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Non-fiction, Poetry, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

the thousand marvels of every moment
a tanka collection
by pat nolan

Fall 2018, ISBN 9780984031078, 7×5 inches, 124 pages, $16

~The Gift Edition~

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(offer good through December 31, 2018)

 

Facing the thousand marvels

of every moment

nothing comes to mind

I pick up the broom

to collect my thoughts

 

Why “Gift” Edition?

As a gift the thousand marvels of every moment is ephemeral and accessible, as undemanding as a tweet yet profound and universal as a meme, not only clever and entertaining but thought provoking as well. At a sleek 7×5 inches, a little larger than a smart phone, it fits easily in the hand like an oversize postcard, but as a book it is ultimately “flippable,” meaning that it is as easy to browse as scrolling through social media.  Its resonant design with trompe l’oeil stitching and decorative endpapers bestows on the book-as-gift a complimentary esthetic that is painless, instant, and memorable—as gifts should be.  An extra incentive for earth conscious gift purchasing is that the text of the thousand marvels of every moment is printed on 100% PCW (post consumer waste) at a printing plant in Minnesota operating on wind power.  Get one for yourself, buy one for a friend.

 

On the phone

outside a butterfly settles

on a leaf

her voice light

shimmering on thin wings

 

Tanka is the modern name for a short poem known throughout the history of Japanese literature as a waka.  The short poems of the thousand marvels of every moment are composed of five lines.  The first stanza balances on the second, sometimes precariously, to pose a distinguishing match. The break between stanzas acts as a gap for synaptic sparks to jump. It also emphasizes its call and response origins serving as a binary exchange of verbal energy.  The two last lines in these poems tend to resolve them either as parallel breaths or as a single run-on semantic declaration.

 

The part of myself

I tend to deny leaks out

the tip of this pen

please say “I love you”

with a neon sign

 

Pat Nolan has long been an avid student of Asian culture, particularly Japanese and Chinese poetry. He published Poetry For Sale (2015), a selection of haikai no renga (Japanese linked verse) written with a number of poets including Maureen Owen, Keith Kumasen Abbott, Gloria Frym, Steven Lavoie, and Sandy Berrigan.  His Chinese themed poems were published as Exile In Paradise in 2017. The poems of the thousand marvels of every moment have appeared in a variety of poetry magazines as well as in collections of privately issued handmade limited editions of tanka that include Thin Wings (2004), Untouched By Rain (2005), and Carved In Stone (2013).  One notable exception is the beautifully realized Cloud Scatter (1994) in an exquisite letterpress edition of 160 copies from Jerry Reddan’s Tangram Press.  Nolan is also the author of two novels, an online serial fiction, and numerous poetry books.  So Much—Handwritten Typewriter—Selected Poems Volume I, 1969-1989, was published in the spring of 2018.

 

Seconds whiled away

or willed away all the same

original instance

desire’s rhetorical question

“how do I get more?”

 

 

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the thousand marvels of every moment
a tanka collection
by pat nolan

Fall 2018, 124 pages, $16

Order Now * Get Free Shipping
(offer good through December 31, 2018)

One In A Thousand

Tanka is the modern name for a short poem known throughout the history of Japanese literature as a waka. The pre-modern word, waka, finds its source in ancient oral tradition of call and response agricultural chants as well as those accompanying communal efforts in indigenous Japanese villages.  In its lineated form, the tanka consists of five lines.  In its non-lineated form, the tanka has the syllabic rhythm or pattern of 5-7-5-7-7. 

The courtly love culture of medieval Japan adapted the folk tradition as the exchange of verse between courtiers requiring a cap or response to bring the poem to a subtle esoteric often erotic resolution. Eventually the practice transformed into a unified singular verse, the waka, a poem of two minds as the literary affectation of one mind.

The short poems of the thousand marvels of every moment are composed of five lines.  They also take into consideration the 5-7-5-7-7 patterns as a phonetic rhythm although they do not necessarily conform to the syllabic count.  The succinct directness required of the form lends itself to this rhythm. The first stanza balances on the second, sometimes precariously, to pose a distinguishing match. The break between stanzas acts as a kind of caesura, a gap for synaptic sparks to jump.  It also emphasizes its call and response origins serving as a binary exchange of verbal energy.  The two last lines in these poems tend to resolve them either as parallel breaths or as a single run-on semantic declaration.  Sometimes they function as a pedestal for the preceding stanza, the bass line for its melodic pretext, sometimes as a bowl or receptacle to contain the original intent, or as a decorative garnish to the entrée (think California cuisine), and sometimes at its most basic, the response to the call.

