Friday, September 28, 2018

Crisis Chronicles Press publishes Dodge, Tuck, Roll by Rikki Santer


Crisis Chronicles Press is thrilled to announce the publication of Rikki Santer's new full-length poetry collectionDodge, Tuck, Roll—on 29 September 2018.
  
Where are you?

Dodge, Tuck, Roll is 63 pages, perfect bound, 5.5 x 8.5", featuring cover art by Christine Ruddy. ISBN: 978-1-64092-972-2. Available for $15 from Crisis Chronicles Press, 3431 George Avenue, Parma, Ohio 44134 USA. 

"These poems do indeed 'dodge, tuck, roll' with their unflinching argument that one needs 'another logic' to prevail. What’s to dodge or roll away from? Ultimately, the inevitable 'whirling death girder,' as in waiting for a biopsy while 'godding...for right results,' or sympathizing with a friend about to be widowed again, his 'two wives dealt sentence, paragraph, chapters.' Yes, Santer ponders a fate akin to Job’s with a writerly pun. So where do we find that other logic to ease the way? In just that sort of wit, in starlings, the moon, fireflies, memory of mother in hats, trees, music, in humor like 'the coral flush of flockus plasticus' flamingos, and in art—its lushness and triumphant translations, its 'pact' with 'sorrow,' and ability to limn 'dignity into what was knarled.' Santer finds solace in film and sensory seductions that include food: hence the elegy to Anthony Bourdain, nor does she neglect dreams and a Ouija board for help to peer beyond the beyond. She slows us down and speeds us up with puns, formal patterns, keen insights, striking images—like 'the peach and cream gingham of a ripped party dress,' and musical phrases—my favorite: 'you came to me this morning buoyant in a dream.' Sometimes the sheer density beckons deep reading, yet other times, poems, like 'Uncle Max’s Deli,' speak so clearly we fall right in. There are series of poems here to ride: poems about art, dreams, food, and Betty Boop. What is Betty doing here, you ask? Plenty, with her be-bop slang. This sequence asks us to consider what Betty signifies, that Jazz-Age 'Goth Lolita,' that 'eternal vamp' who, by 'filling in for Lucy,' reminds us how art travels through time to sustain us in the present. Santer has her ears to the airwaves, the ground. She listens to owls who 'know more than they should.' She transcribes vibrations. Come listen."
—Charlene Fix, author of Taking a Walk in My Animal Hat (Bottom Dog Press), Frankenstein’s Flowers (CW Books), Harpo Marx as Trickster (McFarland), and Flowering Bruno: A Dography (XOXOX Press)

"Rikki Santer's Dodge, Tuck, Roll is an eruption of measured delight in a boop-boop-a-doop world. What Elizabeth Spires has called 'the great body of the world'—that great body (and beating heart) is the source of these poems. As the opening poem tells us: 'You dodge and tuck and roll under the whirling death / girder. You do the trick you pose you smile—applause.' Vision is centerstage. And we feel as if we’re in the presence of 'owls / that seem to know more than they should.' Rikki Santer’s poems remind me of an iPhone photograph shoved to life when you press the screen. In the words of the Betty Boop poems: 'She’s in my cortex / this gartered Goth Lolita / eyelashes like knives / crimson bullet lips / dog collar spiked.'"
—Roy Bentley, 2018 finalist for the Miller Williams Poetry Prize for Walking with Eve in the Loved City

Meet and hear Rikki Santer at these upcoming events:

9/29 in Akron, OH — 5:15 p.m. during the High Arts Festival at Uncorked Wine Bar.
10/3 in Youngstown OH — 7:30 p.m. at The Soap Gallery.
10/20 in Mansfield, OH — Borderlands Poetry feat. Concrete Wink at Main Street Books.
11/15 in Columbus, OH — Hometown book launch at The Book Loft of German Village.
11/30 in Athens, OH — Concrete Wink at The Dairy Barn Arts Center.

