Stolen from Africa, one group of people continues to inspire the world through its methods of innovation and invention. of stone and rope considers the repurposing of objects as symbols of liberation.

of stone and rope

Literature & Fiction

Frasure, Darius Ajai

Poetry

Assure Press

A longing for wonder and communion with the natural world can be felt throughout the pages of Alexandra McIntosh's debut poetry collection, Bowlfuls of Blue. McIntosh's work, like that of Wendell Berry, J.R. Tolkien, Mary Oliver, and Annie Dillard, shares a conviction that a writer's sense of place nurtures the humanity and authority of their work. That, ironically, attention to what is at hand lengthens an artist's reach. 
While novels and lyrical prose awakened McIntosh's affinity for grounded literature, the poetics of Coleridge, Donne, and Bishop revealed to her poetry's unique power to freshen one's vision of the familiar, particularly Northern Kentucky's Ohio River Valley where she has lived her whole life. This revelation of newness within routine is a frequent return in McIntosh's work, which intersperses religious and mythic references-informed by Christian Mystics including Thomas Merton and Richard Rohr- within a conversational tone. A frequent long-distance backpacker, McIntosh utilizes sweeping syntax and organic free verse to emulate walking long distances; like long conversations with traveling companions, recurring words and refrains mirror the cyclical experience of life in a human body, as well as the nature of the entire cosmos. 
The poems in Bowlfuls of Blue survey communities-human, animal, spiritual, botanical, and geographical-to provide an honest meditation on life, one that acknowledges both its beauty and violence, shining "like the glare of the river on a day in August." The reader walks with McIntosh in these pages through dreams, the stories of ancestors, memories of childhood, contemplations on God and humanity, her brother's wedding, and her grandmother's passing. These are poems of life in all its seasons. 
Positioning herself among poetic contemporaries like Louis Glück, Maurice Manning, Jorie Graham, Bianca Lynne Spriggs, and Brigit Peegen Kelly, McIntosh's poetry widens and deepens in its conception of physicality, beauty, mysticism, and the sacred.

Bowlfuls of Blue

McIntosh, Alexandra

Cascades is a collection of poems inspired by a freak boating accident that resulted in the deaths of two children and their grandfather with the subsequent repercussions on a marriage.

Cascades

Self-Help

Canby, Joan

Relationships

These poems are centered around the character Jack Karapetian (1925-1994), who wrote under the pen name of Hakob Karapents. Born in Tabriz, Iran, Jack was a prolific Armenian-American writer who wrote almost exclusively in Armenian.

Jack Pays a Visit

Minassian, Michael

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the Assure Press publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Assure Press

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the Assure Press publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

of stone and rope

Bowlfuls of Blue

Cascades

Jack Pays a Visit