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LOST HORSE PRESS NEW POETS SERIES: NEW POETS, SHORT BOOKS | VOLUME I

LOST HORSE PRESS NEW POETS SERIES: NEW POETS, SHORT BOOKS | VOLUME I

$16.95Price

ISBN: 978-0-9762114-7-1

Pub Date: Spring 2006

Pages: 88


Marvin Bell, editor


Acts of Contrition by Gwendolyn Cash

The Owl's Ear by Boyd W. Benson

Liminal: A Life of Cleavage by Lisa Galloway


From the Introduction:


The idea for this series is indebted to Poets of Today, the Scribner series edited by John Hall Wheelock from 1954 to 1962, which published in eight volumes first books by twenty-four poets, three poets at a time under a single cover. There were fewer of us then. A poet who received the good fortune of book publication would forever thereafter be accorded the status of a serious writer.


Forty-five years later, the competition to publish a first book of poetry is ferocious. Nor does a first book, given the number that appear annually, serve now to define one’s commitment to the art. If one does not “network” (that ugly verb) in the centers of literary opinion, or write with a bow to theory or fashion, it can be more difficult yet. The mechanism of book contests, while mostly honorable, is also dispiriting.


...This 3-in-1 series, then, is intended to sample a range of poets who have yet to publish a book and have generally gone about their writing in private. It will not be run as a contest, nor will it accept submissions. The usual biographical notes will be replaced by brief personal statements. Its covers will not carry promotional blurbs.


I believe that, in the matter of poetry, two heads are half as good as one. Therefore, the poems in these short books will be selected and arranged by their authors with minimal editorial interference. The poets will not be asked to adjust their poetry to a house style.


I hope that these samplings, presented with as few trappings as possible, will reaffirm for readers the nature of the poetry in poetry. Serious poetry is not written to satisfy literary opinion. Poetry, like philosophy, is a survival skill.

—M.B, Spring 2007

    Suppose that god of yours

    is sleeping.

    Suppose no serpent

    shudders behind your heel.

    Suppose you have made

    your own hell.


    -Gwendolyn Cash, “Your Palm Pressed to Mine”



    It was a beautiful hollow sound the bones made

    Too beautiful for us. Nobody cared to listen.


    -Boyd W. Benson, “After the War”



    Like a praying mantis

    she bent with both hands within

    and said “it’s like a little jelly bean,”

    I asked, “does it hurt when you press on it?”


    -Lisa Galloway, “Not Yet”


    Marvin Bell was born in New York City on August 3, 1937, and grew up in Center Moriches, on the south shore of eastern Long Island. He holds a Bachelor of Arts from Alfred University, a Master of Arts from the University of Chicago, and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Iowa.


    Marvin Bell was born in New York City on August 3, 1937, and grew up in Center Moriches, on the south shore of eastern Long Island. He holds a Bachelor of Arts from Alfred University, a Master of Arts from the University of Chicago, and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Iowa.


    Bell taught for forty years for the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, retiring in 2005 as Flannery O’Connor Professor of Letters. For five years, he designed and led an annual Urban Teachers Workshop for America SCORES. Currently he serves on the faculty of Pacific University’s low-residency MFA program. He has also taught at Goddard College, the University of Hawaii, the University of Washington, and Portland State University. He and his wife, Dorothy, live in Iowa City and Port Townsend, Washington.

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