Rikki Santer has worked as a journalist, a magazine and book editor, cofounder and managing editor of an alternative city newspaper in Cleveland, and a poet-in-the schools. She earned a M.A. degree in journalism from Kent State University and a M.F.A. degree in creative writing from the Ohio State University. Her work has won honors from The Poetry Forum (the William Redding Memorial Contest), Black Lawrence Press (the St. Lawrence Book Award Competition), the Ohio Poetry Association, the National Federation of State Poetry Societies, the Best of Ohio Writer Contest sponsored by the Poets’ & Writers’ League of Greater Cleveland, as well as Pushcart and Ohioana Book Award nominations, and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Two of her published poetry collections have explored place: Front Nine (the Hopewell earthworks of Newark, Ohio) and Kahiki Redux (the late Kahiki Supper Club of Columbus, Ohio). Clothesline Logic was published by Pudding House as finalist in their national chapbook competition. She also has published two other full-length collections: Fishing for Rabbits from Kattywompus Press and Make Me That Happy from NightBallet Press.

Sunday, September 23, 2018

Thank You and Next Up

Sandra Feen, Jodie Summers & me in Monroe

What a great reading the other night (9/21) at Serendipitous Vintage in Monroe, Michigan. Super grateful to Leo Todd Jarret for inviting me. I loved performing with him, Dan Denton, William F. DeVault, Gary Bond, Sandra Feen, Barry Graham, Dave Caruso, Mackenzie Swanson, Bob Phillips, Jodie L Summers, Arnold Koester and more. A poetry event that lasted till nearly 2 a.m. has rarely felt so good.


My next gig is September 28th at Nervous Dog Coffee Bar in Akron with assorted kick-ass word artists including Kisha Nicole Foster and Raymond McNiece, hosted by Michael DeBenedictis. For more info on this event, please see: https://www.facebook.com/events/374767589725398/.





Thursday, September 20, 2018

Getting Beat on 9/21 in Monroe, Michigan

This Friday in Monroe, Michigan (roughly midway between Detroit and Toledo), I will have the honor and pleasure of performing at International Beat Poetry Festival presented by Madhouse and Firefly. Other poets and musicians performing will include Gary L. Bond, Leo Jarret, Mackenzie Swanson, Angel Reyes, Dan Denton, Bob Phillips, Sandra Feen, Dave Caruso, Ohio Beat Poet Laureate Barry Graham, and recent U.S. Beat Poet Laureate William F. DeVault. Join us for fire and madness!

Wednesday, September 19, 2018

Thank you for last night!

9/18/2018 at Art on Madison
photo by Kevin Hoskinson
So grateful to Art on Madison and everyone who came out to last night's event. Love you all! If you haven't yet caught Cathie Joslyn's Luminous Threads show there, you can catch it through September 29th. Next month, October 16th, the Poetry Plus series at Art on Madison will feature Juliet Cook, whose new book, Malformed Confetti, will be released by Crisis Chronicles Press at that time. Local publishers and fine art galleries can't survive without your support. And we are most grateful for you.

Click here to see a clip of me reading "Sybil" from my latest chapbook, Loss and Foundering, last night. Thanks to Aubrey Cr for the clip!

Monday, September 17, 2018

My 52nd birthday celebration and reading 9/18 at Art on Madison

At 52 finally, does this mean I'm no longer, to borrow a phrase from Queen, "one card short of a full deck"?  Maybe that's why CoolCleveland posted this.

I hope you will join me September 18th at 7:30 p.m. for my last Cleveland-area reading of the season, which will also serve as my birthday celebration. I am pleased and honored that Art on Madison, a funky cool gallery in Lakewood, Ohio, right down the street from where Dianne and I used to host the Lix and Kix Poetry Extravaganza, has asked me to be the featured writer for their monthly Poetry Plus series.

We'll have cake, wine, books, and while you're there you can check out Cathie Joslyn's stunning new show, Luminous Threads, and more.  Hope to see you there!

