"Karma Crisis: New and Selected Poems," contains a selection of poems from Nathan Brown's first three books, along with a collection of new poems. The titles of the earlier books are: "Ashes over the Southwest" (2005), "Suffer the Little Voices" (2005), and "Hobson's Choice" (2002). The book "Suffer the Little Voices" was a finalist for the 2006 Oklahoma Book Award. Nathan's real gift is his ability with short narrative. He is first a storyteller. And so, where much of today's poetry tries to establish an air of superiority, holding the reader at bay, Nathan's work invites us into his well-traveled life and world of stories.

Karma Crisis: New and Selected Poems

Literature & Fiction

Brown, Canada Research Chair in Poetics and Assistant Professor of English Nathan

Poetry

Mezcalita Press, LLC

"Less is more, more or less." is a new collection of poems from Oklahoma Poet Laureate, Nathan Brown. The book is an exploration of what can be housed in fewer words, a study in brevity, with no poem longer than a single 5 X 7 page.

Less Is More, More or Less.

An anthology edited by Nathan Brown, the 2013 - 2014 Poet Laureate of Oklahoma. It includes poems "about" Oklahoma that are written by natives, ex-pats, and visitors alike. These poems are an honest, and sometimes raw, look at the state's past and present by way of three chapters titled: People, Places, and Odds &amp; Ends. Among the poets represented are Pulitzer winners Stephen Dunn and N. Scott Momaday, as well as Naomi Shihab Nye, Joy Harjo, George Bilgere, Ron Padgett, and many others.

Oklahoma Poems... and Their Poets

DUNN, Stephen

MOMADAY, N. Scott

Jenni Finlay's "Table for One" is a collection of poems that carries us into the hospital and motel rooms of hardship and healing. It is a concise, but incisive look at the bewilderment of health problems, their institutions, as well as the confusion and loneliness. Tough, but redeeming. Honest, yet hopeful at the same time.

Table for One

Finlay, Jenni

Beth Wood has long been loved as a lyricist and folk musician. She is a powerful songwriter with an equally powerful voice, who has won about every prize and award one can win in the singer-songwriter realm. Now she brings the magic of her lyricism to poetry. And not everyone can make that transition. But she has most certainly done it. Beth has the gift of storytelling, and she has it to the point that it doesn't matter what form or genre she employs. Kazoo Symphonies, with chapters on nature, life, love, and growing up, is, simply put, great storytelling. And it's worth every page.

Kazoo Symphonies

Wood, Beth

As a follow up to his earlier book, "My Sideways Heart," Nathan Brown's "My Salvaged Heart: Story of a Cautious Courtship" continues his breadcrumb trail of poems "about love" for people who don't like "love poems." The book is searing in its honesty about the glories and the pitfalls of relationship, beginning with an early meeting, the ensuing friendship, and eventual courtship of his current wife, Ashley. The last poem is from the night of their wedding.

My Salvaged Heart: Story of a Cautious Courtship

In this collection of co-written poems, former Oklahoma Poet Laureate Nathan Brown and three-time Austin Music Hall-of-Famer Jon Dee Graham call on the grumpy specter of Charles Bukowski to tell their world slant. Every poem's title is a line or phrase from Bukowski's work. Even the title of the book, "Don't Try," is the inscription on the old man's tombstone. Like a collection of profane Psalms, this book brings the concept of "duet" to poetry. And it comes out swinging with the sounds of distorted guitars and smoke-encrusted vocals.

Don't Try

Brown, Nathan

Graham, Jon Dee

Ezra Lipschitz was born in 1955, then mostly raised as a Catholic with a Jewish last name in Colma, California--a necropolis for the city of San Francisco. An early-life concoction that he claims was a short road to eventually becoming an atheist. He completed a degree in English at UC Davis, but doesn't recall getting his diploma. He travels extensively as a folk musician and storyteller. And drinker. When he stays in one place for any amount of time, it is usually in his cabin in the woods at the foot of the Rockies in Southwestern Colorado, near the border of New Mexico. I Shouldn't Say... is his first book. A book he didn't necessarily want to put out. However, Nathan Brown, owner of Mezcalita Press, after reading much of the material asked his permission to do it for him, because the timing of the pieces about Donald Trump were simply too important. The book is divided into four chapters. The first is "The Home I Never Quite Had." The second is "Adam's Broken Rib," a section dealing with the wiles and difficulties of human relationship between the sexes. The third is "Holy Days," that covers the fall season of 2016 that ushered in the presidency of Donald Trump. The final chapter is called "The Fourth Horseman." It is a point-blank look at the insanity of a narcissistic megalomaniac becoming the leader of the free world. Lipschitz also has a daughter that he did not meet until she was eighteen. Another unusual aspect of his life that he is shockingly honest about. The fact that he is a prolific poet goes hand in hand with his cantankerous and contentious soul. And, when Brown approached him about letting him do this book, Lipschitz initially said no. However, he later later agreed, saying, "Well... as long as I don't have to edit the damn things." And no readings. He would do no readings. Poetry readings are "insufferable marathons of the waning spirit and dying soul" as far as he is concerned. So, don't bother asking again. Brown, however, insists that the world will be better off with these terribly raw and honest poems in it.

I Shouldn't Say...: The Mostly Unedited Poems of

Lipschitz, Ezra E.

God in His Slippers is the poetry debut of acclaimed singer-songwriter Rod Picott. In a vivid collection that ranges from the lurid to the exquisite, Picott deftly handles a wide range of territory. Much like his songs, Rod Picott’s poems are tender, truthful, and darkly humorous. Always aiming for the hardwood of truth beneath the shag carpet of assumption, God in His Slippers is a wander through the mind of a gifted writer who clearly loves lining up boney words into a resonant whole.

God in His Slippers

Picott, Rod

You’ve Changed is a collection of poetry that was born over seven years of working on a novel. I may work on the novel for another seven years or another seventy.
A song can be held in the mind whole as you work on it. Only so much can happen in a song, or at least only so much can be said about it. To be fair, each word carries more weight. Still, a novelist is obligated to come up with a minimum of forty thousand words that can grip the modern attention span for at least an afternoon. Paul McCartney’s “Blackbird” has thirty-four words and is done before you can plunge your French press.
To maintain a sense of wonder and play in this highly-disciplined writing environment, I created exercises for myself. I would remove time. I would introduce two characters from different books. I would tell a modern story using only words from Genesis. Mostly they were weird little monsters I shared with my friends on the internet. But some were very moving. Some made me cry or laugh out loud. Some still do, even just now proofreading the latest version. Somehow my heart got into it.
This is the magic of art. I show up and do things every day. Suddenly one day my hand says something my heart has been trying to say for years. It feels as if a cog has moved inside me. As if my internal machinery has wheeled forward another inch in its specific mission, a mission that is maddeningly hidden from me inside the ink of a thousand hotel pens.
You’ve Changed is a seven-year journey of inches. I didn’t even know I was making a book and now you may be holding it. Please take your time with it. It’s magic after all

You've Changed

Byrd, Jonathan

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