When You Don't Know Who You Are - by Alinda Dickinson Wasner (CC#80)

Crisis Chronicles Press is very happy to announce the publication of When You Don't Know Who You Are, a stunning new cycle of poems by Alinda Dickinson Wasner.

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"Alinda Wasner has long been known as one of Detroit's finest poets, and this stunning, stark and deeply felt collection shows us why. Readers can see an experienced poet at work with her craft exploring the very essence of her own being and her own unique past. The poems in When You Don't Know Who You Are are filled with brilliant poetic sensibilities that will allow readers to grasp the poet's painful memories as she faces the buried ghosts of her past. Ms. Wasner's poetry allows us to feel, question and consider our own reality and who we really are. Through this poetic journey, we see our own journey as we 'swim into someone else's dreams.'"
          —M.L. Liebler, author of I Want to Be Once.

"In When You Don't Know Who You Are, Alinda Wasner takes on questions of identity and the meaning of family. These poems glow with clarity and a willingness to use imagination to uncover the truth. In "Faith," the narrator questions the Bible, the adoption story she's been told, and the myths of loss. In the title poem, Wasner shows the adopted adult as she experiments with alternative identities.  Every casual contact wants to know her ethnicity, and it's painful because she doesn't know the answer. Yet the narrator has to admit not being tied to a single story leaves room to 'make things up.' It's this longing to know the truth and also to find 'a God / who can take two halves of a baby / and put them together again' that gives these poems their strength and makes reading them a pleasure."
          —Dawn McDuffie, author of Bulky pick Up Day and Flag Day in Detroit

When You Don't Know Who You Are is 66 pages, paperback, ISBN 978-1-940996-32-5, and available 17 March 2016 from Crisis Chronicles Press, 535 Parkside Boulevard, Cleveland, Ohio 44143 USA.

Alinda Dickinson Wasner’s work has appeared in 40 small press print and online journals. She has won many literary prizes including several Tompkins Awards, a Wittenberg University Writer’s Award, an Atlanta Review Prize, a Mr. Cogito Press Award, a Chicago Poetry Center juried prize, MacGuffin prize, Metro Times award, the Judith Siegal Pearson prize, and a Prague Writer’s fellowship, among others, and in 2012 received 2nd place in Ireland’s International Poetry Prize. She was also nominated for the 2011 Best of the Net Award.

Her collection, Still Burning [2015], is available from Ex Libris, Amazon, and B&N. Listed in Poets and Writers, Wasner lives and writes in Beverly Hills, Michigan.

Red Hibiscus - by Heather Ann Schmidt (CC#36)

Cover art by Heather Ann Schmidt

Spring comes early at Crisis Chronicles Press as Heather Ann Schmidt's long awaited Red Hibiscus blossoms into print on New Year's Day 2013!  Red Hibiscus is 26 pages, handbound with care, 8.5 x 5.5", inkjet printed, featuring a saddle stapled pale coral card stock cover with deep grape endpapers and white pages.  Contents include "Song for Lilith," "Ode to a Pablo Neruda Nude," "Ghazal of the Night," "Neorealism on the Streets of Birmingham," "Duende in a Black Dress," "Ganymede ," "French Quarter Tryst" and much more.  Around 70 copies in print.  Available for $7 from Crisis Chronicles Press, 535 Parkside Boulevard, Cleveland, Ohio 44143 USA.

Click here to read "Ganymede" from Red Hibiscus in Pirene's Fountain.
Click here to read "French Quarter Tryst" from Red Hibiscus in the Crisis Chronicles.
Click here to see ratings of Red Hibiscus at Goodreads.

Heather Ann Schmidt received her MFA from National University and has taught writing for a number of higher learning institutions.  A fine singer and visual artist, she also edits the tinfoildresses poetry journal and is the founding editor of Recycled Karma Press.  Her previous books include Batik (NightBallet Press, 2012), Transient Angels (Crisis Chronicles 2011), On Recalling Life Through the Eye of the Needle (Village Green, 2011), Channeling Isadora Duncan (Gold Wake, 2009) and The Bat's Love Song: American Haiku (Crisis Chronicles, 2009).

Photograph - by Jackie Koch (CC#35)

cover image ©2012 by Mark Hutchinson

Hear ye! See ye! Crisis Chronicles Press releases Jackie Koch's new poetry chapbook on 26 November 2012! Her Photograph is 24 pages, hand assembled, 8.5 x 5.5", inkjet printed, saddle saddle staple bound with white cover stock, mauve endpapers and white pages. Contents include "Red Hot July," "Phantasmagoria," "Home Spun," "Dragonfly," "Frostbite Occurs in 15 Minutes or Less" and much, much more.  Around 80 copies in print. Photograph is now available for $7 from Crisis Chronicles Press, 3431 George Avenue, Parma, Ohio 44143 USA. This chapbook is currently sold out.

Click here to read a selection from Photograph in the Crisis Chronicles.
Click here to see ratings of Photograph at Goodreads.

