Books and Authors

Since 1993, Three Rooms Press has been a leading independent publisher of cut-the-edge, real-life poetry, fiction, drama and art. Inspired by Dada predecessor Arthur Cravan, TRP publishes and promotes work that inspires in unique, thrilling, fearless and intimate style. In addition, TRP produces and promotes a variety of events; since 1992 it has staged major cultural events in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Paris, London, Corsica and more, including poetry readings, plays, writing workshops, seminars, musical events and one-of-a-kind madcap concoctions.

Mike Watt: On and Off Bass

by Mike Watt

Legendary Punk Bass Player Mike Watt’s 
Photography, Reflections and Diary Excerpts

“Mike Watt: On and Off Bass is sincere, funny, handmade, beautiful, totally idiosyncratic, and entirely original.” —Rick Moody, TheRumpus.net

“Unusual and beautiful . . .” —The New Yorker

LIMITED EDITION!!! SPECIAL OFFER:
FREE SHIPPING!!! (U.S. orders only)
And if you’re not in the U.S., go see Watt thumping the bass with Iggy and the Stooges during their european tour this summer 2013 (click here for dates)

 

The New Yorker calls it “unusual and beautiful.” The LA Weekly raves, “the photos are strikingly inventive, revealing yet another side of this modern-day Renaissance man.” MTV calls it “a charming, well-shot document of a the legendary punk rocker’s photographic dabbling.” Detroit Metrotimes: “A unique insight into Watt’s mind.”

“Mike Watt: On and Off Bass” is getting a lot of buzz. And for good reason, considering the author and photographer is the legendary punk bassist himself.

Mike Watt got his musical start thumping the bass with legendary San Pedro punk trio, The Minutemen in 1980 and he has been at it ever since. Over the years, he’s toured with Dos, fIREHOSE, his own The Black Gang, The Secondmen, The Missingmen, and others, and he has worked bass as a sideman for Porno for Pyros, J Mascis and the Fog, as well as punk godfathers The Stooges.

Off the road, at his beloved San Pedro, CA home base, Watt developed a deep interest in photography. In Spring 2010, Track 16 Gallery in Santa Monica, CA hosted an exhibit of his photos: “Mike Watt: Eye-Gifts from Pedro.” According to Track 16 executive director Laurie Steelink, who curated the exhibit, “He has this knack for finding the early morning sweet spots when venturing out alone on his bike or kayak. The resulting photographs never seem to dry: light, flight, salt, rust, and tide commingle in fiery sunrises, endless heavens, roiling waves and fog.” The photos offer another side of Watt that fans of his punk rock music may not be familiar with: While seemingly serene, many have an underlying tension and that often shows the sharp contrast between industry and nature.

In “Mike Watt: On and Off Bass,” photographs that appeared in the exhibit are punctuated by Watt’s poetry and snippets selected from 10 years of his diaries. Watt’s writing is insightful, funny, intimate and honest, as he explores topics like John Coltrane, long hauls and overcoming performance fears. “Mike Watt: On and Off Bass” exposes Watt’s vision as a photographer, diarist and poet, taking its readers on a trip. And when you stop turning the pages of Watt’s story, you start turning the pages of yours, re-ignited.

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Have a NYC 2: New York Short Stories

Edited by Peter Carlaftes & Kat Georges

More stories from the streets of New York, featuring work by famed crime novelist Lawrence Block, neo-surrealist Janet Hamill and Evergreen Review editor Ron Kolm

Taking on the streets. East or Westside. Uptown and Down. The pace quickens through the boroughs from necessity. Every move the most important. Too much competition. Looking at each other for someone to blame. Doing anything just to be part of the magnitude. Everybody lost in the expanse. The City doesn’t cheat you. It teaches. You absorb either knowledge or the blows. There are days when you find out you can’t cut it anymore. And there are others when you come out at the top. The Have A NYC anthology series is an intense annual collection of modern short stories set in New York, edited by Peter Carlaftes and Kat Georges.

Authors include acclaimed crime writer Lawrence Block (Eight Million Ways to Die, Hit Me), neo-surrealists Janet Hamill and Rae Bryant, and Evergreen Review editor Ron Kolm. Other authors include Jeb Gleason-Allured, Sion Dayson, Kofi Forson, Resa Alboher, L. Shapley Bassen, Michael Schwartz, Puma Perl, Thomas Pryor, Jackie Sheeler, Peter Marra, Maria Kranidis, Richard Vetere and Eric Stromsvold. Editors Peter Carlaftes and Kat Georges are co-directors of Three Rooms Press.

