Our 2020 Pushcart Prize Nominations

This year, we nominated:

1968 through 1971, a selection from Alex Gildzen's Alex in Movieland (1943-1973), which we published in February.

"PTSD Hushabye" by Carolyn Srygley-Moore, a poem from her Ode to Horatio and Other Saviors, which we published in October.

Congratulations and good luck!

Buy both together for $24 US and we'll ship them free: paypal.me/crisischronicles

This Year's Crisis Chronicles Press Pushcart Prize Nominations

Crisis Chronicles Press has had the honor of publishing many excellent books by very talented poets this year. Alas, the Pushcart people only allow us to make six nominations. I would have preferred to have chosen twenty, as there were so many worthy candidates. But after some lengthy and very difficult deliberations, I finally narrowed down the field and submitted the following Pushcart Prize nominations:

"Serving"
by Kari Gunter-Seymour — from Serving (March 2018)

"Eclipse Myths"
by Steven B. Smith — from Where Never Was Already Is (April 2018)

"William Randolph Hearst, Diving Alone, San Simeon"
by Christine Howey — from Citizen of Metropolis (August 2018)

"Afterlife"
by Rikki Santer — from Dodge, Tuck, Roll (September 2018)

"assembly line doll head roach motel"
by Juliet Cook — from Malformed Confetti (October 2018)

"Questions for Google Home"
by Chris Stroffolino — from Drinking From What I Once Wore: Selected and Recent Poems (December 2018)

Best of luck to all of you!

Our 2018 Ohioana Book Award and Pushcart Prize Nominations

It's so hard for me to choose from among the many excellent works Crisis Chronicles Press has published recently. I love them all, and each book has one or more pieces I think supremely worthy of an award. I came close to having to flip a coin before making my ultimate decision. But here we go:

Pushcart Prize nominees (from books we published in 2017):

• "America, Land of the Brittle" - a poem by George Wallace, from Oct Tongue 2
• "The Black Between Stars" - a nine-senryu sequence by Elliot Nicely, from The Black Between Stars
• "Crystal" - a poem by Meg Harris, from Inquiry into Loneliness
• "Houglass Studies" - a twelve-part poem by Krysia Jopek, from Hourglass Studies
• "Jane in Her Business Suit" - a poem by John Greiner, from Turnstile Burlesque
• "Love Letters" - a poem by Victor Clevenger, from Sandpaper Lovin'

2018 Ohioana Book Award nominees (from Ohio-related books/authors we published in 2016-2017):

• Diary of a Feminist Thug, Volume I: His[tories] of Her Land by Lyz Bly (co-published by Crisis Chronicles and Guide to Kulchur Books)
• The Black Between Stars by Elliot Nicely
• Scraping the Sky by Luba Gawur
• Age of Aquarius: Collected Poems 1981-2016 by Dianne Borsenik
• Fractured Fairy Tales by William Merricle
• Special Watch by Richard M. O'Donnell

Good luck, everyone!

Our Pushcart Prize and Ohioana Book Award Nominees

I love everything we publish in various ways, so it's always hard to choose what to nominate for this prize or that.  In 2015 alone, Crisis Chronicles Press will have published seventeen books (three of them forthcoming) including hundreds of poems.  First I narrowed down my potential Pushcart Prize nominees for this year to a couple dozen favorite poems.  But I can only nominate six. I then spent hours more mulling before I finally forced myself to make some hard decisions.

So here they are, our nominees for the next Pushcart Prize.

"Creepy Dolls" by Kevin Ridgeway, from Contents Under Pressure
"Deadtime" by Susan Sheppard, from Balefire
"Let's Get It On" by Dianne Borsenik, from Thunderclap Amen
"Poem for Christian O'Keeffe" by John Dorsey, from Ghost on the Inside
"The Road" by Michael Ceraolo, from Readings / The Road
"The Fine Line of Beautiful Living" by Tracie Morell from Matilda's Battle Waltz

We've also nominated Alex Gildzen's Ohio Triangle for an Ohioana Book Award.

Good luck to you all!
John Burroughs, editor
Crisis Chronicles Press

Howl for My Family in April - by Mary C. O'Malley (CC#40)

Cover photo by Chandra Alderman

Crisis Chronicles Press is honored to publish Mary O'Malley's striking chapbook-length poem Howl for My Family in April on 2 February 2013.  Howl is handmade with care and saddle stitch bound.  It bleeds. It cries. It pulls buried truth into the light.  You won't walk away from it unaffected.

This chapbook is currently out of print and unavailable.

The first edition (c.100 copies) of Howl for My Family in April was inkjet printed, 8.5 x 5.5", bound with plain white cover stock and beach card stock. It is out of print.  The second edition - revised, expanded and printed in April 2014 - is printed on lemon paper and bound using textured white and black card stock.

Click here to see ratings of Howl for My Family in April at Goodreads.

Mary C. O’Malley has worked as a post graduate degreed social worker and as a writer since 2002.  Her work has been selected for local, state, national, and international readings. Publications that have published Mary’s work include Heartlands, Whiskey Island, Box Car Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, Cleveland in Prose and Poetry, Midwest Poetry Review, Mary, and many other literary zines and anthologies both online and in print. She is the mother of two sets of twins and tries to garden in her spare time. In 2009, Tipton Poetry Journal nominated her for a Pushcart Prize.

Lens - by John Burroughs (CC#20) - OUT OF PRINT

Composed and published 23 March 2012 in a limited edition of 30 hand-numbered copies, Lens is a handmade chapbook featuring a four-page dramatic poem (also called "Lens") by Crisis Chronicles Press publisher John Burroughs, a.k.a. Jesus Crisis. It was not for sale, but given away beginning at the 27 March Nia Coffeehouse event Poems of Power, Words of Life at St. Alban Episcopal Church, 3555 Euclid Heights Blvd. in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.   

Click here to see video of John performing "Lens" at that event, accompanied by Vince Robinson and the Jazz Poets.

Lens is inkjet printed in black and red ink on white recycled paper.  Its cover uses "metallics" card stock by Wassau Paper: Sparkling Merlot on the outside b/w Black Knight on the inside. John drew the title and eye glyph with a red Sharpie.  He didn't print more copies because he couldn't find matching card stock.  But you can find a copy at Amazon for an exorbitant price.

In December 2012, "Lens" was republished as part of John's first full length poetry collection, The Eater of the Absurd, by NightBallet Press, who nominated it for a Pushcart Prize.