Arroyo Chamisa: Poems Rescued from a Blog - by Alex Gildzen (CC#116)

Crisis Chronicles Press is thrilled to announce the publication of Alex Gildzen's latest collection, Arroyo Chamisa: poems rescued from a blog, on March 4th 2022.

Arroyo Chamisa is 76 pages, perfect bound, 6x6". ISBN: 978-1-64092-954-8. Front cover photo by the author. Available now for only $10 from Crisis Chronicles Press, 535 Parkside Boulevard, Cleveland, Ohio 44143 USA.

 

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"Alex Gildzen was one of the first poets' blogs i found & read with great appreciation & gusto.  here was a poet with a gift for vernacular, a wit to match his cinematic range, & an obsession with movies that played upon my own heart.  i've long been a great admirer of Alex ever since those giddy early days of blogging when social media held the promise of uniting poets & creating a community of writers who, in their own unique ways, were dedicated to making & living a life in poetry.  Alex Gildzen is a poet with a life well-lived in poetry & at the movies.  his poems frequent the daily ordinary hard tasks of being a human being in our digital age, along with the practical importance of friendships, art making, family, technology, & the greats of Hollywood past & present.   Alex Gildzen is one of my very favorite poets & human beings.  as he says in a poem, 'go to the movies / you're alive.'"
     —Richard Lopez, co-editor of the anthology The End of the World Project

"Alex Gildzen is a master of his craft, unearthing beauty from the ordinary and celebrity from the common. Nowhere is this more evident than in Arroyo Chamisa: poems rescued from a blog. From the dark atomic whimsy of “swim thru the sea of night little swimmer” to the pure joy of living well in “I call the 3 palms / beside the pool / the Andrews Sisters,” Gildzen’s poetry grooves with the universal and vibrates with the intensely personal. This is an expedition you won’t want to miss."
     —Dianne Borsenik, author of Raga for What Comes Next and Publisher/Editor, NightBallet Press

Alex Gildzen saw his first poem in print 60 years ago. The first of many chapbooks followed in 1969. His poems have been published in Canada, England, France, Germany, Greece and Australia. He has given readings at Bowery Poetry Club, Palm Springs Art Museum, Bisbee Poetry Festival, Captain Brady in Kent, Fort Mason in San Francisco, Center for Contemporary Arts in Santa Fe, Antebellum Gallery in Hollywood and a plethora of bars. Currently Gildzen lives in Palm Springs where he has been called the city’s “unofficial poet laureate.” A piece of his is featured on the Poet’s Bench in the uptown design district.

His previous Crisis Chronicles Press titles include Ohio Triangle and Alex in Movieland (1943-1973).

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

Alex in Movieland (1943-1973) - by Alex Gildzen (CC#111)

[April 2023 update: To celebrate Alex's 80th birthday this month,
Alex in Movieland is now in its second printing!]

Crisis Chronicles Press was honored and ecstatic to celebrate Valentine's Day 2020 with the publication of Alex in Movieland (1943-1973), a major work by one of our favorite writers and artists, Alex Gildzen.

Alex in Movieland is a monumental work defying easy categorization. It is memoir, list, poetry, history and more, all in one, reading like a movie of the author's life in book form, replete with juicy detail. This new volume is 150 pages, perfect bound, 5.5 x 8.5". ISBN: 978-1-64092-947-0. Front cover art by the author. Available now for only $12 from Crisis Chronicles Press, 535 Parkside Boulevard, Cleveland, Ohio 44143 USA.

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Click here to read a 2009 Otoliths interview with Gildzen wherein he talks about the origins and evolution of Alex in Movieland, which he began writing in 1996 and is still writing. Our new Crisis Chronicles volume is the first time the entire first thirty years of it have appeared in print. 

Alex Gildzen lives in Palm Springs where he writes every day. In the past year his poems have appeared in the anthologies "Love Jets" and "The End of the World Project." He also makes art — from collages to conceptual pieces such as "The Century Dimes" and "Box of Little Bags." In addition he's become a model — with and without clothes — for artists and photographers.

The End is Coming

This has been on my mind for several months, and off and on for longer than that, but I've kept waffling and putting off the announcement because I wasn't sure, and I wanted to keep my options open (including the option of changing my mind) and I didn't want to dampen enthusiasm for our forthcoming books or upcoming events. But I am shutting down Crisis Chronicles Press (or at least placing it on hiatus) at the end of this year or after we have fulfilled our current publishing commitments, whichever comes first. We still have a lot of work to do, as we will be publishing ten excellent new books in the near future, participating in a ton of book fairs and other events, and keeping most of our catalog in print indefinitely. When it's done, I may still work part time in publishing, or reserve the right to do a random unanticipated Crisis Chronicles Press project here or there. But life is short and there are many more things I want to do, including focusing more on my own writing and perhaps completing my memoir and not spending every moment thinking about all the things I have to do or catch up on with seemingly no end ever in sight. I am super grateful for all the interest and support the press and I have received over the past eleven years. And what an honor and privilege it is for me to have worked with (and continue to work with) some of the best writers in the country (and several from other countries) and many from right here in Ohio. You're gonna love the new books we have coming out by Nicole Hennessy, Carolyn Srygley-Moore, Chansonette Buck (with Jillian Mardin), Alex Gildzen, Lisa Cihlar, Nick Gardner, Julie Marchand, Kent Taylor, Christopher Franke, D.R. Wagner.... And there may be a surprise tossed in as well. I love you all.

John Burroughs
Founding Editor

[For an October 2019 UPDATE, please click here.]

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

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.

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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.