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Signature Play

lyrical poems by Jane LeCroy, with music by Tom Abbs

“to pop one of Jane LeCroy’s poems into my mouth is pure pleasure.” –Ani DiFranco, singer/songwriter

New York-based poet, singer and performance artist Jane LeCroy excels in this full-length poetry collection, Signature Play, an exquisite book of her lyrical work, paired with music by Tom Abbs, her partner in the experimental music group Transmitting. The work is lively, contemporary, strong, feminist and fragile at the same time, and sheet music included with the book makes for a unique mix of media. QR codes connect the user to listening and viewing and portals, and the book also features a mix of LeCroy’s collages and other art. Transformative artist Animal Prufrock exudes, “Jane LeCroy will be known as one of the great poets of this century. A sorcerer who spells songs and spills poems—The Emily Dickinson of our time—instead of leaving notes in aprons—she leaves us poems in boxes, freshly delivered—immediate delights and delicious pains…” Singer/songwriter Ani DiFranco says, “i think of Jane like blackberry brambles. juicy berries always ripening. to pop one of her poems into my mouth is pure pleasure.”

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Sharp Blue Stream

poems by David Lawton

“David Lawton is a fine poet and a terrific performer!” –John Sinclair, poet, former MC5 manager and White Panther leader

In this striking poetry collection, poet David Lawton surges and purrs in narrative poems touching on rock ‘n’ roll idols, beat icons, jazz and power, with a full-throated voice full of humor, warmth and soul. He explores Iggy Pop and other pop icons, as well as his own coming of age in Boston with startling insight and tender intimacy. Emmy-award winning actor Michael Chiklis explains: “David’s poetry is insightful and alive, funny and observant, melancholy, yet filled with love and hope. In a world rife with angry nihilists and third person narcissists, it’s actually a downright relief to read a soulful, mature poet whose humility and humanity leaves you in tears.” Poet, former MC5 manager and White Panther leader John Sinclair remarks, “I know David Lawton as a generous friend, a fine poet and a terrific performer of his and even others’ works, and it’s a happy day when his poems meet the outside world like this. As an odist myself, I am particularly drawn to his homages to Herbert Huncke, Sonny Rollins and Alberta Hunter. He brings their lives and works to life in his verse and that ain’t easy to do.”

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Maintenant 7: A Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art

edited by Peter Carlaftes and Kat Georges

Dada is Everything! Featuring Dada poetry, dada mailart, dada collages and more! Tout est Dada!

Maintenant 7: A Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing & Art is the sixth edition of an annual collection of contemporary Dada work inspired by Dada instigator and Three Rooms Press spiritual advisor Arthur Cravan. Since 2008, the Three Rooms Press series has collected and published dada art, dada poetry, dada mail art, dada collages and more from around the world. This year’s issue, edited by Peter Carlaftes and Kat Georges, features an essay about Marcel Duchamp’s seminal work Fresh Widow by New York gallery owner Francis Naumann, poetry by American writers Gerard Malanga, A. D. Winans, Roger Conover, Charles Plymell, Mike Watt, W.K. Stratton and Jerome Rothenberg, and an expanded selection of work by leading European, Asian and Central American dadaists including Tomomi Adachi, Jaap Blonk, Lucille Calmel, Jelle Meander, Philip Meersman, Ulf Stolterfoht, J.L. Rodríguez Pittí and many more. The original Dada movement peaked from 1916-1922, primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a rejection of the prevailing standards in art through anti-art cultural works. Its purpose was to ridicule what its participants considered to be the meaninglessness of the modern world. In addition to being anti-war, dada was also anti-bourgeois and anarchist in nature.

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I Fold With The Hand I Was Dealt

poems by Peter Carlaftes

The second book of poems from the bare-fisted poet Peter Carlaftes

i fold with the hand i was dealt is the second book of poems from the bare-fisted poet Peter Carlaftes, and this insightful collection takes the reader on a thoroughly re-imagined joyride from birth through death via past and beyond. Carlaftes offers a brilliant poetic voice, filled with drop-dead humor, searing insight and resilient originality, even while resonating with overtones of Bukowski, Baudelaire and Vonnegut. Carlaftes is an NYC playwright, poet, and performer; author of 12 plays, including a noir treatment of Knut Hamsun’s Hunger, and his own celebrity rehab center spoof, Spin-Dry. i fold with the hand i was dealt is his fourth book (the others being — A Year on Facebook (humor), Drunkyard Dog (poetry) and Triumph for Rent (3 plays), all on Three Rooms Press). He is co-founder and editor of Three Rooms Press; their most recent books include Maintenant 6: A Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art; Have a NYC: New York Short Stories; and Mike Watt: On and Off Bass, a collection of photos and distilled tour diaries from the great punk rock bass player.

