In 2005 photographer Mark Perrott learned that Pittsburgh’s Western Penitentiary, located just downriver from the city center, was about to close. He requested permission to visit the 1885 Gothic sandstone structure, and ended up touring the site with a former Pennsylvania Department of Corrections administrator. They walked through spaces of confinement and institutional organization like the Mess Hall, Laundry, Commissary, Chapel, Death Row, and the cellblocks. Mark recalls, “None of this prepared me for the experience of E Block?―?the row of cells dedicated to the housing of newly-arrived prisoners. Prisoners spent three days to two weeks on E Block, until the system ‘classified’ them and moved them along to other cellblocks, or to other institutions. Each cell had whitewashed walls, most often covered with graffiti. I read every square inch of each wall. These were the unfiltered voices of men in their first days of separation and incarceration. As I moved from cell to cell, these voices became a chorus of shame, rage, bravado, advice, hate, humor, confession, and contrition. Over the next year I wrote down each word and photographed every surface.”

E Block

Arts & Photography

Perrott, Mark

Photography & Video

Autumn House Press

A generous selection of poems from Ed Ochester's first three books. From the surrealistic satire of Dancing On the Edges of Knives to the emphatic evocative voice of Miracle Mile to his mature flowering in Changing the Name to Ochester, we see the evolution of this important poet.

Snow White Horses : Selected Poems 1973-1988

Literature & Fiction

Ochester, Ed

Poetry

Selected by Naomi Shihab Nye as the winner of the 2003 Autumn House Poetry Prize, The White Calf Kicks is a bold and surprising debut for an important poet.

The White Calf Kicks

Deborah Slicer

The Divine Salt

Blair, Peter

The Dark Takes Aim

Julie Suk

Signed in purple ink by author on title page. FEP missing, else as new. A very clean, tight, and crisp copy. Size: 5 1/2" x 8 1/2". Text body is clean, and free from previous owner annotation, underlining and highlighting. Binding is tight, covers and spine fully intact. All edges are clean. Not Ex-Library. All books offered from DSB are stocked at our store in Fayetteville, AR. Shipped Weight: Under 1 kilogram. Category: Poetry; ISBN: 0966941993. ISBN/EAN: 9780966941999. Inventory No: 026565.

Satisfied with Havoc (Autumn House Poetry)

Jo McDougall

A compelling story of characters enduring various hardships in rural New Mexico. &nbsp; This debut novel tells the story of nine-year-old Raymond, nicknamed "Ray Moon" by Molly, his adoptive caretaker, a waitress, and the former partner of his recently deceased uncle. These two outcasts rely on one another for survival, and their bond forms the heart of this book. Living in a trailer atop a mesa in the high desert of New Mexico in 1968, Raymond ages quickly amid hostile circumstances. With the help of a keen imagination that Molly inspires, he navigates various forms of loss and exploitation amid enduring hardship. &nbsp; Kevin Honold's deft and trance-like prose is interspersed with sharp insights and brings attention to the displacement of Native Americans, the hardships of capitalism, the ills of misogyny, and the raw hurt of living a displaced or marginalized life. This is a story of endurance, memory, and unceasing change. &nbsp; Molly was selected by Dan Chaon as the winner of the 2020 Autumn House Fiction Prize. &nbsp;

Molly

Honold, Kevin

Literary

Poems that imagine a world beyond the prevailing public speculation on Black death. &nbsp; Shayla Lawz's debut collection, speculation, n., brings together poetry, sound, and performance to challenge our spectatorship and the reproduction of the Black body. It revolves around a central question: what does it mean--in the digital age, amidst an inundation of media--to be a witness? Calling attention to the images we see in the news and beyond, these poems explore what it means to be alive and Black when the world regularly speculates on your death. The speaker, a queer Black woman, considers how often her body is coupled with images of death and violence, resulting in difficultly moving toward life. Lawz becomes the speculator by imagining what might exist beyond these harmful structures, seeking ways to reclaim the Black psyche through music, typography, and other pronunciations of the body, where expressions of sexuality and the freedom to actively reimagine is made possible.&nbsp;speculation, n.&nbsp;contends with the real--a refracted past and present--through grief, love, and loss, and it speculates on what could be real if we open ourselves to expanded possibilities. &nbsp; speculation, n. won the 2020 Autumn House Poetry Prize, selected by Ilya Kaminsky.

speculation, n.

Lawz, Shayla

The story of a failed poet struggling with vision loss, personal crises, and what it means to be an arms dealer in a quasi-dystopian Mexico City.\nThis debut novel is set in a vaguely dystopian, yet also realistic, Mexico City—endless traffic jams, relentless clouds of pollution, economic hardships, and the ever-present threat of drug cartels. The unnamed narrator of the novel, at times referred to as Arthur—in part because of the growing similarity of his life with Arthur Rimbaud’s—struggles with the dissonance of leading an artistic life while providing for his family. A failed, penniless poet with a child on the way, he is forced to take a job in his family’s weapons dealing enterprise, which he soon discovers is connected to the corrupt Mexican armed forces and drug cartels, who are responsible for the increasing death toll in the country. All the while, the narrator struggles with a growing condition in his right eye, a pterygium, that is slowly taking over his vision, blurring the events of his life, including his wife’s complicated pregnancy, extortions by the drug cartels, and his own relationship to his writing. As the narrator gradually finds his life spiraling out of control, the novel moves quickly to a startling conclusion.\nMyth of Pterygium is the winner of the 2021 Autumn House Rising Writer Prize in Fiction, selected by Maryse Meijer.

Myth of Pterygium

Morrison, Diego Gerard

A debut collection featuring formally diverse poems that address topics from misogyny and mental health to race and identity.\nAlexis Sears’s debut collection, Out of Order, is a collage of unapologetic intimacy, risk-taking vulnerability, and unwavering candor. A biracial millennial woman, Sears navigates the challenges of growing out of girlhood and into womanhood with its potential dangers, interrogating the male gaze, beauty standards, and confidence and identity. Pop culture references run through the collection, with rock icons David Bowie and Prince and poets like Kenneth Koch offering windows into desire and adaptation. In these poems, Sears works through heavy topics, such as loneliness, mental illness, chronic pain, the legacies of race and racism, and the aftermath of a father’s suicide. As she writes, “I’m learning something every ravishing day / and none of it is easy.”\nThis young poet demonstrates an uncommon mastery of craft, writing in forms including the sonnet redoublé, sestina, canzone, and villanelle. With all her linguistic skills, Sears’s work remains approachable, offering readers a striking blend of honesty, humor, anguish, joy, and surprise. Drawing influence from contemporary poets like Mark Jarman, Erica Dawson, and Tiana Clark, Sears cuts a path of her own.\nOut of Order was the 2021 winner of the Donald Justice Poetry Prize.

Out of Order (Donald Justice Poetry Prize)

Sears, Alexis

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