A classic work of American fiction and a masterpiece of eccentric detail.Praised by John Ashbery as evoking âa rococo world of banality and nightmare which . . . comes in the end to seem like paradise.â The Orchid Stories presents us with interwoven stories as delicate and exquisite as the flowers for which theyâre named, conveying an almost otherworldly beauty. Images, moods, and characters recur with the clarity of a dream: Phil, the little boy gigolo; Mummers and Mummy, who âadoptâ him; the alluring Diana Vienna; and the eccentric Dr. Schmidlapp, who plans to capture the rare âNative Innardsâ orchid precisely at the stroke of midnight.

The orchid stories

Literature & Fiction

Elmslie, Kenward

Literary

DOUBLEDAY

Review\n"An intimate, touching portrait of a friendship, one bound by a love of literature."--Publishers Weekly\n"This book, the correspondence of two good writers and close friends, presents completely new material written very well and at the same time in a comfortable and natural style. The letters are personal, warm, witty, imaginative, detailed, sometimes lyrical, and, most compellingly, written with frankness, honesty, and good humor. Here, we can look 'behind' their art and witness what goes on in their day-to-day lives, how they experience moments of joy or well-being, how they suffer and try to laugh off their suffering. Above all, the compelling pleasure of the book is the opportunity to spend personal, intimate time in the company of these lively, intelligent, compassionate, and mutually loving people."--Lydia Davis, author of Essays One and Essays Two: On Proust, Translation, Foreign Languages, and The City of Arles\n"More than a delightful record of a unique literary friendship, more than a chronicle of how Lucia and Kenward negotiated distance, patronage, moodiness, and the volatility of two artistic temperaments, Love, Loosha is a splendid treatise on aging out of lives in which decisions were made for pleasure and art more than for practicality or stability. A luscious and lyric counter argument to the dangers of a life lived in pursuit of beauty. Brava. Bravo."--Pam Houston, author of Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country\n"These letters read like a literary love affair between two brilliant writers who aim to delight, entertain, and confide in each other. What Berlin says of Elmslie's side of the correspondence is true of both: 'Beautiful writing, good gossip, funny stories. . . . You and I have known remarkable people.'"--Jennifer Dunbar Dorn, editor of Collected Poems: Edward Dorn\nAt the time of her death in 2004, Lucia Berlin was known as a brilliant writer of short stories, beloved by other writers but never achieving wide readership or acclaim. That changed in 2015 with the publication of A Manual for Cleaning Women, a collection of some of her best work. Almost overnight, Lucia Berlin became an international bestseller.\nLove, Loosha is the extraordinary collection of letters between Lucia Berlin and her dear friend, the poet and Broadway lyricist Kenward Elmslie. Written between 1994 and 2004, their correspondence reveals the lives, work, and literary obsessions of two great American writers. Berlin and Elmslie discuss publishing and social trends, political correctness, and offending others and being offended. They gossip. They dish. They entertain.\nLove, Loosha is an intimate conversation between two friends--one in which we are invited to participate, and one that will give fans of Lucia Berlin and Kenward Elmslie much pleasure and fresh insight into their lives and work.

Love, Loosha: The Letters of Lucia Berlin and Kenward Elmslie

Biographies & Memoirs

Berlin, Lucia

Regional U.S.

High Road Books

Poetry. "One is reminded, not unflatteringly, of Frank O'Hara. His poems find their strength in their uncanny directness, as the poet applies subtle force to allow his opinions full impact. A mellow and yet strong 'voice'." -Stephen Bett, College Review Service.

Tropicalism

Poetry

Z Press

Tells surrealistic stories set in an alphabet of bars from the Amazon Club to Zanzibars

26 Bars: A Collaboration

United States

Sun & Moon Press

New Condition. Bamberger Books, Flint, MI, 1992. First trade edition. Paperback. 4to. Unpaginated. A retrospective of comics created over a 25-year span by artist Joe Brainard and poet Kenward Elmslie.

Pay Dirt

Brainard, Joe

Comics & Graphic Novels

Bamberger Books

Poetry. Illustrated by Joe Brainard. THE CHAMP (originally published in 1968) is back for a new generation of readers who will swim with delight in the Elmslie ocean. THE CHAMP explores the mysteries of dailiness in all its beauty ('He wept wetting the apple') and terror ('A black curtain removed the hair of the champ/pretending to be the wind'). And the mysteries are never revealed but amplified by Joe Brainard's lucid flowers, chimps, pendants, cigarettes, boys, toys, and tangled weeds--the perfect one-handed accompaniment to Kenward Elmslie's opaquely glowing language. But beware! THE CHAMP--a collaborative classic of alternative letters--still doesn't behave. It's alive and exuberant. Savor it!"--Maxine Chernoff.

The Champ

Contemporary

The Figures

Blast From The Past: Stories, Posems, Song Lyrics & Remebrances

Skanky Possum

A capacious tent of splendor in a gender veldt, Agenda Melt, Elmslie’s third book with visuals by Trevor Winkfield, juxtaposes new poems and theatre lyrics culled from his musicals: The Grass Harp, cult classic, and three works-in-progress—Lola, Night Emerald, and Lingo Land, a revue of his songs and poems in which he is slated to make his off-Broadway debut. His recent books include Cyberspace (Granary Books) and Snippets (Tibor de Nagy Editions), both with Winkfield artwork, Blast from the Past (Skanky Possum Press), Postcards on Parade, a musical play (Bamberger Books) and Routine Disruptions (Coffee House Press).“There’s a lot of heart in his poems—really these songs, because they come from a ranging mastery of everything from classical opera to old-time Country Western. Kenward Elmslie tells the insistent tales of our tribe with great humor and seemingly endless invention.”—Robert Creeley.

Agenda Melt

Adventures in Poetry

Fiction. LGBT Studies. Like the orchids that provide their leitmotif, these interwoven stories by Kenward Elmslie are exquisite, exotic, and oneiric, as if they had been written in another world. Although each of THE ORCHID STORIES stands alone, their characters and moods recur frequently, in a swirl of visual echoes and the bewildering clarity of a dream. Even the characters themselves—Phil, the little boy gigolo; Mummers and Mummy who "adopt" him; the alluring Diana Vienna; the eccen-tric Dr. Schmidlapp and his wives who plot to capture the "Native Innards" orchid at the stroke of midnight—have an illusive reality that enhances the pleasure of these tales. The Song Cave is honored to present this new edition of Kenward Elmslie's out–of–print masterpiece, first published by Paris Review Editions in 1973. With an introduction that provides a fresh sense of Elmslie's oeuvre by Michael Silverblatt, host of KCRW's "Bookworm," this spectacular and spectacularly overlooked book is at last available to a new generation of adventurous readers.

The Orchid Stories

The Song Cave

The Orchid Stories (American Literature Series)

Dalkey Archive Press

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