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Close to the Tree

poems by Robert Gibbons

A breathtaking, lyrical poetry collection focusing on issues of social inequality, love, loss and family.

Close to the Tree is the first full-length collection of poems from the lyrical, strong and hip ROBERT GIBBONS, commemorating the treasure of all who went before him and paints so many different shades of color it becomes an art exhibit. ccording to author Leokadia Durmaj, “Robert paints so many different shades of colors in his writing, it becomes an art exhibit.” Art curator and historian Marc Primus notes, “The poetry of Robert Gibbons flows from him like a mighty river. It is powerful lyrical, strong and hip.” And teacher/author Miriam Hipsh remarks, “Mr. Gibbons’ poetry is breathtaking in its imagery. His words paint a heart-wrenching canvas and haunt the reader with deeply emotional truth-telling.” Robert grew up in Belle Glade, Florida, the eldest of five children, and earned a B.S. in History from Florida A&M. In 2007, he moved to New York City in search of his muse, Langston Hughes. Gibbons has studied with such master poets as Cornelius Eady, Marilyn Nelson, Klmiko Hahn and Nathalie Handal, and has participated in workshops at Cave Canem and the 92Y. His work has been published in numerous anthologies, including The Brownstone Poets Anthology, Dinner with the Muse (Ra Rays Press), The Cartier Street Review, Nomad’s Choir, and Maintenant 6: A Journal of Contemporary Dada Art & Literature (Three Rooms Press). His poetry may also be heard on the CD Brain Ampin’ (Logo Chrysalis Productions).

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Our Lady of the Hunger

poems by Kat Georges

An uncompromising first full-length poetry collection by internationally renowned poet/publisher/designer Kat Georges.

Our Lady of the Hunger is the first full-length collection of poems by Kat Georges, whose work has been heard and published internationally for three decades. Often hilarious, always insightful, Kat Georges writes inspired narrative poems inspired by punk rock, pop culture, food and the driving need to create, all the while exploring what it is to be a woman in the modern world. Georges is an NYC-based poet, playwright, performer, editor and designer. In addition to writing poetry, she has directed numerous Off-Broadway plays, curated poetry readings (including the bi-monthly Son of a Pony poetry reading series at Cornelia Street Cafe), and performed widely. She is co-founder and editor of Three Rooms Press; their most recent books include Maintenant 6: A Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art; Have a NYC: New York Short Stories; and Mike Watt: On and Off Bass, a collection of photos and distilled tour diaries from the great punk rock bass player. Her poetry is included in The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry (Thunders Mouth Press), The Verdict is In (manic d press; also co-editor); Mas Tequila (Mas Tequila Press); and The Unbearables Big Book of Sex (Autonomedia), among countless other journals and literary magazines.

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EOS: Abductor of Men / ΗΩΣ Απαγωγεας Ανθρωπων

poems by / ποιήματα από George Wallace
in Greek and English
(translated to greek by Lina Sipitanou | μεταφραση απο το ελληνικο)

A bilingual (English-Greek) poetry collection by phenomenal flow poet George Wallace, dedicated to the contemporary struggles of the Greek People.

In a bilingual collection (Greek-English) dedicated to the contemporary struggles of the Greek people, George Wallace rivets readers with his thoroughly original, modern day beat flow, elevating bakeries to the temples of gods and love to a powerful river. “Like no other poet you’ve read before…Wallace doesn’t want to simply remake the conventions of the contemporary free verse poems as we understand them; he seems to want to remake the reader herself, to alter her aesthetically and psychologically,” says Terri Brown-Davidson, Pedestal Magazine. With stunning translations to Greek by Lina Sipitanou, this book is like no other you’ve read before. ABOUT GEORGE WALLACE: George Wallace (AB, MPH, MFA) is an award winning poet and journalist from New York who has performed his work across America and in Europe. Author of Poppin’ Johnny (Three Rooms Press, 2009) and twenty-five chapbooks of poetry, he has served as editor of Poetrybay (www.poetrybay.com), Long Island Quarterly, Walt’s Corner, Great Weather for Media, and other electronic and hard copy literary publications. A former Peace Corps Volunteer, USAF Medical Officer and Community Health Organizer, he is winner of the CW Post Poetry Prize and the Poetry Kit Best Book award. With Oklahoma poet laureate Carol Hamilton he co-founded the Woody Guthrie Poets, and was named a “Next Generation Beat” by the Lowell Celebrates Kerouac festival committee. In 2003, George Wallace was named first Poet Laureate for Suffolk County, NY. In 2011 he was named Writer in Residence at the Walt Whitman Birthplace.

