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The poems in LITTLE HUMAN RELICS weave through various notions of home: a family farm, the mythic backdrop of Bavaria, a cityscape of urban noise and expectations, and quiet interiors of domestic life. Whether overhearing a lament about marriage at a nail salon, or standing vigil over the grave of a newly-buried horse, these poems invite readers to step over the page's threshold into a kitchen... a gothic cathedral... a lover's bed. These poems celebrate the ways in which devotion elevates all things in one's life to a position of reverence; a poem which marvels at the brutality of religious relics is placed alongside one which depicts the mending of a child's nightgown, and both the religious veneration and a small act of love inspire equal awe. As the title suggests, these poems are carefully captured moments that may have flown past, but instead are a constellation of objects, events, and characters which hold emotional truth and stark beauty. Like relics, they exist to both conjure memory as well as teach readers a little bit more about what it means to be human.

JONAS BELLIGNHAM AYRE is always looking out of his own eyes, as though seated in the last row of a movie theatre. On the screen? The outside world and the part he plays in interacting with it. Uprooted from his native South, Jonas finds himself working in Las Vegas. A college friend introduces him to his father who owns a real estate business. J.B. quickly learns the business and opens us his own clothing manufacturing plant. Great success and all its trappings soon follow.J.B.'s success and life are short-circuited when he is involved in a psychologically horrific traffic accident. Physically untouched, but suffering from a psychological split, Jonas sells the company, divorces his wife and moves to the desert. There his shadow splits off of him, becoming a foil for his every thought and action; and an obnoxious foil, at that.In the desert J.B. begins to translate the text of an eighth century alchemist, Jabir. The ancient text becomes a mirror held up to his own life. His time in the desert becomes an actual experiment. In Las Vegas, where he retreats from the summer heat, he sees a psychologist attempting to resolve the detachment he feels from the world.One night, late, back in the desert, a burlap sack is thrown from a passing train. Untying it, Jonas finds a young, nearly dead, Mexican woman, Eva. In nursing Eva back to health, reuniting her with her daughter, J.B. finds a measure of peace and redemption.

On a Road takes the spirit and abandon of Kerouac westward on a journey into manhood for three Midwestern city boys who hit the road. The ride, a wild and spirited one, starts in the heart of the upper Midwest and runs full steam ahead to California -- only to be met with excess and false promises.

50/50 is a collection of poems that examine life with perspective in both directions-missing the tremendous joys of motherhood past and searching forward for new purpose. The poems in 50/50 are about being stuck in the middle. Young enough that her twenty-year-old daughter still borrows her clothes, yet old enough that she can admit to wearing bell bottom jeans and the big hair of the eighties, the poet grapples with the stuff of aging. This collection is full of self-examination, longing, and love. If you've ever said goodbye to your grown children, sending them out into the world while grasping for something to take their place, you'll understand the treasure of those few grace-filled moments that remain solid in your memory. These poems encourage us to accept middle age with all its pain and loss, even embrace it, feeling more grateful for every sunset and more determined to make the years ahead matter.

Love, lust, longing and loss, captured vividly through simple short yet painfully emotive bursts of poetry & prose- Poison Apple is a journey through a tumultuous courtship. Four parts take the reader through the befores', durings' and afters' of a wildly passionate relationship, likened to taking a bite of the forbidden fruit.

Pulp: A Manifesto is a lyrical poetry collection by Jerrod E. Bohn. Let's play hopscotch over your pill-bottles. I don't care if you're menstruating. That loose little one in the corner needs screwed, or a table w/ three legs will have to do. Swill-bucket; you read contemporary poets by the fish ton. The "Voice of My Generation's" face tattooed on your ass, & that scares me b/c once in Mexico I dreamed I was this black kid named Larry Lazarus. I wanted to break the Voice's glasses, the Voice who orated every proto-millennial's Sunday morning jazz & shizzle. Privilege is knowingly eating the last butterscotch sea salt caramel one last time. That's why Larry, a captive audience, wanted to punch the Voice in the larynx, which would have lost us another generation.