More info:

https://www.facebook.com/events/315823342330159/

Saturday, September 15, 2018

New collaboration with Juliet Cook debuts tonight (9/15) at Joslyn opening

At 6 pm tonight in Lakewood, one of my favorite artists, Cathie Joslyn, has an opening reception for her new solo show at Art on Madison. I have collaborated with Juliet Cook on a new poem inspired by this show, which I will debut/read tonight at the reception. Dianne Borsenik (chosen by Cleveland Scene Magazine this year as Best Cleveland Poet) has also written and will share new work inspired by Luminous Threads tonight. You won't want to miss it.

And if that's not enough. I will return to the same gallery on September 18th for Poetry Plus Featuring John Burroughs, where I will read deep into my catalog and celebrate my 52nd birthday. A second event you won't want to miss!



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVez4RS7IJw

Friday, September 7, 2018

Lakewood, Michigan, Akron, Maryland, Kansas City, Bexley & New York Coming

For those who've asked: upcoming events where I'll be reading, performing and book fairing include

9/21 - Madhouse & Firefly present: International Beat Poetry Festival (feat. John Burroughs, Gary Bond, Leo Jarret, Barry Graham, Mackenzie Swanson, Angel Reyes, William F. DeVault, Dan Denton, Bob Phillips and musical guest Dave Caruso) at Serendipitous Vintage in Monroe, Michigan

9/28 - Poetry & Spoken Word (feat. Ray McNiece, Kisha Nicole Foster, Tony Gamblin, Maggie Duff, Jamie Keaton, Ebanee Bond and John Burroughs) at Nervous Dog Coffee Bar in Akron, Ohio 



10/12-14 - Fountainverse KC Small Press Poetry Fest in Kansas City, Missouri

10/26 - Poetry feat. Anna Soter and John Burroughs at Gramercy Books in Bexley, Ohio

11/29 - NeuroNautic Institute Presents feat. Gerd Stern, John Burroughs and more hosted by Matthew Hupert at the Red Room (KGB) in New York, New York.

And this doesn't count a handful of Crisis Chronicles Press book release readings/events that will be announced soon.

I plan to do decidedly fewer events in 2019, so hopefully I'll see you at one or more of the above.

Tuesday, September 4, 2018

Beat and Blessed

2 Sept 2018 at the National Beat Poetry Festival
Beekley Community Library, New Hartford, CT
[photo by Gertrude Nilsson Björklund]
I almost didn't go to the National Beat Poetry Festival over Labor Day weekend in Connecticut. I was spent from trips to Athens, Chicago, Buffalo and Erie as well as putting out two Crisis Chronicles Press books and so much more just in August. I had a lot more work to do that I am way behind on. I missed my doggy. I've been nervous about my upcoming EGD procedure (which is tomorrow). And I knew I'd have to miss the first day of three even if I did go to the festival. But I went and I am so glad I did. I saw old friends, met new ones, heard great music and a wide array of killer poetry by writers from Sweden, Dominican Republic and across the United States. There was much-needed beauty woven through it all. And though Facebook won't let me tag everyone here - and I'll surely miss someone great anyway - I wanna give special shouts out to organizers Debbie T Kilday and Colin Haskins, as well as to Tony Vacca, Donna Gentile (happy birthday!), Bengt O Björklund, Gertrude Nilsson Björklund, Jael Uribe, Chris Vannoy, William F. DeVault, Prince A McNally, Sandra Feen, Paul Richmond, Carlo Parcelli, Rosalie Gancie, Ngoma Hill, Lori Desrosiers, Viviana Duncan, Jessica Brooke Miller, Tchalla Williams, James Paul Wagner, Darlene Asmarah Fernandez, Shaw Israel Izikson, David K. Leff, John Emmons, Jon Wesick, Mike L Kilday, Rayn Roberts, Richard Wayne Horton and more (in some unnamed cases I can see your faces and hear your poems in my head but names are getting mixed up) - and to Local Gems Press for publishing the Festival's 10-year anniversary anthology (and including me in it) - and last but certainly not least to James and Dianne Borsenik for taking care of Leda while I was away. Now I have a lot of catching up to do. :) My next reading is September 18th, the day after my birthday, at Art on Madison in Lakewood, Ohio: Poetry Plus Featuring John Burroughs. Cheers and deep gratitude!