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Welcome to the Museum of Cattle

poems by Jane Ormerod

A powerful and visionary for in which Jane Ormerod firmly establishes herself as a master of a unique visual/language poetry stream.

Poet Jane Ormerod follows up her critically-acclaimed collection “Recreational Vehicles on Fire” (Three Rooms Press, 2009) with the powerful and visionary work, “Welcome to the Museum of Cattle,” in which her unique style firmly establishes her as a master of a unique visual/language poetry stream. Ormerod, a former visual artist, writes poetry that thrusts images into thought, juxtaposing the familiar with the peculiar, imposing emotion on a plastic world. Her poems offer startling new observations of the world, filled with both humor and deep insight. Reading Jane Ormerod is like experiencing your favorite music in a way you’ve never heard it before. “Beyond the coast-to-coast culture of pay-as-you-go, Welcome to the Museum of Cattle exhibits an insistent voice; a palette of paradox and poetry  – spoken, broken, blunt.” —Richard Kirwan (artist, London). “These poems explode off the page; translate language into ecstasy, energy and intimacy. They purr, growl, bite. Confess, question, rant and whisper. These keen, bright, big-hearted poems bounce bravely, fluidly on linguistic trampolines. They fly so high—become one with sun, moon and stars.” —Rich Ferguson (L.A. poet/spoken word artist)

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Isula d’anima/Soul Island

puemi di/poems by Patrizia Gattaceca
Corsu & inglese / Corsican & English
Traduttu da/Translated by Frédérique Mattei Jordan

 

The first bilingual (Corsican-English) poetry collection of beloved singer/songwriter and native Corsican Patrizia Gattaceca.

Well-known worldwide as a singer-songwriter, active in the Reacquistu (the Corsican cultural revival movement), and founder, with Patrizia Poli of the female polyphonic singing trio Les Nouvelles Polyphonies Courses, Patrizia Gattaceca’s poetry is remarkable: imagery of moons and mountains and sea and underneath it all, the taut sensation of loss and sorrow, the heartfelt exploration of the loneliness of the human condition, and, as her poetic teacher and mentor Ghjacumu Thiers describes, “the infinite within the finite.” Throughout her poetry, echoes are heard of Gattaceca’s modest and humanitarian nature. By publishing Isulu d’anima/Soul Island, we pay homage to a truly remarkable modern woman, her exquisite poetic voice, her language and the culture that continues to thrive and inspire. U cantu di Patrizia Gattaceca, a so puesia sempre atta à creà, u mondu ch’ella si abbraccia di amore generosu è u patrimoniu nustrale ch’ella cura cun primura, fighjate chì quesse e qualità neganu u tempu chì passa. Invece cun Patrizia hè tempu chì dura, inventa è face voce, cun quella arietta da fà vi crede ch’è vo site quì da sempre è ch’è vo ci starete à gode vi, seriu è felice, u chjuchjulime cuntinuu di u mondu. Sarà quessa a vita ghjusta, cù a cuscenza di e so cunfine ma u garbu di tamantu rigalu : un populu chì vi dà identità una è diversa. For Patrizia Gattaceca, singing, boundless poetic creativity, generosity embracing the world, and attentive loyalty to her heritage stem from the belief that if you’re not attentive, there is no before, there is no after. Patrizia’s work is about the permanence of invention and her voice gives you the feeling-genuine and intense-that she has always been there to hear the rustling of the world, with delight and solemnity. She explores the infinite within the finite-always acknowledging the privilege of life. In this collection, her singular voice finds echoes in us all. – Ghjacumu Thiers, poet, writer and university professor Si pò di chì a puesia di Patrizia Gattaceca hè à tempu insurpata di issa stampa identitaria di a so Castagniccia, “l’odore di a filetta,” è di mille prufumi nati da letture classiche quant’è da i viaghji pulifonichi di a cantarina : a pratica di forme fisse anziane o di haiku giappunesi, pare ch’ella innacquessi dinù una scrittura tesa ver di a ricerca d’un dì originale è modern. One might say that the poetry of Patrizia Gattaceca is naturally imbued with both the identity of the Castagniccia -”the scent of the Filetta”-and the thousands of scents found during her travels as a polyphonic singer-ancient fixed forms such as Japanese haiku irrigate her tense, modern and original poetry. -Ghjacumu Fusina, poet, writer and university professor A puesia di Patrizia Gattaceca, partendu da a tradizione di a so lingua sicura è di u so circondu sappiutu, sin’à un cantu propiu soiu inariulatu a riassumu cusì : ascenzione. Patrizia Gattaceca’s poetry starts with the mastery of language and deep knowledge of her environment, and ends like a song rising to the sky: ascension. -Sonia Moretti, poet and professor of Corsican language