The Hollow Middle follows Albert Lesiak, an aging English teacher in Connecticut, who receives a windfall in delayed acknowledgment of the government's complicity in his father's cancer death and decides that it is time to live a different life on land he owns in Maine.When his wife Mary suggests that they could foster or adopt autistic twin boys she fell in love with on a website and could use the stipend money in furtherance of Albert's vision, Albert gradually perceives himself as possibly adapting to the role of patriarch.

Writing Naked delivers raw, skin-scratched emotion from a writer who has struggled his entire to life to look himself in the mirror and say, "Michael, I love you." In this debut essay collection, Michael Murray invites you to follow him on a meandering journey to witness glimpses of the moments in his life that have brought him to here-- a place of solace and heart. Essays, each one ripe with story, work to understand his purpose in life. From his first day on earth to his struggles with drugs and alcohol, Murray exposes himself in ways only a person deemed "irrational" would consider doing. But that's just it: Murray isn't irrational. He's a man experiencing the lifelong process of coping with cards the universe dealt him, for better or worse.

The rock band Saint Fox and the Independence is the key to taking back economic freedom. In a near-future London, eccentric revolutionary Janus Jeeves is the leader of the subversive organization the Arcane Society. When he recruits a charismatic drifter named Sam to headline a band that serves as a front for the Society, the group's soaring popularity draws supporters by the thousands. The end goal of Jeeves and the Society is to replace the current financial system with their own cryptocurrency-GGcoin. Cash is no longer king, and all transactions are made via a digital implant in one's index finger called the Dot. Once the fan army of Saint Fox and the Independence rivals any mainstream act in fervor and size, the Arcane Society have what they need to flip the switch. With the youth of the nation on his side and a biotech weapon that will revolutionize commerce, Jeeves will at last see his plan fulfilled: To reset a corrupt financial system and eliminate the wealth gap-without violence. Or so he believes. Puppeteered by Jeeves, Sam is more than willing to champion the cause as Saint Fox-the honey-voiced, incendiary idol of the revolution, a rock star who's caught between his best friend, the loyal and lighthearted Sailor, and Kit, the guitar goddess who's the Richards to his Jagger. But before he knows it he's a wanted criminal, with millions of devoted followers looking to him for their next move. No war is without casualties.

SONGS FROM THE SOUTHERN OREGON COAST is a collaborative collection comprising of works from fifty-seven writers living on the southern coast of Oregon. With each poem and story, layers of history, culture, and inspiration reveal themselves. From the pristine natural settings to the vibrant town atmospheres, the region comes to life in this collection.

¿The linked stories of A FEW SMALL STONES follow Alice and her extended immigrant family in 1940s New York City as they cope with the upheavals before, during and after World War II. The stories show the pain of separation and the guilt of survival, the price of upward mobility, and the ultimate disintegration of family. In one story, the sexism of the period devastates a brother and sister. Another examines the city's racial divide, and still another takes us to a rally on the beaches in the summer of 1940 and the violent conflict between neo-Nazi isolationists and those who wanted to enter the war against Hitler and prevent the annihilation of Jews. ¿ Although A FEW SMALL STONES occurs in a particular place from 1939 to 1948, immigrants and their families in every era will recognize the difficulty of adapting and adjusting to a new culture, language and land. Readers from all backgrounds will identify with the alliances and feuds, the jealousies and pains, the illness and death that divide and destroy families and the surprising acts of generosity and love that can bring reconciliation.

Following multiple characters, WHAT MUST GO ON is a poetry collection that delves into the art of live performance. From the lyrical decapitation of battle rap, to the pre-premier jitters of the theater, the collection swims its way through the various forms of entertainment and gathers up the many faces and feelings of each. It's a variety show of dreamers, artists, and hustlers just using their gifts to get by.

