The Moon's Answer
by Lana Ayers
The Moon's Answer by Lana Ayers Illustrated by Anita K. Boyle Handmade, limited edition, numbered and signed by the author and illustrator. Soft and Hard Covers include yellow endpapers made by Anita K. Boyle. $30.00 —Soft Cover $75.00 —Hard Cover (2 copies available) This handmade book, published in 2016 , has 32-pages—with wrap-around outer cover and square spine— and is signed and numbered by the poet and the artist. Limited to 100 copies, the books are printed in three colors, and include moon-yellow endpapers, which were hand-dyed with buttercup, dandelion and creeping jenny flowers. Two of six hard covers are available for purchase on this website, also signed and numbered by poet and artist. The casebound hard cover books are constructed from two colors of handmade paper on the covers. For more information about this book, go to the Egress Studio blog. About the Author The poet and fiction writer Lana Ayers is an energetic supporter of other poets and their poetry. She has promoted poets and poetry through several publishing enterprises, including MoonPath Press, Concrete Wolf, World Enough Writers, and competitions. As an editor, teacher, and a leader worthy of emulation in our local and national literary communities, Lana has encouraged hundreds of emerging poets, and her example continues to sustain them beyond their many successes. Her other poetry publications include Four Quarters: An Homage To T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets (2017, Night Rain Press), A New Red (2010, Pecan Grove Press), and Dance From Within By Bones (2007, Snake Nation Press). See more Lana Ayers publications here.
Pocket Animals
by James Bertolino
Pocket Animals by James Bertolino $12.95 This volume contains 60 eight-line poems written by one of the Pacific Northwest’s favorite poets, James Bertolino, in celebration of his sixtieth birthday. The humor and imagery in the poems will stick with you while you're going about your daily routines. Egress Studio Press is proud to have published a second book by such a prolific, well-loved poet. It's surprising how many people will offer a poem of his as a favorite, whether it's hanging on the refrigerator or impressed into memory. About the Author James Bertolino's poetry has been appearing internationally in books, magazines and anthologies for over 40 years. His first book, Drool, was published in 1968, and his most recent appeared in 2014—46 years later. His poetry has been recognized by the Book-of-the-Month Club Poetry Fellowship, the Discovery Award, a Hart Crane publication award, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, two Quarterly Review of Literature book awards and other regional and national prizes. Twelve volumes and fourteen chapbooks of his poetry and prose have been published by such presses as Copper Canyon, Carnegie Mellon, New Rivers, Ithaca House and the Quarterly Review of Literature Award Series. Two of his out-of-print books, Precinct Kali & the Gertrude Spicer Story, and Making space for Our Living, have been reprinted by the Connecticut College Contemporary American Poetry Archive. Such magazines as Ploughshares, Poetry, Notre Dame Review, Indiana Review, Paris Review, Florida Quarterly, Beloit Poetry Journal, Raven Chronicles, StringTown and Crab Creek Review have printed his poems. Bertolino holds an MFA from Cornell University and has taught creative writing at Cornell, Washington State University, University of Cincinnati, Western Washington University, and Willamette University—where he retired from a position as Writer-in-Residence in 2006.
A Man, Ostensibly
by Bart Baxter
A Man, Ostensibly by Bart Baxter $12.95 A Man, Ostensibly, Bart Baxter's fifth volume of poetry, consists of sonnets, as well as two villanelles and a sestina. Baxter's poems are written in a casual voice, which offsets and enhances the consistent rhyme and meter of the sonnet form. The speaker in these poems questions the reasoning powers of the young; wonders about the meaning of family; and the value of one's own identity. These exceptional poems emerge from the mind of a man who reaches beyond self through the mundane act of living, knowing there may be no answers at all. About the Author Baxter is the author of four previous poetry collections: The Man with St. Vitus’ Dance (Floating Bridge Press, 2000), Sonnets from the Mare Imbrium (Floating Bridge Press, 1999), Peace for the Arsonist (Bacchæ Press, 1995), and Driving Wrong (Poetry Around Press, 1992). His work has appeared in many literary magazines, such as The Formalist, Poetry, The Ohio Review, Ergo, Seattle Review, Red Cedar Review, and The Raven Chronicles. He has taken first place at both the 1998 Seattle Poetry Grand Slam and the 1994 MTV Poetry Grand Slam. He was a member of the 1998 Seattle team that competed in the National Poetry Slam. History!He was featured at the Washington Distinguished Poets Series, Northwest BookFest Panel on Neo-Formalism and the Whidbey Island Writers Conference. Baxter’s literary awards include the 2002 and 1994 Seattle Arts Commission Grants; 1999 King County Arts Commission Grant; 1st Place 1999 Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Competition; 1997 William Stafford Award; 1996 Carlin Aden Award; 1994 Charles Proctor Award (Washington State); and the 1994 Hart Crane Award for poetry at Kent State University.