 

 

 

 

author photo ©2012 by Frances Ross

Poet's bio (as of 2012, from the chapbook):

Jackie Koch grew up in southern Michigan, climbing trees and exploring the outdoors. The family camping trips in her home state, in Canada, and across the United States solidified her love for the Earth, which is reflected in her writing. She has lived in North Carolina and central Ohio, and has come back to Michigan and her roots. A columnist and freelance writer since 1999, she began writing poetry in earnest in the summer of 2010, when she volunteered to help a friend run a slam poetry workshop at an art festival. She now hosts monthly open mic events in her hometown and encourages other poets. Jackie has won awards for her short stories, which have appeared online, and her poem, "Shhhh..." was part of the anthology Vending Machine: Poetry for Change, Volume Two. She lives in Adrian, Michigan, with one of her two sons and both of her two dogs.

Transient Angels - by Heather Ann Schmidt (CC#9)

Published on 1 May 2011, Transient Angels by Heather Ann Schmidt is Crisis Chronicles' first perfect bound book (I've home-printed and handbound all of our previous titles).  Highlights include "Mermaids in a Band-Aid Box," "On Contemplating My Mother's Passing," "Simone de Beauvoir's Letters" and "Collecting Enlightenment in a Paper Cup."  Transient Angels features 33 poems on 38 pages.  9" x 6".  Approximately 60 copies in print.  Cover art by Heather Ann Schmidt, design by editor John Burroughs.  Available for $9.99 from Crisis Chronicles Press, 535 Parkside Boulevard, Ohio 44143 USA.

Also available as an e-book for $5 if you click here.

 

Nuns 
[from Transient Angels]

At seven
all I knew about nuns
was Katie said they were
married to God.
I saw them when
we went to her parish in the summer
and sang songs and took the holy sacraments.

I never thought about them again
until I was nine and my mother
shared a room with Sister Josephine
at the sanitarium.
She sent notes on stationery
that had the scent of her powder
on the paper.
I carried them, deep
creased, in my pocket.

I remember
how she tried to give me her things
and she seemed so sleepy,
the empty bottle of phenobarbital.
The paramedics and my aunt
raised their voices
for her to open the door
and the door opened,
her lifeless body face down.

I went from house to house,
a chain of paper dolls.

I wondered sometimes if I married God too...

She laid in bed for 32 days
waiting for angels to take her away
in the white sun dress she wore
when my father peeled her arms
off his chest.
Hysteria flooding,
hammers falling all over her body.

Maybe I should have been more conscious that day.

The sky had a cutout
in the shape of where she stood.
I walked through that colorless hole
to find her.

Closed window. Closed heart.

I remember when she came back,
the month John Lennon was killed.
I looked out my bedroom window
down at the slush on the street.

* * *
Heather Ann Schmidt received her MFA from National University and has taught writing for a number of higher learning institutions.  A fine singer and visual artist, she also edits the tinfoildresses poetry journal and is the founding editor of Recycled Karma Press.  Her other books include Chagall's Cat (Poehemian Press, 2014), Red Hibiscus (Crisis Chronicles 2013), Batik (NightBallet, 2012), On Recalling Life Through the Eye of the Needle (Village Green, 2011), Channeling Isadora Duncan (Gold Wake, 2009) and The Bat's Love Song: American Haiku (Crisis Chronicles, 2009).

The Bat's Love Song: American Haiku - by Heather Ann Schmidt (CC#6)

The Bat's Love Song: American Haiku by Heather Ann Schmidt was published by Crisis Chronicles Press on 1 December 2009.

     Selections:

     March 20

     Three golden finches
     sing in the white birch trees:
     pieces of sunshine.


     June 25

     Rain on my roof:
     tears of a goddess leaving the
     world heavier now.
 

The Bat's Love Song: American Haiku is available for $5 from Crisis Chronicles Press, 535 Parkside Boulevard, Ohio 44143 USA.  You may also order securely through PayPal:
 

The Bat's Love Song: American Haiku consists of 43 poems on 16 pages.  Injket printed on lavender paper and saddle staple bound using pale gray cover stock.  Cover art also by Heather Ann Schmidt.  Approximately 110 copies in print.

Click here to see reviews of The Bat's Love Song at Goodreads.
Click here to see a clip of Heather Ann Schmidt reading her poetry, including selections from The Bat's Love Song, during the Lix and Kix Poetry Extravaganza in Lakewood, Ohio.

Poet's biography (as of 2009, from the chapbook):
 
"Heather Ann Schmidt is an adjunct professor at Oakland Community College in Michigan. She edits tinfoildresses poetry journal. Her poems can be found in various online and print journals. Her other books include Channeling Isadora Duncan (Gold Wake Press, 2009), The Owl & the Muse: Collected Tanka (recycled karma press, 2009) and a full collection of poems forthcoming from Village Green Press.  She received her MFA from National University."

Crisis Chronicles subsequently published (or will publish) three more collections of Heather's poems: Transient Angels (2012), Red Hibiscus (2013) and Field Notes (forthcoming, 2014).