Adrian Ernesto Cepeda's first poetry collection Flashes and Verses…Becoming Attractions uniquely waxes lyrical on such pop cultural icons as Marilyn Monroe, Billie Holliday, Muhammad Ali and David Bowie. He also crafts the most dynamic ekphrastic poems inspired by photos and artwork by Helmut Newton, Edward Hopper and Leonardo da Vinci. He composes the most bedazzling bilingual odes to Sandra Cisneros and Juan Felipe Herrera. Best of all, fans of Miller and Neruda, will fall for his seductively ageless love poems that highlights one of the most original American Latino voices in modern poetry. His eclectic poems have been embraced by over a hundred and fifty different publications across the globe. Flashes reflects a unique voice that has already connected with new rhyme enthusiasts, those usually estranged to verse, as these same readers have not only taken to his words but have started embracing the art of poetry for the first time in their lives. More than just another poetry collection, Flashes, is a leap forward for the poetry genre. Cepeda's gift of verse is the perfect present for the lover of poetry in your life. This LA based poet will take you on a journey from Vegas to Hollywood to San Francisco to New Orleans to Paris through outer space and back. Take this lyrical journey while exploring the pages of this gripping collection as Flashes's poems will dazzle you on the page. Turn on this volume and let the words of Adrian Ernesto Cepeda come alive in your fingertips.

THIS ENDLESS ROAD is the second short story collection by Michael Overa. The collection travels. It winds about on roads that have nothing but the horizon in sight. From the title story, Overa writes,The overnight Greyhound from San Antonio is a piss smelling thing crowded with the boredom of the thousands who have worn the seats threadbare over the years. Rita has been unable to sleep, and by the time the bus stops in a nowhere town somewhere in New Mexico, she drags herself from a precarious half-sleep. She's starving and the only thing open at six in the morning is a diner a half block from the bus depot, one of those places obligated to spring up along the highway at nearly perfect intervals, all vinyl booths and syrup stained tables that might as well have been pre-manufactured. She sits at the long counter next to the only other patron, a middle-aged trucker type with a face carved and eroded by wind, time, and sun.

Things I Pray I Never Forget draws the reader in as it explores the complexity of life through a variety of characters and the situations and relationships that define them. Work, death, family, religion, illness, addiction, and Mother Nature all play their part in shaping the lives and choices of the characters within this collection. In "The Barrelman," a broken-down rodeo clown is forced to come to terms with his aging body as he tries to play the part of father to the young daughter he has just met. Meanwhile, the pawn shop owner in "Limited Space" finds himself pondering the concept of faith and the different faces of God,while as the grizzled Vietnam Vet in "Coffee with Ava" reminds us that so many moments in life are just "chalked full of disappointments and missed opportunities." Each character in this collection must find his or her own way or die trying as they often find themselves beaten and penned in the corner by what life throws at them. Their best chance for survival is either to laugh it off or come out swinging. This collection takes the reader into the memories that have meaning, and these memories come together to create a world full of grit and raw emotion. Things I Pray I Never Forget flows into an experience that is unlike any other, a time of unexpected personal development and self-exploration that culminates into its ultimate realization in the end.

Polite Occasions writes back both to Revelation and Emily Post because it imagines the future is female, that she is a lady, and if the human race Is to survive what evangelical Christians call "end times," it will be because ladies have decided to make unladylike plans. This collection is largely set in a dystopian near-future world where political structures have become authoritarian and many feel spiritually adrift, all while most people pretend not to notice. It examines the ways in which silence renders people complicit with oppression in all its forms. It earnestly explores faith through doubt and disappointment. It might even be called a Christian poetry collection, though it is surely one that some right-wing Christians would like to burn. It is an unapologetically feminist work as well, one that understands that the oppression of women often gets enacted in the name of false gods. The poems of this collection speak their exhortations to the reader in both formal and free verse in a high vernacular that considers contemporary life in reference to much older texts. Some of the works of this collection have won prizes, and many have been published in journals in North America, Europe, and Asia. The collection stands as a warning to both the faithful and faithless that we live in an era where we might fall under an Orwellian regime infused with religious language and that democracy might fall while we take selfies.

Tiny Footcrunch was born out of emotions and sharpened by society's waning attention span. It delivers vast thoughts through tiny poems. Ten universal emotions. Sadness. Joy. Anger. Kindness. Fear. Love. Confusion. Humor. Curiosity. Hope. Ten petite poems carefully crafted and shepherded into each bloodline. This collection speaks to the era of texting tweeting twittering fast-paced visually digestible media we live in every day. Literature has changed. Long-form storytelling through print is falling out of favor while comments, posts and captions increasingly become the new narrative. These tiny poems bridge that divide. Savor suck snack stay on them - they are not meant to be devoured as if bite-size chocolates. Rather, bravely peel each poem back and reveal the many layers provided by each word, each line, each thought that pops into your head right at that pivotal moment when you have a raw wild running whipping racing through the forest visceral reaction to these . . . words on a page.

