<p>Poetry. In this collection, selected by Joseph Millar as the winner of the Three Candles First Book Prize, Tony Trigilio deftly weaves cultural references as varied as Hawaii Five-O and Lee Harvey Oswald into a stunning collection that forces us to re-evaluate our own lives. Whether he's describing a ballgame on the radio or an auto-responder from the White House, we know we are in capable hands. "In THE LAMA'S ENGLISH LESSONS, Trigilio navigates a postmodern American urbanscape searching for grace. He calmly chronicles the way the natural and the mechanical now interpenetrate, taking on each other's characteristics, missions: 'The cabs stupefied / at the airport like cattle.' In his quest he encounters the homeless, baseball, TV, special prosecutors, jazz, Lee Harvey Oswald, the proclamations of newscasters and ex-presidents, and the legacies of WWII and Vietnam. He discovers odd moments of humor and transcendence in the mass transit, multi tasking madness we're trapped, in a confluence of personal and public histories, and manages to float above it all, maintaining perfect spiritual equilibrium, like strains of Buddhist music"—Amy Gerstler.</p>

The Lama's English Lessons

Literature & Fiction

Tony Trigilio

Poetry

Three Candles Press

Poetry. DIGERATI: 20 CONTEMPORARY POETS IN THE VIRTUAL WORLD is an anthology of poets who publish in online and print journals, workshop online and/or maintain a blog. A forward-thinking anthology by some of the best contemporary poets, it features poets whose work has been included in The Best American Poetry and the best print and online literary journals in America. Their awards include The National Poetry Series and the Discovery/The Nation prize. Poets include Peter Pereira, Eduardo C. Corral, Aaron Anstett, Paul Guest, Alison Pelegrin, Teresa Ballard, RJ McCaffery, Seth Abramson, Nancy Eimers, Anthony Robinson, Deborah Keenan, Tony Trigilio, Lee Ann Roripaugh, Shanna Compton, Jake Adam York, Michael Meyerhofer, Matthew Shindell, Jacqueline Marcus, William E. Stobb, and Frank Matagrano.

Digerati: 20 Contemporary Poets in the Virtual World

Poetry. CATCHING TIGERS IN RED WEATHER, winner of the Three Candles Press Open Book Award (selected by Joan Larkin), is a collection of poems by a new voice that combines montage cut-ups with an informing dialectic that gives us a wide array of contemporary American viewpoints. By turns playful and serious, he deftly embraces and criticizes a popular culture that is too complicated to dismiss with swift and simple comments. It is a book of rich rewards.

Catching Tigers in Red Weather

Demcak, Andrew

Poetry. This first book by Erin Elizabeth Smith, a formidable poet, editor, and publisher, is accessible, yet visceral and true. Covering family life, travel, the reading life, and friendship, it is an edgy book that is both beautiful and disturbing. Erin Elizabeth Smith understands the value of the musical line and stanzaic development. She is a necessary new voice in poetry. "Erin Elizabeth Smith's debut book of poems, THE FEAR OF BEING FOUND, is adamantly itself. Smith's nervy, plangent lyrics question and reject assumptions, outfit themselves for uncertainty in a world where wind is "young and bitter" and "cicadas sound like a factory of lathes." Personal and metaphysical, mythic and immediate, these poems are elegant as a pair of white gloves and fierce as a set of fangs"--Angela Ball.

The Fear of Being Found

Smith, Erin Elizabeth

Poetry. IN ANOTHER CASTLE introduces a unique American voice to poetry. Matthew Shindell, whose publications include American Letters and Commentary, The American Poetry Review, Black Warrior Review, FENCE, Hayden's Ferry Review, and others, mixes the intellectual with the absurd to create a world that both parallels and penetrates our own. Dean Young writes, "Let us praise Matt Shindell for offering us another castle where the ferocity of the imagination bedazzles." Shindell's fearless book offers a view of our world through the same darkly comic and pioneering lens as Kafka. Norman Dubie echoes this observation: "There is sadness here and the brittle music of Kafka's decisions in language." Indeed, the centerpiece poem, "Two Jokes About Bears," reveals the enormous breadth and scope of Shindell's powers and places him into the pantheon of important new poets to watch.

In Another Castle

Shindell, Matthew

<p>Poetry. Jehanne Dubrow's book THE HARDSHIP POST was selected by Peter Pereira as the winner of the Three Candles Press First Book Award. It is a haunting and unflinching look at what it means to be a contemporary Jewish woman. Whether a series of portraits about diners, delis and bakeries, ruminations on Jewish holidays, or the devastating and lasting effects of the Holocaust, Dubrow writes with musical and measured lines. Beginning with fairy tales that inform later poems, she cautions that the world can be "a briar patch of thorns / and poisoned fruit, ovens / that open into fire." It is also a book that delights in language, in wonder, and shows that among the horrors we have wrought on each other, there is also love, also beauty, also compassion.</p>

The Hardship Post

Dubrow, Jehanne

Poetry. RUTHLESS, Jeff Mock's first collection, was chosen by Deborah Keenan as the winner of the Three Candles Press Open Book Award, and for good reason: it is a tour de force of style and substance. Through Mock's darkly comic "what if" verse, we are given escapades of a risen Lazarus, adventures of The Brothers Grimm in Hollywood, and self-portraits ranging from a noxious weed to Miss America. His poems are unsparing and brutal, yet deftly written, humorous, and in the end, they offer slices of life from the full range of human experience. Mock's is a book of dreams and vignettes, danger and passion, self-aggrandizement and -deprecation. "Life is good," Mock writes in "Self Portrait Running With Scissors." Yes, it is good; we know it is. As Alan Michael Parker writes, it is "A book of splendid insurrections--of rebellion and revivification--Jeff Mock's Ruthless haunts us gleefully, with poems that read on even when the lights are off." It is a book of satisfying rewards.

Ruthless

Mock, Jeff

The Insomniac's Weather Report

Jessica Goodfellow

Alexander Long

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

Books by Three Candles Press