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Atrium

Poems by Hala Alyan

 

a formidable volume: irreverent, clever, hyper-erudite and laugh-out-loud funny, with moments of arresting darkness and disturbing intensity to boot. . . Fierce originality, feeling and flair. —Alex Rowell, NOW Lebanon

In Atrium, Alyan traces lines of global issues in personal spaces, with fervently original imagery, and a fierce passion and intense intimacy that echoes long after initial reading. Alyan was recently tapped as a finalist in the Nazim Himet Poetry Competition, and has etched her mark on other award-winning poets who are universal in their praise: “Don’t miss the dazzling Hala Alyan. Wow. When she says ‘the poetry like a spear,’ she isn’t kidding.” —Naomi Shihab Nye; “Hala Alyan’s poems startle us with their beautiful, enigmatic images and capture us with their passionate engagement with the world. A powerful debut.” —Chitra Divakaruni; “For all the stunning angularity in this vision, we do not doubt that what we are seeing and sensing here is a surprising, sharp-edged sense of the real, of a world that had been there all along, just waiting for this poet and these poems to reveal. Start to finish, these poems convey a singular vision and represent an important new voice in the international poetry arena.” —Fred Marchant

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Maintenant 6: A Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing & Art

Edited by Peter Carlaftes & Kat Georges

 

The fifth annual edition of international contemporary Dada writing and art by more than 100 contributors.

When men ate in caves with their hands, the tools their hands made meant survival. And once the first faction became a lesser to itself, the template for the future became keep the faction lesser. Any faction kept the lesser has been the key to knowledge ever since. Who do die done dada goner. Who do die do dada gain. Who do die done did discover. Every dada is one discarded massive pain.
Maintenant 6: A Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing & Art (ISBN 978-0-9835813-5-2, Three Rooms Press, 2012, 130 pages), is the fifth edition of an annual collection of contemporary Dada work inspired by Dada instigator and Three Rooms Press spiritual advisor Arthur Cravan. This issue, edited by Peter Carlaftes and Kat Georges, includes bold poetry, cutting-edge visual art, essays and word art from more than 100 Neo-Dadaists worldwideincluding: Roger Conover, Mina Loy, Jerome Rothenberg, Giovanni Fontana, Fork Burke, Paolo Pelosini, Constantin Xenakis, Vittore Baroni, Scott Wannberg, Duska Vrhovac, Bart Verburg, and Mike Mollett.

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Have a NYC: New York Short Stories

Edited by Peter Carlaftes & Kat Georges

 

Day or night. Rain, heat or snow. The city streets are full of people seeking the path to a better life. Everybody learns the hard way. Some not soon enough. And even dreams must pay their dues. That’s just the nature of The City. That’s New York.

Welcome to Have a NYC< (Three Rooms Press, ISBN 978-0-985813-3-8, 2012, 162 pages), the first of a New York short stories series, edited by Peter Carlaftes and Kat Georges. In Have a NYC, Three Rooms Press aims to acknowlege that the energy that drives New York is still there, and not just in “hipster” neighborhoods or well-trodden streets. The stories are forming and reforming moment by moment. Drifters pass through and lend their ideas; natives look to cling to the things they see are ebbing away; the underbelly still writhes and reels to an urban beat; and the familiar landmarks take on new looks and menace as technology slowly grips the throngs of people walking the New York City streets.

Authors include: Claus Ankersen, Larissa Shmailo, Adam R. Burnett, Darlene Cah, David R. Lincoln, Lawrence Block, Kofi Fosu Forson, Pedro Ponce, Ronald H. Bass, Jane Ormerod, Peter D. Marra, Puma Perl, Lisa Ferber, Keven Dupzyk and Janet Hamill.