One evening on L¿haina's Front Street, as Shaffer walked to an evening with friends, someone passing on the sidewalk commented, "The islands are even further west than I thought." Those accidental words, like poetry, shifted his perspective once again regarding the place he lives. Even Further West is a collection of poems written of, in, and on the Hawaiian islands. Companion volume to L¿haina Noon, this collection includes poems striving to encounter and reveal the actual place and people hidden behind the pictures and posters, the myths and misunderstandings, of America's only tropical state. Years ago assigned by a keen reviewer to the "Clear Pool School" of poetry, Shaffer's work again presents sharply detailed and unexpected scenes of how the blue world looks as a bouncing inflatable globe on a day at the beach, beneath a single streetlight on a dark upcountry road, after the surprise of "NO TRESPASSING" signs between slippahs and the sand, beyond our perverse thirst for apocalypse even in paradise. Yet a love for the land, people, friends, and significant others on the islands shines within these pages as well, in dry grass or rain, under plumeria and kiawe, and leads to lives that grow and flourish in the same landscape. These poems encourage locals and visitors to the islands to stand on the sand, soil, and sidewalks of the islands of Hawai'i, on the shifting sea-drawn line on the sand before the deeps where we play, swim, and surf, and see exactly where we are.

Cogitate--verb: To think deeply about something; meditate or reflect. In this over-stimulated fast-paced society everyone is so busy there is no time for cogitation. Now only rebels and misfits cogitate. What a pity.To correct this contemporary problem poet Sam Love uses poetry to examine the cracks in our culture. Cracks that can have devastating personal, ecological and social consequences.For him cogitation is a metaphor for the power of poetry to provide insights that can recreate our so-called modern world and heal beleaguered souls.Far from doom and gloom, Cogitation showcases a wit that will make you smile. By understanding the interconnections surrounding a single event, product or object he believes we can gain new clarity about healing our world. It doesn't matter if he's riffing on the commodification of yoga or the shuttering of small business dreams as a big box store steals customers. In one poem for example he focuses on a single blueberry in his cereal to give us a better understanding of the distance our food travels. In another we follow the journey of a carelessly tossed plastic bag through the eco system until the chemicals return back to us as part of our food chain. If you've had to cook for people to day you will appreciate how he pokes fun at fad diets or if you have ever wondered what's really behind a Facebook picture this book is for you. Crack open Cogitation and celebrate his offbeat take on the foibles of modern society.

An Atlas of the Interior is a collection of poetry written by award-winning poet Jeff Streeby. From haibun to prose poetry, Streeby's poems offer up an extraordinary force and authority on details of the ordinary world. The poems are illuminated by the natural environment of rural settings."Farmington: August", a haibun featured in the collection was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and for Sundress Press' Best of the Web Anthology. Its companion piece, "El Paso: July", also a haibun, was selected by Robert Olen Butler for inclusion in The Best of Short Fictions 2015 published by Queen's Ferry Press

The Home Stretch by Michael Campagnoli is not afraid to experiment with form and movement, in a collection that weaves dialogue, theme, and image together. Metaphor drives the collection of poems, as seen in "Loons", when the speaker says: "There, in the distance,two threw backtheir wet black heads, gaveanswer and replyanswer and replysad-sweet skirl of melody.Almost entwined, they slippedbeneath the water's edge. Silent.Disappeared.Loons"

The narrative of poetry and prose begins on the eve of Pearl Harbor. An old Croatian fisherman rows across Eagle Harbor on Bainbridge Island to light the kerosene lamps to guide the ferries in, as he does each night. Christmas lights decorate the cottages scattered around the harbor. The lights of Seattle glow to the east. A star falls "from the wayside of infinity."The next morning, a Sunday, brings the bombing of Pearl Harbor.The owners of the Bainbridge Island Review, Walt and Milly Woodward, work into the wee hours to publish a special edition. Walt Woodward reminds his neighbors, "I am positive every Japanese family on the Island has an intense loyalty for the United States of America and stands ready to defend it." Up and down the West Coast, however, hatred is stirring.Little more than two months later, President Franklin Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066 authorizing the removal of people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast of the United States.On March 30, 1942, 227 Japanese Americans from Bainbridge Island, under bayonet guard, are marched aboard the ferry Kehloken bound for Seattle and a train waiting to take them to Manzanar, a barbed-wire camp in the central California desert. Many of their island neighbors turned out to see them off. Not a few of them weep.The author, using historical sources and family recollections, has crafted a poetic narrative of one of the most conspicuous injustices in American history, and explores how the healing goes on.

