Tag Archives: Joanne Kyger

What is being said about Gail King

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

Gail King lives in a shed and has been getting away with murder for years.  This can be explained in part by quoting Hugh Kenner who said “American genius (in literature) cannot be distinguished by a casual glance from charlatanry. Purity of intention lies at the heart of American achievement.”  

Of her recent book of poems, Hello Life, Keith Kumasen Abbott, professor emeritus and author of numerous books of poetry, prose, and non-fiction, including Downstream from Trout Fishing In America, a Memoir, says “In Hello Life Gail King often uses sleight of hand as she guides readers into a scene, a mood, a spiral, then disappears while events continue for us alone. Her art is beguiling, comic, candid and a pleasure.” 

Maureen Owen, former artistic director for The Poetry Project in NYC and author of many books of poems, including Edges of Water and Erosion’s Pull, says “In Gail King’s poems the events of the day become transformative, the images of the temporary become immediate, and the mystery of being alive in the Now unfolds. “…time like a lake breeze” says the poet, and the wind rises.”

Gail King’s previous book of poems, Boxes & Chair (What Leaf Press, 2006) won the praise of Andrei Codrescu, poet, novelist, essayist and NPR commentator, author of So Recent Rent A World, who said “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.”

Joanne Kyger, author of more than twenty books of poetry and prose, including About Now: Collected Poems, and recipient of the 2008 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles National Literary Award for Poetry said of Boxes & Chairs “. . .a lovely lovely book. . .with direct beauty of what actually happens. [The poems] are all about SOMETHING, not just states of mind mired in ‘language’.”

Gail King, a Bay Area native, has lived in the Northern California town of Monte Rio for over 40 years. She has written poetry all her adult life and was the publisher of Doris Green Editions, a small literary press active in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s.  Boxes & Chairs, her third selection of poems, was published by What Leaf Press in 2006. Many of the poems featured in that selection are included in Hello Life.

 

 

HELLOLIFEj

December 2013  ~  $16.00  ~  64 pages ~ Paper  ~  ISBN 978-0-9840310-3-0

 now available from
Nualláin House, Publishers
Box 798 Monte Rio,California, 95462
(free shipping through December 31st, 2013)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Hello Life, Poems by Gail King

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

Coming in December!
New from Nualláin House, Publishers!!!
Order now and get free shipping!!
(offer good through December 31st, 2013)

HELLO LIFE

Poems by Gail King

The poems of Hello Life achieve their freshness in the particularity of experience. The poet surrenders herself to the moment and tenders that subtle cognition as a delighted welcome to life. The ease of her expression in dealing with the everyday communicates an uncommon wisdom. The poems present, through playful understatement and sly humor, the immediacy of spontaneous impressions.
  

SOME DAYSHELLOLIFEj

Some days
there is fog
that rolls
down the hills
and pours
like great waterfalls
off the land
to disappear into the sea
and you can drive
in and out of fog streams
and see a line in the air
where sunlight turns to shadow
behind hills

In Hello Life Gail King often uses sleight of hand as she guides readers into a scene, a mood, a spiral, then disappears while events continue for us alone. During Flood of 95 she directs our camera eyes through wreckage and despair − then fades away; and each reader is morphing through slippery endings. “ inside we walk on cardboard/ make ourselves tough to stand it/ months down the road our anger will/ burst upon us/ now the green is good and there are/  plum blossoms”  Her art is beguiling, comic, candid and a pleasure. −Keith Abbott, author of Downstream from Trout Fishing in America, A Memoir and The First Thing Coming

Gail King, a Bay Area native, has lived in the Northern California town of Monte Rio for over 40 years. She has written poetry all her adult life and was the publisher of Doris Green Editions, a small literary press active in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s.  Boxes & Chairs, her third selection of poems, was published by What Leaf Press in 2006. Many of the poems featured in that selection are included in Hello Life.

December 2013  ~  $16.00  ~  64 pages ~ Paper  ~  ISBN 978-0-9840310-3-0

Praise for Boxes & Chairs

“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 

“. . .a lovely lovely book. . .with direct beauty of what actually happens. [The poems] are all about SOMETHING, not just states of mind mired in ‘language’.”   − Joanne Kyger, poet, author of About Now, Collected Poems

To be the first on your block to get a copy of Hello Life click on How To Order on the menu line above


 

 

 

Limited Edition: Boxes & Chairs

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

Boxes & Chairs

By Gail King

BCFBoxes & Chairs was originally published in 2006 as a handmade limited gift edition of twenty five for family and friends. The covers were printed on heavy weight Reeves print stock with Japanese silkscreen end papers and binding strips. The book was bound in the traditional Japanese four-hole binding style. Illustrations accompanying the poems are reproductions of kuchi-e, woodblock prints that were used to illustrate short stories in Meiji era magazines and journals of late 19th Century Japan.

Subsequently an unlimited ‘people’s’ edition was issued with a plain cover but with the original text and illustrations intact.

People's Edition
People’s Edition

Gail King has been active in writing and publishing in the Russian River area since the mid 70’s. A Northern California native, she writes stories of growing up in the East Bay (Oakland/ San Leandro) as well as poetry focusing on the California landscape. She was the publisher of Doris Green Editions, a small literary press active in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s. Boxes & Chairs, published by What Leaf Press, is her second collection of poems. A more comprehensive selection of her poems is slated for publication by Nualláin House, Publishers, in the Fall of 2013 which will include the entirety of Boxes & Chairs.

Praise for Boxes & Chairs:

“Gail King’s poems celebrate the change and deep pleasures in tracking transformation. With a sinuous and penetrating wit King remembers her life via alarm, humor and love: a night ago the wind/ and rain let us in on a secret/ our forts are temporary/ no rest inside the box.”
— Keith Kumasen Abbott

“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. He work has healing effects.”
— Andrei Codrescu

“. . .a lovely lovely book. . .with direct beauty of what actually happens. [The poems] are all about SOMETHING, not just states of mind mired in ‘language’.”
— Joanne Kyger

Click to view a pdf facsimile of the limited gift edition of  Boxes & Chairs

Limited Edition: Ah Bolinas!

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

Ah Bolinas!
A Travel Journal

by Pat Nolan
    

In the late fall of 1984, Pat Nolan was invited by Joanne Kyger to read his poetry as part of a reading series held at the Bolinas Library.  Nolan later memorialized the event in a Japanese style travel diary(nikki) similar to those written by Basho on his various journeys to visit other poets and collaborate on linked verse (haikai no renga). It was originally published in Andrei Codrescu’s Exquisite Corpse in 2000 as To Bolinas And Back.  As published in  limited edition, the prose and poems in Ah Bolinas! are organized in a manner similar to those found in the Japanese form, haibun.  

In 2010 Not My Hat Press issued the travel journal now titled Ah Bolinas! in a limited edition of 26 signed copies, lettered A through Z and accompanied by four original linoleum block prints.  The covers are printed on a heavy weight mulberry washi with Japanese silk screen end papers and bound in the Japanese four hole style.  The blocks were carved by the author and printed with the generous assistance of master printer Les Ferriss of Healdsburg, CA.   4×5.63 (10.2×14.1 cm) 

To view a pdf facsimile, please click AH BOLINAS 2010