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Hidden Wheel

by Michael T. Fournier

 

“Hidden Wheel is a compelling complement to Michael T. Fournier’s enthusiastic and informative 33 1/3 on the Minutemen’s Double Nickels on the Dime. Fournier recognizes that scenes are forged by the energy of the people involved and remembered by the artistic tomes they leave behind, and nails both perspectives. It’s managed to make me excited . . .”
—NewArtillery.com

“This is a philosophic novel which gives the reader insights into the nature of the creative impulse; as such, it ought to be required reading for that class of artisans who also consider themselves cognoscenti, members of a select tribe known to marketers as ‘influentials.’”
—TheNoise.com

“Don’t be surprised if, upon finishing this book,
you long for an art form you’ve never encountered.” — Selah Saterstrom; author of The Pink Institution

(U.S. Orders only; International orders via Amazon)

A trust fund kid, posing as a drug dealer to maintain street cred, opens an art gallery designed to fail. A self-employed drummer sells sperm to raise funds for a new kit before his band embarks on their first-ever tour. A former chess prodigy-turned-dominatrix paints sixty words a day on a giant canvas to stave off the coming Singularity. A hipster blogs about his fictional tagger alter ego and bumbles into quick fame with a series of paintings on CD covers. Hidden Wheel, Michael T. Fournier’s debut novel, is an unflinching reflection of the growing complexities of navigating art, commerce, and the internet. Its use of intersecting plotlines illustrates the confusion and potential of the early 21st century and the evolving ways in which its inhabitants try to make a mark in the specter of financial upheaval and shifting technologies.

Michael T. Fournier teaches the history of punk rock class at Tufts University. He is the author of Double Nickels on the Dime (Continuum Press), an insightful analysis of legendary punk trio, the Minutemen and their classic 1984 album.

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Maintenant 5: A Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art

edited by Peter Carlaftes and Kat Georges

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Editors: Kat Georges & Peter Carlaftes

MAINTENANT 5, A Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art, is a journal that represents a broad range of contemporary dada art and literature from an international group of poets and artists, all inspired by the tenets of the original dada movement of the early 20th century.

Maintenant 5 is named in honor of the mother of all dada magazines and all ’zines in general, Maintenant, edited by the man who inspired the dada movement before Breton’s infamous manifesto against manifestos existed: Arthur Cravan. This issue is dedicated to his enduring legacy.

Maintenant 5: A Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art is the fourth edition of the Three Rooms Press Maintenant series, named in honor of Arthur Cravan’s original journal, Maintenant. Slip and slide into its groove and dig the germs and gems. Talk a trip. Now is always now. See you at the end of the road.

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Ism Is a Retrovirus

by Matthew Hupert

 

ISM is a Retrovirus, by Matthew Hupert

“Matthew Hupert has an eye, an ear (such an ear!), a heart and a tongue. He sees how the words work, listens to them working, feels their meaning and spits ’em out. I love his poetry.” –Dennis McNally, Author, A Long Strange Trip: The History of the Grateful Dead

Ism is a Retrovirus by Matthew Hupert (Three Rooms Press) is a rock solid collection of 87 poems that examine life, lust, love, religion and politics in a word play phantasmagoria in which, according to poet Dean Kostos, “sound is meaning and syntax is thrummed like strings on a guitar.” A native New Yorker, Hupert probes his subjects like an true urbanite—in short, accessible works that seem like passing glances, yet resonate and bring increasing pleasure on multiple readings. Mondo 2000 editor R.U. Sirius raves, “Matthew Hupert had me at ‘shell my pistachio eyes.’” Beat Generation and Grateful Dead historian Dennis McNally enthusiastically applauds Hupert’s writing: “He sees how the words work, listens to them working, feels their meaning and spits ‘em out. I love his poetry.” Funny, insightful and to the point, Matthew Hupert’s Ism is a Retrovirus is a song in a true modern American style praising beauty and grit of life with new insights in a determined, fresh voice.

Matthew Hupert is a multi-media artist, a writer, and that rarest of birds—the Native New Yorker. He believes the primary role of the Artist is to be the stick that your Zen master smacks you in the head with. His poetry has been published in The Formalist, the contemporary dada poetry and art journal Maintenant, and the anthology 150 Contemporary Sonnets. He is also a multimedia artist and has done extensive work with musicians to create psychedelic visual environments. He currently lives with his son in Manhattan.