MUSTERING WHAT'S LEFT spans forty years of Roger Aplon's career. The poetry collection is a historical investigation into Aplon's transformation as a writer. It's a evolution of spirit, style, and craft. Many of the early poems (especially - The Monologues) were cursed, celebrated, maligned &/but eventually acknowledged as 'in the spirit of their time'. Aplon captures image and tenor via an impressionistic rendering of the color and character of the world. Each rendering plays with voice and tone, generating a spectrum of speakers from one volume to the next. From the monological explorations in Stiletto to the impressionistic responses to contemporary music in Improvisations the rhythms & images Aplon has chosen were meant to encourage the curious reader to respond viscerally - maybe touching a nerve that might otherwise remain innocent.

WALKING NATURAL PATHWAYS is eclectic, each section its own ecosystem. Doherty pays special attention to the natural world, celebrating it with diverse and stylistic poems. It was the wettest spring on recordAnd the spring storm alpine rain was melting snow,With the churning muddy watersEven the biggest dam was on the verge.

Adobe Walls is filled with a diverse cast of characters that will thrive in memory long after reader's have turned the final pages. Here are a few examples of what to expect: The preacher who loses faith, and murders his wife before giving a final sermon. Utilizing unconventional methods, a painter creates his masterpiece with the help of a lovely Laotian immigrant. Just South of the border, a Chicano and his Mexican fiancé are pulled over and brutally terrorized by police. A lonely and furry Vietnam vet decides that a body wax may change his luck with women. Scars are revealed, reminding him of things better left in the past. Post-apocalypse, a Muslim and a Christian fundamentalist are thrust together with humorous, yet tragic results. Scythians are mythical creatures that hunt at night, sometimes kidnapping children to teach Scythian ways. A Mexican father returns home after working in the US for many years, and finds his wife with another man. Robert Lincoln Washington has spent twenty-three years in prison, and is accidentally paroled into an empty, uncaring world. Romance, horror, science fiction, magic realism, mystery, fantasy, and comedy abound in this diverse collection of original short stories. Coming of age, losing faith, social dysfunction, infidelity, falling in and out of love, searching for the meaning of life, finding forgiveness…ordinary lives faced with extraordinary circumstances. Adobe Walls, satisfies all the way to the bone.

What if you could look at your favorite play, novel, or poem in a whole new way? In S.R. Stewart's collection Essays:An Analysis of Traditional and Marginal Literature, she gives you just that, and then some. Essays looks at English favorites such as Beowulf, The Dream Songs, and Pride and Prejudice through a microscope tuned in to the marginal groups of those works. Stewart talks women. She talks sexuality. And more importantly, she talks about the subversion of those who are often left out of the conversation until somebody (ahem, Ivory Tower) deems them important. Of the women in Beowulf, she writes, "Wealhtheow, Grendel's Mother, and Hildeburh...these women entertain, bring peace, and contradict societal expectations of the female gender, either directly or indirectly. Women fall into these roles because the male-dominated society does not allow for women to venture out into other archetypes. The roles of the hostess and the peacemaker are inherent to the conditioned female nature, while the monster is the unmodified female in her natural state of being." Essays is the perfect companion book for the university classroom, aspiring scholars, home educators, and writers alike. Stewart worked in conjunction with Unsolicited Press and her company If You Give a Girl a Book to build the collection out of her desire to help others -- all proceeds from the book will be donated to Smart Oregon, a literacy group in Oregon dedicated to building confidence in children's reading skills.

When Lavinia Starkhurst's husband is killed in a freak accident, she takes to the open road and meets a number of strangers, all with struggles of their own. Through these unexpected and occasionally hilarious encounters, Lavinia reflects on her past deeds, both good and bad, explores her two marriages, her roles as caregiver and wife, hoping all the while for self-acceptance and something to give her new life meaning.