Ohio Triangle - by Alex Gildzen (CC#59)

Crisis Chronicles Press is thrilled to present a new masterwork by the legendary Alex Gildzen, inspired by his rich experiences in three Ohio cities: Elyria, Cleveland and Kent.  Ohio Triangle is 75 pages, perfect bound, featuring many of his best poems and a handful of color photographs.  Adrian Manning calls Gildzen "a damn fine poet" and Jonathan Williams says "His eye is charming and acute." Officially published on 25 April 2015 to celebrate National Poetry Month and Gildzen's 72nd birthday, Ohio Triangle is now available for $10.99 from Crisis Chronicles Press, 535 Parkside Boulevard, Cleveland, Ohio 44143 USA.  ISBN: 9781940996196.

Choose US or International

US Orders $10.99 USD International $15.99 USD

Love for Ohio Triangle:

"Alex Gildzen rushes to the heart with the clearest of memories, tacking them to our own with perfectly wrought images from his own life and calling out real people from the shadows of the past.  His work glows with the power of a master poet.  There is not one word in this book that doesn't ring true.  Be glad.  You can share a remarkable vision in this book that echoes through time every time Gildzen fixes his focus on his Ohio Triangle."

—D.R. Wagner, author of The Night Market

"Just as any 3 non-collinear points determine a unique plane, so Alex Gildzen's 3-part book of chiseled poems defines and explores the unique plane that is Gildzen's life in three different cities in Ohio. Here is a triangle considered in the context of the space-time continuum, where people, places and things combine to bring the past into the present and the present into the past. It is in the dimension of time, the loving remembrances and the sad recognition of the inevitable future of each person, place and thing within Gildzen's triangular plane, and by extension, within the reader's own unique plane, that brings warmth and heart to this multifaceted diamond of a book."

—Shelley Chernin, author of The Vigil

"I was first introduced to the work of Alex Gildzen a few years back now and out of everything I've read, this latest collection, Ohio Triangle, is without a doubt the most touching look into the memories that make up his highly colorful life, so much so that I almost teared up at several points, because this is the way we all want to be able to look back on things, on a life well lived, only, Alex has been able to put it into words in a way that feels immediately relatable and effortless, as the passing of time should be."

—John Dorsey, author of Imaginary Foxholes

Rate and review Ohio Triangle at Goodreads.

Deluxe Package [no longer available]:

For a mere $5 extra a lucky 15 people received two great Gildzen books: Ohio Triangle and the rare New Notes: Poems 1971-76 (Kent, OH: Shelly's Press, 1978).  New Notes features paper wraps and a hand sewn binding.  While supplies last. [UPDATE: We have no more copies of New Notes, but you can still order Ohio Triangle for $10.99.]

Alex in front of Loomis Camera in Elyria, Ohio

He was born in California, first walked in Texas and now lives in New Mexico but Alex Gildzen spent the majority of his life as a resident of Ohio.  He was two weeks old when he arrived in Lorain.  When his father returned from the war in Europe the family moved to Elyria. He began visiting Cleveland as a child. Following graduation from Elyria High School he went to Kent State University where he was student, teacher and librarian.  In 1993 Kent presented him with the President’s Medal for “extraordinary and unique service” to the university.  The same year the Ohio Arts Council honored him with the Ohioana Citation in the field of humanities and education.

To learn more about Alex, visit the Literary Underground wiki and follow his Arroyo Chamisa blog. 

Cleveland: Point B in Ohio Triangle - by Alex Gildzen (CC#46)

Cover photo: Terminal Tower by Steven B. Smith

Crisis Chronicles Press is ecstatic to announce the publication of Cleveland: Point B in Ohio Triangle by Alex Gildzen on 6 October 2013. Cleveland is hand assembled with love and includes many of my favorite Gildzen poems, including "All in the Eye," "Alone in Cleveland," "West Side Market," "Tracing the Places of d.a. levy," "Short Vincent," "Sergeant Gildzen," "Day after I Learnd Daniel Thompson Died" and "Dead Poets Day." This chapbook is currently out of print. But its contents are now available in Gildzen's full-length Ohio Triangle, published in 2015 by Crisis Chronicles Press.

Cleveland: Point B in Ohio Triangle is 14 pages, 8.5 x 5.5", inkjet printed and saddle staple bound.  The cover is a deluxe ivory card stock that was recommended for watercolor.  The endpapers are a thick, shiny, deep chocolate card stock. And the poem pages are a creamy faux parchment.

Click here to see and hear Gildzen read "Tracing the Places of d.a. levy" from Cleveland at Outlaw Poetry.
Click here to see and hear Gildzen read "All in the Eye" from Cleveland in the Crisis Chronicles litmag.
Click here to see ratings of Cleveland at Goodreads.

Gildzen with Hart Crane in Cleveland

Alex Gildzen never had a Cleveland address. But he’s enjoyed lasagna at Guarino’s and pierogies at Sokolowski’s. He’s danced at Traxx and listened to drag queens sing at Shaker Club. He’s purchased books at Kay’s and seen plays at the Hanna. Since being one of "11 Cleveland Poets" to appear in a special section of the British magazine Asylum in 1968, Gildzen has been identified with the city.

