884

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

Rise of the Trust Fall

Rise of the Trust Fall
Author: Mindy Nettifee
Publisher: SCB Distributors
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2010-08-13
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 1935904914

In Mindy Nettifee's second book, Rise of the Trust Fall, her poems possess a magic that can only come from a seasoned writer willing to share more on the page than she’s comfortable with. Whether exploring the strange alchemy of healing, the perils of self-actualization, or the contemporary experience of womanhood, the poems in this daring collection are gorgeous and vibrant, bitingly funny, and unflinchingly honest. Rise of the Trust Fall challenges more than our understanding of ourselves. It calls us to connect to our humanity, to celebrate its flaws, and then to demand more of it, in every well crafted line. Rise of the Trust Fall by Mindy Nettifee is the linguistic orgasm we've all been waiting for, no clit-stims necessary. -BUST Magazine Mindy Nettifee is destined to be the next Dorothy Parker. -Poetic Diversity When award-winning poet Mindy Nettifee speaks...you’re powerless-you have no choice but to raise your wine glass high over your osmosis head and join her pledge of allegiance to graphic truth. Her poems have the grace of cursive letters and the guts of a truck driver. -District Weekly