Karen Greenbaum-Maya’s new book on Bamboo Dart Press is out August 8th. Trailer premieres today.


The Beautiful Leaves by Karen Greenbaum-Maya consists of poems about the diagnosis, illness, and death of the author’s beloved husband, and her grief. In the short film above, Karen reads a passage that is one part robocall and one part remains, with both halves fused together for a stunning coda. The book is available for pre-order now and out everywhere on August 8th.

Sloppy Heads announce new CD/Cassette out August 18th

The new Sloppy Heads record is out next month. Check out the first video/single below as well as details about this wonderful second record of theirs. Wig on the wonderful Gary Panter cover art above. Preorder here.

https://austintownhall.com/2023/07/11/sloppy-heads-announce-sometimes-just-one-second-lp/

Emily Fernandez “Pliny and Other Problems” book on Bamboo Dart Press is out today

Emily Fernandez’ “Pliny and Other Problems” new book is out today. Like messages in bottles washed ashore, the poems in Emily Fernandez’s Pliny and Other Problems feel miraculous. They movingly catalog moments of the speaker’s life as well as the forms of life on the edge of California—mixing vignettes from adolescence and young love to marriage and motherhood, and celebrating the natural world in the midst of the pandemic and climate change. Balancing dark humor with hope, profanity with praise, this collection is “teaching us the surprise / of survival.” I feel restored at the end of this book, and brought closer to the wonder of being human right now.—Michelle Brittan Rosado, author of Why Can’t It be Tenderness

The book is available everywhere today and can also be ordered direct from us here.

“Remnants of a Full Moon” book by Michelle Gonzalez is out now on Bamboo Dart Press

In Remnants of a Full Moon, Michelle Gonzalez tracks the cyclical nature of life through its recurring movements: parent and child, in sickness and health, then and now. These compare-and-contrast moments are described with humor, grace, and a sincerity. The multi-dimensional speaker of these poems is far from the wallflower some might mistake her for. For instance, in the opening poem, “When an Introvert Tries to Mingle,” we find her in a typical physical education class with its cast of bullies, but Gonzalez turns any malice on its head: “What a Delight, I proved that I fit in a gym locker,” proving that she is in fact bigger than they are when she smiles and waves as she is released from the locker. Moments of tenderness are captured in amber: a father blow-drying his young daughter’s hair; a girl immersed in her Lego creation; an old woman’s faith and passing. These instances are reverential, introspective, elliptical. These poems do not purport to offer answers, but there is fellowship in the asking.—Cati Porter, author of Novel and small mammals

The book is available online everywhere, at finer independent bookstores or direct from Bamboo Dart Press

Trailer for Emily Fernandez’s “Pliny and Other Problems” book on Bamboo Dart Press premieres

Pliny and Other Problems starts with the problems of ordinary life – a mother’s midlife crisis – and the doings (and undoings) of aging and loss. In the central poems, Pliny the Elder’s life and tome, Natural History, is playfully explored. Pliny mixes Roman mythology with observations of nature, and these poems build little narratives with his bizarre imagery. Nature is instructive and absurd, and the last section, “Supplications,” contemplate the ways it demands our attention and awe. Though life in late-stage capitalism, aka the Anthropocene, is uncertain at best, and catastrophic at worst, it doesn’t mean one cannot find some joy. The book is out July 7th and is available for preorder now. Check out the trailer with a reading from the book by the author below.

New Dennis Callaci record out this Friday on Shrimper

In tandem with the last Southern California readings from his latest book, Lost Reflection on 22 reading The Garner House in Claremont (featuring the only electric Refrigerator show of the year), Shrimper is releasing a limited editon version of the new Dennis Callaci record Ones and Zeros. Two sixteen plus minute songs recorded last week that call to mind a marriage of his End of Night 30 minute song and early Paste recordings. Available as a cassette only release of 100 copies. No digital and no other way to hear it excepting an LP release that is two years off. This is Callaci’s first solo record in over three years. The cassette is out Friday June 23rd and will be available from Revolver and Grapefruit as well as you favored independent store. Check out the single edit and video(four minute version as opposed to the full length sixteen and a half minute full play) for the song “Ones” below.

Trailer for Michelle Gonzalez’s “Remnants of a Full Moon” on Bamboo Dart Press premieres

Remnants of a Full Moon is a collection of poems that take you on a journey with a daughter, wife, and mother. Many of the poems shine a light on the forgotten and lost, on awkward situations in a dentist chair, or while staring at a painting of a girl stuck in a corner. Beloved pets are also part of the narrative as well as pools that turn green in the summer. The book is available for preorder now and it out worldwide on June 20th. Check out the trailer below:

Charles Rammelkamp’s “Presto” book is out today on Bamboo Dart Press


Charles Rammelkamp’s Presto chronicles the adventures of an employee for a temp agency as he goes out on what often seem like absurd assignments for which he occasionally has to make up the rules as he goes along, improvise. As the sequence deepens, we see this unidentified character in later work situations. His attitude seems unchanged as he deals with the absurdities life throws his way. A timely book that is a meditation on the temporary and the illusory nature of work and waking life.

What a supremely textured, sharp-witted and absorbing book Presto is. Rammelkamp explores the temp job experience brilliantly—that multivarious, short-term universe where a factotum shapeshifter resides only for a moment. That wet cement terrain one steps into for fast cash, then gets out of before it has a chance to harden.—Robert Scotellaro, author of God in a Can and Ways to Read the World