Fishing a Familiar Pond
by Sheila Sondik
Sheila Sondik accepted an international invitation to be one of only 85 poets who participated in the National 2013 Pulitzer-Remix. The poems are composed with random bits of text from Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Yearling. Her poems are an extended meditation on themes from the novel, including the loss of childhood innocence, our essential bond with the natural world, self-reliance, and the complexity of familial love. The 40 pages of this book contain stunning poems by artist and poet Sondik that are spare as haiku, and intricately layered with narrative, emotion, and the search for meaning. Fishing a Familiar Pond is a collection of 30 poems—printed, folded, trimmed and sewn by poets inside Egress Studio, Bellingham. About the Author Fascinated by the creative interplay of randomness and order, and influenced by Japanese and Chinese art, Sheila Sondik is an accomplished printmaker as well as a poet. Nine of the poems in the chapbook are tanka, a Japanese 5-line form. The covers and title pages reproduce two of Sondik's prints.
What Rain Does
by Ann Spiers
Ann Spiers' What Rain Does is a poetry collection that comprises several kinds of love—from romantic to old friends, to the youngest of babies, and more. These wonderful poems feature the essence of such love, alongside a strong sense of place that embraces each one. The pages of this chapbook were hand-folded, sewn, trimmed, and the cover scored and folded by the poets Anita K. Boyle and James Bertolino. Boyle designed the book, and illustrated the cover. The outer gray-blue cover stock wraps around a mossy green interior cover to create a book with a square spine. Perfect for shelving with your favorite volumes. The pages seem wet and green, a perfect complement to a Pacific Northwest poet's book. About the Author Ann Spiers’ poems are written as a form of sharing her love for family, as well as a concern for the environment. She is the Vashon Audubon program chair and worked as steward for the Vashon Land Trust’s properties. As field assistant on the Cascade volcanoes, Spiers became intimate with Mt. Rainier and pre- and post-eruptive Mt. St. Helens. She has hiked the beach from the Columbia River to Cape Flattery, does surveys of birds along salt-water shorelines, joins in the annual litter pickup on the Pacific coast, and chases gray whales from Scammon’s Lagoon off Baja to her grandfather’s former whaling ground off Washington State. Spiers leads creative writing seminars in many venues. She graduated from the University of Washington with a Masters in Creative Writing and Literature. I hear she has volcanic fire in her heart and sea salt in her blood, so it’s a good thing she lives on Vashon Island.
Her Story of Fire
by Richard Widerkehr
Her Story of Fire by Richard Widerkehr $18.00 The poetry you'll read in Her Story of Fire evokes a family where one member’s mental disorder continually tears at the fabric of relationships. Poet Richard Widerkehr describes how a family continually undertakes the task of rebuilding a life gone ragged—through steady determination and staunch loyalty—despite the apparent lack of gratitude or acceptance. The poems go beyond the truth and into the soul: the redemptive moments sizzle and spark. This is an important book. The pages of this book were hand-folded, sewn, trimmed, and the cover scored and folded by the poets Anita K. Boyle and James Bertolino. Boyle designed the book, and illustrated the cover. The outer deep red cover stock wraps around a dark gray interior cover to create a mood for this square-spined book. You'll be reading the poems on somber, blue butcher paper, and may decide to keep this collection shelved among your special volumes. About the Author Richard Widerkehr won two Hopwood Awards for poetry at the University of Michigan, where he earned his B.A. in English. He received his M.A. from Columbia University, which he attended on a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship. Plain View Press published Widerkehr's The Way Home (2011), a book-length collection of poems. Pudding House Publications published his chapbook, Mountain (2007) and Radiolarian Press published Disappearances (1996, reprinted in 2003). Widerkehr lives near Bellingham, Washington, where he has been a teacher in the Upward Bound Program, a case manager at a mental health clinic, and a counselor on the mental health unit of the local hospital.
26 Poems from Snail River
by James Bertolino
26 Poems from Snail River by James Bertolino Out of Print 26 Poems From Snail River is a selection from the best of the 1995 Quarterly Review of Literature award-winning Snail River. Bertolino is one of two poets to have won this international competition twice. Bertolino’s lyrical style is refreshing and astonishing. His identification with nature is documented in these poems with a reverence and succinctness only found in those who truly honor the earth. Since this book is sold out, check your local used book store for a copy, or try Googling. It's a beautiful book with great Bertolino poems. About the Author James Bertolino is an award-winning poet, a fine mentor, and continues to write surprisingly witty, smart poems.
The Art of Departure
by Susan Erickson
The Art of Departure by Susan J. Erickson $10.00 Susan J. Erickson’s poems respond to nature of the Pacific Northwest, the process of loss, and the irreverent humor of everyday life. Erickson is a serious poet whose poems will delight you with their brilliant, twisty turns. The Art of Departure is Erickson’s first volume of poetry. About the Author Erickson grew up in the Midwest where she attended the University of Minnesota to earn a B.S. and M.S. Her work has appeared recently in Crab Creek Review, Raven Chronicles, Switched-on-Gutenberg, Knockout Literary Review and Floating Bridge Review.
For David Ossman's book, I created a series of six linoleum block prints on paper I made from cotton rug yarn. Each of the artworks has a connection in some way to the poems. This one, "Morning Coffee," refers to the poet's habit of writing with a cup of coffee in hand every morning.
For Lana Ayers' book, I wanted to honor the poem she wrote with a visual response. This book is filled with one poem, and has double-page nib pen illustrations that fit together like a story from front to back. There's also handmade paper dyed yellow with Creeping Jenny and Dandelion flowers.