I hesitate to name the poems in this collection tanka as that would presume the mastery of a complicated set of rules and conditions.  They do not observe many of the accepted tanka conventions although they do seek a synthesis and accommodation brought about by translation into a radically different language and culture.  The poems actually owe their method more to the intricate multi-voiced play of a related Japanese verse form, haikai no renga, also known as renku or linked verse.  That similarity is especially true in the relationship between stanzas or the rhythms of 5-7-5 -7-7.  There is, in fact, a term for a linked poem composed of only two stanzas, tanrenga.  As accurate as that may be I am uncomfortable with the label. Tanku, a word of my own devising, would seem to accommodate the Japanese nomenclature (haiku, hokku, renku) but still doesn’t fit my sense of the poems.  Ultimately I find myself preferring tanka as the logical and sentimental favorite of what this type of poem might be called. I do so well aware that the designation is a borrowed one.

(from the introduction to the thousand marvels of every moment)

 

from the thousand marvels of every moment

Fall, 2018, the thousand marvels of every moment

Non-fiction, Poetry, , , , , , , , , ,

the thousand marvels of every moment
a tanka collection
by pat nolan

Fall 2018, approx 100 pages, $16

Pre-orders now being accepted

 

Tanka is the modern name for a short poem known throughout the history of Japanese literature as a “waka.” The pre-modern word, “waka”, finds it source in the ancient oral tradition of call and response planting and harvesting songs as well as those accompanying communal efforts in indigenous Japanese villages.  In its lineated form, the tanka consists of five lines.  In its non-lineated form, the tanka has the syllabic rhythm or pattern of 5-7-5-7-7.  The short poems of the thousand marvels of every moment are composed of five lines.  They also take into consideration the rhythmic patterns of 5-7-5-7-7 although they do not necessarily conform to the syllabic count.  The poems in this collection also do not observe many of the accepted tanka conventions but seek a synthesis and accommodation brought about by translation into a radically different language and culture. 

from One In A Thousand

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So Much, Selected Poem, 1969-1989
“Descriptions of nature so translucent we can only marvel how he weaves us into them, onward, around that eternal share of misfortune, bitter realization, and expectations gone wrong. This is Nolan’s secret power.  He engages us in magical transformation and will not let us look away.”
—Maureen Owen, author of Erosion’s Pull and Edges of Water

 

Exile In Paradise
“Reading these poems, I feel like I’m walking down a village lane somewhere in China, beyond the reach of the emperor’s minions, and every door I walk by, someone invites me in for a cup of wine. At this rate, I don’t think I’ll ever make it out of here, and why should I?”
—Bill Porter (Red Pine), translator, author of Finding Them Gone: Visiting China’s Poets from the Past

 

Poetry For Sale
“Poetry For Sale is a fantastic collection.  Anyone interested in the interaction between Japanese and English poetry needs this book.  And anyone interested in renga should definitely get it.  It is an immensely pleasing collection: entertaining, surprising, sometimes sharp and witty, sometimes introspective, sometimes descriptive, the renga unfold with great skill and elegance.”
 —Jim Wilson,  author of Microcosmos, The Art Of The Solo Renga (Sebastopol, 2014)

 

Your Name Here
“The poems glow with insight and wit as they simply monitor the flow of a mind steeped in Chinese poetry, bebop, the Russian River, the beats, the birds, Heraclitus. . . .  [Nolan] in his own words, is an alphabet male.  And despite the breadth of his learning and thought, is always just talking from right here.  It’s a hell of a book.”
—Eric Johnson, poet and master printer at Iota Press

 

Hello Life
“Reading Gail King has always been one of my great poetry pleasures. Her inimitable voice narrates the world with humor and tenderness, a world of beauty and occasional sorrow. Her work has healing effects.”
—Andrei Codrescu, NPR commentator and author of So Recently Rent A World

 

 

The Last Resort
“Pat Nolan’s The Last Resort puts his gun in the right hands–a woman’s–with authority and harmful intent.  Get ready to hit the deck!”
—Barry Gifford, author of Imagining Paradise and Wild At Heart

 

 

On The Road To Las Cruces
“On the Road to Las Cruces takes us on a twilight journey through frontier history.  Nolan’s adroit and stylish prose intertwines death, betrayal, greed and conspiracy as each claims its victims.”
—Keith Abbott, author of Downstream From Trout Fishing In America

