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. 

Our Submissions Page and Publication Schedule Have Been Updated

From now through 20 April 2015. we are accepting submissions to the 2015 Hessler Street Fair Poetry Anthology. Other than that, we have a full publication schedule through at least the end of the year and are therefore closed to other submissions until December 2015.

Bookmobile: From the Library of Jesus Crisis - by David S. Pointer (CC#67)

Crisis Chronicles Press is pleased to present Bookmobile: From the Library of Jesus Crisis, a new chapbook by Tennessee poet David S. Pointer, published on 23 March 2015.

Bookmobile is 28 pages featuring 19 poems including "Skin Tale," "Carefree Customers," "Numbness of the Unknown Numbers," "America’s Coldest Case," "Cagefighter," "Printers Alley Elder" and more.  It is now available for $7 from Crisis Chronicles, 535 Parkside Boulevard, Cleveland, Ohio 44143 USA. This chapbook is currently sold out.

Handbound, saddle stitched. Pale cyan cardstock cover featuring art by Justin Jackley. Golden pastel endpapers. 8.5" x 5.5". ISBN: 978-1-940996-18-9

Click here to read an interview with the author at Ppigpen.

David S. Pointer grew up in Kansas City and Clinton, Missouri. He has recent work in Bukowski: An Anthology of Poetry & Prose About Charles Bukowski [Silver Birch Press], as well as in volumes V and VI of The Southern Poetry Anthology series. His latest chapbook, Bookmobile, was published in 2015 by Crisis Chronicles Press.  He currently resides in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, with his two daughters.  Read more about him here.

Thunderclap Amen - by Dianne Borsenik (CC#66)

cover photo by Steven B. Smith

Crisis Chronicles Press is thrilled to announce the publication of Thunderclap Amen by Dianne Borsenik on 11 March 2015. The third release in our NineSense series of loaded nine poem chapbooks by authors whose work you need to know, Thunderclap Amen features 24 pages of fiery work that challenges even the coldest February on record in northern Ohio. As you would expect, Borsenik's blazing poetic tongue triumphs.

Get your Thunderclap Amen for only $6.99 from Crisis Chronicles Press, 535 Parkside Boulevard, Cleveland, Ohio 44143 USA.

8.5 x 5.5", hand bound and saddle stapled. Textured cream card stock cover. Caramel construction endpapers. Ivory parchment pages laser printed recto side only. Poems include "Mother Tongue," "Karma Café," "Let's Get It On," "Polar Vortex," "Happy Hour," "'S No More," "Transcending Gender," "Around the Block" and "Cue Brick, or How I Learned to Stop Loving the Bomb and Start Worrying."

Print run: 99 copies.  ISBN: 978-1-940996-17-2.
 

Dianne Borsenik ablaze during Words Dance at Mahall's
photo by John Burroughs

Dianne Borsenik is active in the Cleveland, OH poetry scene and regional reading circuit.  Her work has been widely published in journals and anthologies, including Rosebud, Slipstream, Lilliput Review, Pudding Magazine, and Modern Haiku. She won first place in both the 2013 and 2014 Best Cleveland Poem Competitions.  As editor of NightBallet Press, she has published over 70 books for poets across the US.  Borsenik lives in Elyria with her husband James and dogsons Angelo and Bodhisattava. 

The author will give her debut reading/performance from Thunderclap Amen on 7 April 2015 at 6:30 p.m. during Words & Wine at Your Vine or Mine in Painesville, Ohio.
 

Cutting the Möbius - by Jonathan Thorn (CC#65)

cover photo by Chandra Alderman

Crisis Chronicles Press is happy to announce the publication of Jonathan Thorn's Cutting the Möbius on 1 March 2015.  It is the second release in our NineSense series of loaded nine poem chapbooks by authors whose work you should know, if you don't already.

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Available for only $4.99 from Crisis Chronicles Press, 535 Parkside Boulevard, Cleveland, Ohio 44134 USA.

Cutting the Möbius is 8.5 x 5.5", hand bound and saddle stapled. Textured cream card stock cover. Red card stock endpapers. Poems include "Cutting the Möbius," "Blind Eyes," "The Light Between Us," "Biological Binary," "Drawing Eyes," "Phone Calls," "Forgotten," "Night Sky’s Visitors" and "Bullets."

Print run: 99 copies.  ISBN: 978-1-940996-16-5.

About Jonathan Thorn: "I’m a stay at home dad, working only a few hours a week at a grocery store, and live in Columbus, Ohio, with my wife and four children. I have always loved writing. Poetry is for me an outlet that allows me express the way I see things, a medium to clarify my world to the world."  His previous publications include work in The Squire: Page-a-Day Poetry Anthology 2015 [Writing Knights] and Vending Machine: Poetry for Change, Volume 5 [The Poet's Haven].

Meet the author 24 April 2015, 7 p.m., at Buzzbin Art & Music Shop in Canton, Ohio, when he will be a featured poet for Stark Knights.

Poems for Explosion - by John G. Hall (CC#58)

We are thrilled to announce the long-awaited publication of John G. Hall's Poems for Explosion in February 2015.  This book features 60 pages of Hall's best poems, illlustrated by Becky Mackay, and is available for a mere $10 US from Crisis Chronicles Press, 535 Parkside Boulevard, Cleveland, Ohio 44143 USA.

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Jack Hirschman says of Poems for Explosion, "These are 'letter rip' poems by a very conscious British poet who is forever breaking the chokehold that Willie Shakespeare has bent around the neck of that island. Hall really wants to include everything and everybody - he unloads personal and political contradictions with an organized spontaneity that is refreshing and millennial, and his urgencies are upbeat and rooted in a totalizing expressivity."

Gerry Potter says, "Powerhouse tenderness and lyrical agility bind together John's remarkable use of language to give work of lasting worth and historical accuracy. John G. Hall is poet first and foremost and a 20th-21st century documenter second to none. In a world of increasing unfairness we need work of this richness and colour to keep us sane."

Foreword by Sue Fox. Cover image by Charlotte Henson. 6x9" paperback.  Edited by John Burroughs.  ISBN: 9781940996141.

To read "Poetry of protest: why Manchester's John G. Hall strikes a chord across the Atlantic" by Judy Gordon, click here.

To order Poems for Explosion from CreateSpace, click here.
To rate on Goodreads, click here.

You may also buy from Amazon.com and Amazon UK.

John G. Hall is a Manchester (UK) poet who has served as the editor of Citizen32 and the host of Beatification. His previous books include The Drowning Fish, Bang! and Spleen. 

Attend the official book release of Poems for Explosion and meet John G. Hall on 8 April 2015 at the Sandbar, 120 Grovenor Street, Manchester, United Kingdom.