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)
In May 2020, Crisis Chronicles Press is thrilled to release a new revised edition of Kari Gunter-Seymour's acclaimed poetry book, Serving.
"After decades of war, many of us don't know any who have served or their families. Gunter-Seymour gives an emotionally honest portrayal of what service and sacrifice look like for military families. A sense of home, of place, offer context for what we protect and why. A book of heartbreak, but most of all, love." —Review in Pudding Magazine: The Journal of Applied Poetry by Editor/Publisher, Connie Willett Everett.
"The poems in Kari Gunter-Seymour's Serving are so tender, reading them hurts, but it's a sweet ache, the kind worth enduring. The collection begins with the speaker's memory of her son as a young boy, in 'Oshkosh bibs and tiny / red tennis shoes,' but in the next poem, he is a young adult, deploying with his 'tactical gear' and 'newly shaved head. Why isn't this juxtaposition jarring? Because that fierce, abiding love is a kind of umbilicus between a mother and her child, regardless of age or distance. The poems in Serving are so much about place, about home, whether Appalachia or Kandahar. As Gunter-Seymour shows us, poem after masterful poem, serving is not only about sacrifice, what those in the military do for our country. Serving is also what we do for one another, for the people we call home, no matter where they are." —Maggie Smith, Author of Good Bones (Tupelo Press).
"Kari Gunter-Seymour's Serving is a heartbreaking and honest portrayal of the life of a war veteran's mother. Gunter-Seymour juxtaposes the horrors of combat with perfectly rendered images of childhood, domesticity, and home, allowing the reader to experience a perspective we don't often hear about. This collection is eye-opening, unapologetic, unforgettable, and absolutely necessary." —Logen Cure, Juror, 2016 Yellow Chair Review Chapbook Contest and author of Letters to Petrarch (Unicorn Press).
Serving was the 2016 Yellow Chair Review Chapbook Contest runner up and nominated in 2018 for an Ohioana Book Award. It is perfect bound, 6x9", and features 17 poems on 26 pages [the updated 2020 edition features 19 poems]. Cover design by Kari Gunter-Seymour. Available for $7 from Crisis Chronicles Press, 535 Parkside Boulevard, Cleveland, Ohio 44143 USA.
Revised edition with additional poems (7 May 2020): ISBN 978-1-64092-949-4.
First edition (released 26 March 2018): ISBN 978-1-940996-48-6.
Three times a Pushcart Prize nominee, Kari Gunter-Seymour blames her method of writing on the rich Appalachian Ohio soil, her wildly eclectic family, her neighbors and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. She holds a B.F.A. in graphic design and an M.A. in commercial photography and is an instructor in the School of Journalism at Ohio University. She has served as the Poet Laureate for Athens, Ohio, and in 2020 was named Poet Laureate for the State of Ohio. Her poems can be found in numerous literary journals, Rattle, Crab Orchard Review, The American Journal of Poetry, The Los Angeles Times and on her website at www.karigunterseymourpoet.com.
Kari is the founder/curator of the Women of Appalachia Project, an arts organization she created to address discrimination directed at women from the Appalachian region.
In 2018 I plan to publish twelve books by writers/artists whose work I have long admired. Many of these have been in the works for quite some time, and I am looking forward to finally midwifing them into print. All of them will be perfect bound. Some do not yet have finalized titles, but here are the dozen in no particular order:
Serving, poems by Kari Gunter-Seymour
Awaiting Time, poems by Helen Shepard
Malformed Confetti, poems by Juliet Cook
not yet titled, poems by Christopher Franke
Where Never Was Already Is, poems and collages by Steven B. Smith
Ode to Horatio and Other Saviors, poems and photos by Carolyn Srygley-Moore
Drinking from What I Once Wore, poems by Chris Stroffolino
ouroboros, poems by Chansonette Buck and art by Jillian Mardin
Before the Next Ice Age, poems by Lisa J. Cihlar
Citizen of Metropolis, poems by Christine Howey
not yet titled, poems by Julie Ursem Marchand
a super surprise book to be announced later
Order all twelve in advance for $100, which will (1) save you $20 off the projected retail price, (2) get you an immediate bonus shipment of three recently published [2017] Crisis Chronicles Press publications, and (3) get you free shipping on all of the above. Fifteen fabulous books in all!
Click the Buy Now button or send a check for $100 to Crisis Chronicles Press, 3431 George Avenue, Parma, Ohio 44134 USA. Please add $25 if you're ordering from outside the United States.