 

 

 

 

Handwritten Typewriter

Limited Editions, Modern Poetry, Non-fiction, Poetry, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

HANDWRITTEN TYPEWRITER

The title of this volume of Pat Nolan’s selected poems, So Much, references the seminal (and most divisive) poem of modern American poetry by William Carlos Williams about a red wheelbarrow, chickens, and rain. The poems in this selection were actualized and finalized beyond their handwritten originals on a typewriter hence the designation of this twenty year span from 1969 to 1989 as Handwritten Typewriter.  In memory of Ted Berrigan, adherent to Whitman’s maverick impulse and O’Hara’s Personism, under the guidance of Schuyler and Whalen, with a nod to early 20th Century French poets and the sages of the East, and esteem for Anselm Hollo and Alice Notley, Pat Nolan’s poems hit all the right post-Beat, California School of New York Poets, Pacific Rim demotic notational ephemerist notes.

“If I have any purpose as a poet it is to remove myself from the musty authority of an entrenched academic conservatism and approach the word in its current state of utter mutability.  The poems selected here are representative of an acquired esthetic sourced outside of the doctrinaire Anglo-American literary tradition.  They do not aim at rhetoric nor do they seek to persuade.  Their primary intent is to present the fine distinctions of a perceptual identity in a uniquely spontaneous improvisational manner to the ear as well as to the page.  Sound and sense, discordant or melodious, over meaning equals poetry. The poems are also particularly anti-social in the implication that the forward progress of culture increasingly encapsulates individuals in their private auras. As such there is a specificity to each of the poems unique to my sensibility and experience as a poet that is not necessarily universal and insists that an effort be made to cross over into an extraordinarily unexceptional reality. Their reliance on chance operation corresponds to their reliance on chance appreciation.” —from So Much More 1969-1989

 Praise for Pat Nolan’s poetry:

“Pat Nolan is one of the poets, Ted Berrigan once said, that you have to always keep an eye on because he can do unexpected startling things that leave you eating his dust.”
— Andrei Codrescu, author of  So Recently Rent A World: New and Selected Poems, 1968-2012.

“Descriptions of nature so translucent we can only marvel how he weaves us into them, onward, around that eternal share of misfortune, bitter realization, and expectations gone wrong. This is Nolan’s secret power.  He engages us in magical transformation and will not let us look away.”
— Maureen Owen, author of Erosion’s Pull and Edges of Water

“. . .reminded me of James Joyce in that brief moments can become long & engrossing & turn the page for you despite any wishes thoughts & warnings you may have about more . . . .” —Keith Kumasen Abbott, author of Downstream From Tour Fishing In America, A Memoir.

“Reading a book of Pat Nolan poems, I tell myself to breathe, to be mindful, because everything is here, from the Zen moment that never ends to the surreal architecture we live within.”  —Bart Schneider, author of Nameless Dame

Pat Nolan’s poems, prose, and translations have appeared in literary magazines and anthologies in the US and Canada as well as in Europe and Asia.  He is the author of over a dozen books of poetry and two novels.  He also maintains Parole, the blog for the New Black Bart Poetry Society, and is co-founder of Nualláin House, Publishers. 

 

Selected Poems Volume I
SO MUCH
Handwritten Typewriter
1969-1989

by Pat Nolan

April, 2018~176 pages~$16~paper~ISBN 9780984031061

order now and receive free shipping

(offer good through April, 2018)

See How To Order for details

 

So Much Handwritten Typewriter 1969-1989

Non-fiction, Poetry, , , , , , , , , ,

Spring 2018

from Nualláin House, Publishers

 “The truth of a poem is in its imperfection, the faults and fissures that only
the poet can admit and perhaps only the most careful of readers can value.” 

“Their reliance on chance operation is matched by
their reliance on chance appreciation”. 

“They do not aim at rhetoric nor do they seek to persuade.”  

“The poems are also particularly anti-social
in the implication that the forward progress of culture increasingly
encapsulates individuals in their private auras.” 

“Their primary intent is to present the fine distinctions of a perceptual
identity in a uniquely spontaneous improvisational
manner to the ear as well as to the page.”

“If I have any purpose as a poet it is to remove myself from the musty
authority of an entrenched academic conservatism and approach the word
in its current state of utter mutability.”

“For the poet, the poem on the page acts as a memory aid.
For the reader, it is an artifact.” 