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Inheriting Craziness Is Like a Soft Halo of Light

by Thomas Fucaloro

 

“Thomas Fucaloro is a force. His poems are ball-peen hammers. Don’t be misled—they come at you politely, offer a warm smile, and when you least expect it, knock you senseless.” –Jeanann Verlee

Thomas Fucaloro’s spectacular first collection of poetry is a beautiful, raw, intense read. According to Emily Kagan Trenchard, curator of the louderARTS Project, “Thomas Fucaloro’s particular gift is to harness the crazed wisdom at the bottom of the bottle, to scrape a fleck of beauty from the underside of a binge, and to call madness by a name so familiar we can’t help but recognize it in ourselves.” In these 57 poems, Fucaloro brings to light new angles of perception of madness, addiction and modern urban living. Each poem takes risks in form and content. As author Jon Sands notes, “To read Thomas is to literally discover each line with him. There’s really nothing he won’t say. He’s as surprised as you are.”

Born in Brooklyn, raised on Staten Island, now resides in Harlem, poet Thomas Fucaloro has survived 3 out of 5 boroughs. He is a graduate of New School University and is a junior editor at New York-based Uphook Press.

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Drunkyard Dog

Poems by Peter Carlaftes

 

Drunkyard Dog, Poems, by Peter Carlaftes

“A brilliant poetic voice, filled with drop-dead humor, searing insight and resilient originality, even while resonating with overtones of Bukowski, Baudelaire and Bogart . . .”

DrunkYard Dog by Peter Carlaftes is a long-awaited collection by a poetic master who honed his intense, insightful and inspiring poetic voice on the playgrounds of the Bronx, and, after seeing the world, moved onto the bars of Manhattan. Tales of bartender blues and bliss, injected with hope in a milieu of madness. Lush portraits of urban personas like Goodtime Charlie, the Battling Brothers, Ronnie the Cop and Uncle Willie. Cinematic swirls of downtown denizens in stark raving shades of shot-infused clarity. A poetic pub crawl that picks up the pieces of a dismantled present and puts them back together in a brand new cocktail. “If the sun set in the East, Carlaftes would be Bukowski.”

Carlaftes is the author of six chapbooks including The Bar Essentials, Sheer Bardom, Nightclub Confidential and Progressive Shots (all Three Rooms Press). Nine of his original plays have been staged to critical acclaim, including Anity, Spin-Dry, Handout, and Closure. He has also written and performed his one-man show, Lenny Bruce: Dead & Well, and is the author of two other books: A Year on Facebook (humor) and Triumph for Rent (three plays).

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Triumph for Rent: 3 Plays

by Peter Carlaftes

 

Three inventive and thoroughly enjoyable dramas by a new master of modern stagecraft. “As with STRINDBERG, BECKETT, or even SARTRE, PETER CARLAFTES’ message seems to be something we intuit . . . like music.” —SF Weekly

Playwright Peter Carlaftes presents three compelling, funny and biting dramas in TRIUMPH FOR RENT: Three Plays (Three Rooms Press, 184 pages, 2010, ISBN: 978-0-9840700-6-0). The plays include SPIN-DRY: An hilarious wild ride through a 90s rehab center for celebrities; HUNGER: a heartfelt drama—inspired by the Knut Hamsun novel—about a starving writer trying to survive and keep his integrity alive as the borders blur between fantasy and reality in a world of rocker chicks, hookers and convicts; and FRONTIER-A GO-GO, a tragi-comedy in which a man living on a man living on the Nebraska plains circa 1872 uses a time machine to summon a hippie drifter and a budding feminist who have just conceived a daughter at a rock concert in 1972, and then summons the daughter, aged 25, from her 1997 date with a cybergeek.

Peter Carlaftes began his theatrical career on the playgrounds of the Bronx, and after seeing the world, branched out to Manhattan. Nine of his plays have been staged, to critical acclaim, among them Anity, Frontier A-Go-Go, Spin-Dry and Closure. He also created and staged a deconstruction of Knut Hamsun’s classic novel Hunger, and created and starred in a one-man rendition of Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming. He has recently written and performed his solo work, Lenny Bruce: Dead & Well, and starred in numerous Off-Broadway plays. In addition to his theatrical career, Carlaftes is the author of two other books on Three Rooms Press: A Year on Facebook (humor, see below), and Drunkyard Dog (poetry, see above).

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A Year on Facebook

by Peter Carlaftes

 

Groucho Marx meets Kurt Vonnegut and they become BFFs in this irreverent, hilarious new book.

A Year on Facebook is a comical trajectory through modern American life via daily updates from the insightful and irreverent pontiff of pun—Peter Carlaftes.