Cleveland is the middle section of Gildzen's work-in-progress Ohio Triangle. The first, Elyria, was published as a chapbook by Crisis Chronicles Press in 2009. We will publish the complete Ohio Triangle (including part three, Kent) as a perfect bound book in the spring of 2015.

Elyria: Point A in Ohio Triangle - by Alex Gildzen (CC#4)

Muriel Rukeyser said that the universe is composed not of atoms, but of stories.  Alex Gildzen sees this clearly and is, of all the living writers I've been privileged to know, one of the most adept at putting his life's universe(s) into poetry. 

One of the first things I noticed about Alex's work on the page was his often idiosyncratic spelling.  For example, where you and I write "started,"  he spells it "startd" — eliminating the unnecessary letter.  He's equally economical in his use of words, distilling the essence of champagne stories into high quality poetic cognac.  No mixer, no filler.... 

I then had the opportunity to meet him at Tres Versing the Panda in May, where he read some of his Elyria poems.  I was most impressed.  A week or few later, when he offered me the opportunity to publish them, I was nearly giddy with excitement.

Alex's first chapbook (Into the Sea by Abraxas Press of Madison, WI) was published in 1969.  Dozens of other books have followed.  His most recent, Beth (by Green Panda Press of Cleveland Heights), was released in early 2009.  Now Crisis Chronicles Press is pleased to join in this 40th anniversary celebration by announcing our publication of his brand new poetry collection, Elyria: Point A in Ohio Triangle.

This collection of poems is particularly meaningful to me because, like Alex, I was raised in Elyria, Ohio.  Albeit in different generations,we grew up in the same neighborhood — even lived on the same street (Lexington Avenue, only three blocks from my current home) at points in our respective childhoods.  In Elyria, Alex writes about Cascade Park, where as a young man I slept on picnic tables and wrote poetry on post glacial boulders; about Ely Park, where I waded in the fountain with friends while listening to Prince's Around the World in a Day and drinking Wild Irish Rose; about Black River, which runs behind my dad's old house; and about Kenyon Avenue, where my now-wife lived during the first few years I was in prison.  Alex's poems aren't about my experiences with those places.  They're about his own.  But that makes them all the more evocative for me.

Not only does 2009 mark 40 years since his first chapbook.  It also marks 60 years since Alex's first ever published work — when a painting he made of his grade school at age six (now gracing the above cover) appeared in a 1949 Elyria City Schools publication called We Go To School.

I invite you to join in this celebration of Alex's fine work, our unique city of Elyria, and these two very special anniversaries by getting your hands on a copy of Elyria: Point A in Ohio Triangle. The poems in it are perfect true story microcosms of a universe I've always enjoyed exploring.  And I believe you'll enjoy the journey as well.

Elyria: Point A in Ohio Triangle is 14 pages, 8.5" x 5.5", inkjet printed on alternating white and ivory paper, and saddle staple bound using beige card stock.   Cover image is from a watercolor Alex Gildzen painted of his school as a child.  Approximately 200 hard copies of this chapbook in print. We are currently sold out. But....

In the summer of 2013, Crisis Chronicles Press published a newly revised and illustrated edition of Elyria exclusively via Kindle.  Click here to get yours. Then in April 2015, Crisis Chronicles published a 75-page perfect bound edition of Alex Gildzen's complete Ohio Triangle (including Elyria, Cleveland, and Kent).

Click here to see reviews of Elyria: Point A in Ohio Triangle at Goodreads.
Click here to read reviews of Elyria at Amazon.com.
Click here to read Steven Allen May's thoughts on Elyria at chap*books.
Click here to see and hear Gildzen read "Ford in Cascade Park" from Elyria at YouTube. 


Sample poem from Elyria: Point A in Ohio Triangle:

    VIEW FROM THE PORCH

    on the swing
    Mother spots
    chipmunk & squirrel
    Betty next door
    every car that turns
    on to Winckles St.
    since all politics
    is local
    she’s the mayor
    of the block
    & knows
    her constituents
    well
    she tells
    me the stories
    of each
    who pass
    then goes inside
    to stir the stew
    she shares
    with half
    the neighbors


Poet's biography:

Alex Gildzen was born in California in 1943 but took the train to Ohio at two weeks.  He grew up in Elyria — moving from Lexington to Warren to Winckles.  He began school at Garford which he painted at age 6.

He attended Kent State, where he was drama critic for the student paper and began the little magazine Toucan with R.L. Carothers.  Later he taught English at Kent and became curator of special collections, cataloguing the papers of James Broughton and Jean-Claude van Italie, and the archives of the Open Theater.  There he co-edited the bibliographic journal The Serif, with Dean Keller.  He also edited the library's Occasional Papers which published poetry by John Ashberry and Gary Snyder, prose by Richard Grossinger and Anais Nin, and art by Alex Katz and Robert Smithson.  He took an early retirement so he could move to Santa Fe to write full time.  While serving on the board of the local AIDS organization, he produced the first pop concert in the history of Santa Fe opera.

One of Gildzen's works in progress is Ohio Triangle.  The other points in the collection are Cleveland and Kent.

Find Alex Gildzen's
blog: http://arroyochamisa.blogspot.com
videos: http://youtube.com/gildzen
papers: http://speccoll.library.kent.edu/faculty/gildzen.html