From So Much More, 1969-1989

Selected Poems Volume I
SO MUCH
Handwritten Typewriter
1969-1989
by Pat Nolan

April, 2018~178 pages~$16~paper~ISBN 9780984031061

order now and receive free shipping
(offer good through mid-April, 2018)

See How To Order for details

 

 

 

 

So Much, Spring 2018

Non-fiction, Poetry, , , , , , , , , , ,

Coming spring 2018
from Nualláin House, Publishers

SO MUCH
by Pat Nolan
Selected Poems Volume I
Handwritten Typewriter
1969-1989

The title of this volume of Pat Nolan’s selected poems, So Much, references the seminal (and most divisive) poem of modern American poetry, “Spring & All, XXII” by William Carlos Williams about a red wheelbarrow, chickens, and rain.

The poems in this selection were actualized and finalized beyond their handwritten originals on a typewriter hence the designation of this twenty year span as Handwritten Typewriter. They are arranged in a somewhat chronological order by when they were published or approximately when they were written.

However as Nolan states in the preface to the selected poems:

“The subtitle of this selection, or any collection of my poems for that matter, should rightfully be Coffee and Its Attributed Effects.  At their most basic, my poems are a record of a profound addiction to the coffee bean.  A cup in the morning is akin to sacrament. Mr. Coffee or espresso machine occupy a special little kitchen altar nook.  A booster at midmorning and mid-afternoon reaffirms the impetus of the sacred brew.  The ceramic vessel like a sacred grail is the object in quest of a refill.  Where did I leave it last?  The perennial question.  Coffee and its cup often complete that moment of reflection on the divinity of being that can be put into words as poetry.”

 

Praise for Pat Nolan’s previous books of poetry

“Pat Nolan is one of the poets, Ted Berrigan once said, that you have to always keep an eye on because he can do unexpected startling things that leave you eating his dust.
— Andrei Codrescu, author of  So Recently Rent a World: New and Selected Poems, 1968-2012.

“Descriptions of nature so translucent we can only marvel how he weaves us into them, onward, around that eternal share of misfortune, bitter realization, and expectations gone wrong. This is Nolan’s secret power.  He engages us in magical transformation and will not let us look away.”
— Maureen Owen, author of Erosion’s Pull and Edges of Water

“. . .alive with details to coax our attention, urge our sensitivity to the present.   Little happens while everything happens. . .Poems arise from the mists. . .Only nature and the moment exist.”
—Robert Feuer, The Sonoma County Gazette 

“The poems glow with insight and wit as they simply monitor the flow of a mind steeped in Chinese poetry, bebop, the Russian River, the beats, the birds, Heraclitus. . . .”
—Eric Johnson, poet and print master at Iota Press 

“. . .reminded me of James Joyce in that brief moments can become long & engrossing & turn the page for you despite any wishes thoughts & warnings you may have about more . . . .”
—Keith Abbott, poet, professor emeritus, and author of Downstream From Tour Fishing In America, A Memoir.

Pat Nolan lives in Monte Rio along the Russian River.  His poems, prose, and translations have appeared in literary magazines and anthologies in the US and Canada as well as in Europe and Asia.  He is the author of over a dozen books of poetry and two novels.  He maintains the blog for the New Black Bart Poetry Society, and is co-founder of Nualláin House, Publishers.  His serial fiction, Ode To Sunset, is available for perusal at odetosunset.com.  He also edited a collection of haikai no renga entitled Poetry For Sale from Nualláin House, Publishers in 2015.  Exile In Paradise, a selection of Chinese derived poems, was published in the Fall of 2017.

Preorders are being accepted and as with all prepublication offers
come with free shipping.

nuallainhousepublishers(at)gmail(dot)com

 

Exile In Paradise just in time for the Chinese New Year

Limited Editions, Modern Poetry, Poetry, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Year of the Canine, 4715

Exile In Paradise “is alive with details to coax our attention, urge our sensitivity to the present.   Little happens while everything happens. . .Poems arise from the mists of west county. . .Only nature and the moment exist.”
—Robert Feuer,  Sonoma County Gazette
(read the entire review in the Sonoma County Gazette)

November, 2017~$16.00~paper~6×9~ISBN 978-0-9840310-5-4

The poems of Exile In Paradise are derived from a lifelong appreciation of classical Chinese poetry. This selection by Pat Nolan marks an almost fifty year creative engagement with Asian literature in translation. Chinese poetry is image rich and largely dependent for its overall effect on the juxtaposition of these images in a discontinuous thread that is not unlike the successive frames of a film. Each of the poems finds its origin in a line translated from an ancient Chinese poet. Although removed by degrees of separation from the originals in time and language, their impulse remains the same: to call up the perceptual as a song of celebration in sacred engagement with the world.