In this day of the tell-all journal, Carlaftes’s book, exposing the foibles of our seemingly civilized sensibility, tells both how — and like — it is. Iconic from conception, A Year on Facebook is a one of a kind literary experience that raises the bar for the idealist in us all.

Through the hysterical daily Facebook status updates of the author— who became a viral Jonathan Swift through his irreverent social, political and just plain “out-there” observations—A Year on Facebook provides an hilarious book to thumb through at random or read page-by-ROTFL-page. It’s packed with side-splitting illustrations, and “interactive” pages that provide a multimedia experience for the reader in combination with the book’s namesake website.

The thousands of comments that have flooded Carlaftes’ online mailbox—many of which are included in this book—prove again and again: A Year on Facebook will leave readers howling with laughter. As one commentator summed up, “I wonder if you know, Peter, how many times you make me laugh out loud with your status updates. Guess it doesn’t matter. Just keep me laughing, please. ”

A Year on Facebook by Peter Carlaftes, Three Rooms Press
ISBN: 978-0-9840700-3-9, $13.95, 6” x 9”, Territory: WE, 184 Pages,  January 2010, Trade Paper, Humor/Pop Culture/Social Networking

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Recreational Vehicles on Fire

by Jane Ormerod

 

A fresh, fearless, new poetic voice that challenges and transfixes. An extraordinary first full-length collection.

Recreational Vehicles on Fire by Jane Ormerod is an extraordinary first full-length collection of poetry by a completely original modern voice. Daring and innovative, yet remarkably accessible, Ormerod explores the psyche and reduced position of humanity in a world increasingly overtaken by corporate greed and faceless machines. She invites the reader to examine with her how—of if—basic human emotions such as grief, joy and love fit into the present, and ponders their place in relation to past and future. Each poem is a stunning example of language and thought, delivered in a variety of unique forms. Ormerod is indeed a force to be reckoned with.

Poet and literary critic Sarah Sarai notes: “I’ve seen her perform . . . and find her speech—not elite, not Cockney—like her poetry, arresting and uncommon. . . A little punk, a little reserved, a lot artist, [her work] swoops in to challenge and transfix. Her confident lines embody a surety that their existence is all the sense we need.”

Recreational Vehicles on Fire; New & Selected Poems, by Jane Ormerod, Three Rooms Press
ISBN: 978-0-9840700-1-5, $15.00, 6” x 9”, Territory: WE, 112 Pages,  October 2009, Trade Paper, Poetry

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Poppin’ Johnny

New American Poems by George Wallace

 

A post-modern poetic “On the Road” that feels like music and offers a surreal trip into what’s left of the American heartland.

Poppin’ Johnny: New American Poems by George Wallace is a stunning collection by a poet whose work recalls the conversational diction of the Beatniks, but with an absolutely contemporary flavor. Known worldwide due to his broad-based internet following (for years, Wallace has posted his poems online almost daily), Wallace has selected more than 70 poems for this collection, presenting a panorama of modern-day Americana. As original Beatnik musician David Amram notes, “Jack Kerouac would have loved him.”

This new book has already received widespread critical praise throughout the online literary community. Zvi A. Sesling (dougholder.blogspot.com) notes, “Nitty-gritty, down in hole, Wallace rips life as if it were a piece of paper, leaving the edges jagged and the paper crumpled like so many lives he observes.” Jack Foley believes, “A George Wallace poem is a burst of articulation that carries us into the country of Talk. These poems—brilliant, funny, dangerous, cantankerous—announce the pure pleasure of speaking.” And Robert Peake sums up, “These are poems as rough and vulnerable as manhood, as full of hope and heartbreak as the new world. If you want to know what America feels like in your mouth, read George Wallace out loud.”

“George Wallace has written the quintessential American book of poetry. The poems in his new book Poppin’ Johnny New American Poems lift off the pages like so many warm-colored hot air balloons in the middle of an Iowa cornfield. And while they glide over the American checkerboard of fields and farms, these poems also hover over the urban streets of American cities where they take in the smells of restaurants brimming with working people as the sun rises, the rough textures of alleys at night and the blue-denimed boys who ride subways, and others who fling fish guts for a living.” by Lenny DellaRocca. Read the full review of Poppin’ Johnny at Greenwich Village Gazette.

Poppin Johnny; New American Poems, by George Wallace, Three Rooms Press
ISBN: 978-0-9840700-2-2, $15.00, 6” x 9”, Territory: WE, 116 Pages,  September 2009, Trade Paper, Poetry

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