More Praise for Exile In Paradise

“Nolan has given Solitude, itself, a voice in this rich lyric of nature.  A luminosity of flickering bursts pause and magnify now moments of being alive.  His quotidian soaks us with its presence.  His lines trace the air.”
—Maureen Owen, author of Erosion’s Pull and Edges of Water

“Reading these poems, I feel like I’m walking down a village lane somewhere in China, beyond the reach of the emperor’s minions, and every door I walk by, someone invites me in for a cup of wine. At this rate, I don’t think I’ll ever make it out of here, and why should I?”
—Bill Porter (Red Pine), translator, author of Finding Them Gone: Visiting China’s Poets from the Past

Pat Nolan has lived in silent cunning exile along the Russian River in Northern California for over forty years.  His poetry, prose and translations have appeared in numerous literary magazines and anthologies in North America, Europe and Asia.  He has worked as a bartender, rock band manager, trail crew grunt, radio DJ, janitor, preschool teacher, and emergency dispatcher.  The author of three novels and over a dozen poetry books, he is also publisher of Nualláin House, Publishers and maintains the literary blog for The New Black Bart Poetry Society.

Exile In Paradise
November, 2017
$16.00~paper~100 pages~6×9~ISBN 978-0-9840310-5-4

is available exclusively from the publisher
(locally at Many Rivers Books & Tea
Sebastopol, CA)
Go to How To Order for details

Holiday Bargains

Art, Crime Fiction, Fiction, Linoleum Prints, Non-fiction, Poetry, Western, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Happy 2018

Now Available from

Nualláin House, Publishers

Purchase two or more titles
and get free shipping
anywhere in the US
(see How To Order for details)

Also available through our partnership with
Bamboo Leaf Studio
Linoleum Block Prints
from the Smoking Poets series

and the Faux Koan series by Pat Nolan

Order two or more prints
get free shipping
and receive a bonus broadside of
the limited edition
Dylan Thomas print accompanied by Pat Nolan’s
Advice To A Young Poet
Free!!

 

Exile In Paradise FREE SHIPPING

Poetry, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Praise for Exile In Paradise

“Nolan has given Solitude, itself, a voice in this rich lyric of nature.  A luminosity of flickering bursts pause and magnify now moments of being alive.  His quotidian soaks us with its presence.  His lines trace the air.”
—Maureen Owen, author of Erosion’s Pull and Edges of Water

“Reading these poems, I feel like I’m walking down a village lane somewhere in China, beyond the reach of the emperor’s minions, and every door I walk by, someone invites me in for a cup of wine. At this rate, I don’t think I’ll ever make it out of here, and why should I?”
—Bill Porter (Red Pine), translator, author of Finding Them Gone: Visiting China’s Poets from the Past

 

The poems of Exile In Paradise are derived from a lifelong appreciation of classical Chinese poetry. This selection by Pat Nolan marks an almost fifty year creative engagement with Asian literature in translation. Chinese poetry is image rich and largely dependent for its overall effect on the juxtaposition of these images in a discontinuous thread that is not unlike the successive frames of a film. Each of the poems finds its origin in a line translated from an ancient Chinese poet. Although removed by degrees of separation from the originals in time and language, their impulse remains the same: to call up the perceptual as a song of celebration in sacred engagement with the world.

Pat Nolan has lived in silent cunning exile along the Russian River in Northern California for over forty years.  His poetry, prose and translations have appeared in numerous literary magazines and anthologies in North America, Europe and Asia.  He has worked as a bartender, rock band manager, trail crew grunt, radio DJ, janitor, preschool teacher, and emergency dispatcher.  The author of three novels and over a dozen poetry books, he is also publisher of Nualláin House, Publishers and maintains this literary blog.

Failed in Letters Happy in Life

“Cherishing my ineptness I’m carefree to the end”
enjoying a little peace cup of herb tea cold
attentive to the sound of the eaves overflowing
after a rush of late winter rain passes through
where I have gone wrong fills many notebooks
file cabinets bulging with personal hyperbole
here mistake after mistake accumulates like dust
documents of my timeless imperfection

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~offer has been extended through November 15th, 2017~
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Exile In Paradise
November, 2017
$16.00~paper~100 pages~6×9~ISBN 978-0-9840310-5-4

is only available from the publisher
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