Lost Valley Press Lost Valley Press is an imprint of Satya House Publications, Contact: julie@satyahouse.com |
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| Bal Harbor Blues | Noh Place Poetry Anthology | Confluence | Get Your Book Seen and Sold |
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Available at EVENTS Poetry Reading & Book Signing Poetry Reading & Book Release |
Confluence Geoff Wilkinson's poetry provides new ways to look at ourselves and each other. His main theme is connection: connection to self, loved ones, friends, nature, community, ancestors, and future generations. In these poems you will find moments of beauty, wonder, and grace that are present if only you pause and pay attention. From poems about mourning to the celebration of life in all its forms, Wilkinson work transcends the everyday and explores the depths of all this world has to offer. About the AuthorGeoff Wilkinson is a professor at Boston University School of Social Work, where he teaches community organizing, advocacy, and organizational change. A lifelong activist, he worked as a community organizer and as executive director of two statewide organizations advancing health, housing, and social justice, the Massachusetts Senior Action Council and the Massachusetts Public Health Association. He also served as senior policy advisor to the commissioner and director of policy and planning for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. Wilkinson is a founding board member and treasurer of the National Association of Community Health Workers. He is also a co-founder of two organizations working to promote peace and affordable housing, respectively, in the town where he lives just south of Boston with his wife of over 40 years. They have two married sons and two grandchildren. This is his first book. ReviewsLanguage, in the hands of a skilled poet, brings possibilities to life—witnessing time, place, happening, memories, emotions, absurdity. The skilled poet draws us into essential moments that take us on journeys we may not have imagined. Geoff Wilkinson is a skilled poet, worth savoring like a great cup of tea! Enjoy! Geoff has turned urgency in the poetry . . . beautiful images, he takes pieces of the grand universe and turns some into palpable bites of everyday reality. Geoff’s interest into the mystery of humanity is without hesitation and weaves for us the intimate connection between human and the cosmic experience. Beautiful work! In these finely crafted, potent poems, Geoff Wilkinson gives us new ways to look at ourselves and each other. The settings range from rural Vermont to the American southwest, from Haiti to Hiroshima, from the cityscapes of Central Massachusetts to Chile under the brutal dictatorship of the 1970s. His main theme is connection: to self, to the beloved, to friends, to nature, to the wider community, to ancestors, and to future generations. His work is informed by a stubborn hope borne of long experience and painful lessons. Wilkinson invites us to look more closely, more intently, and more bravely at ordinary life, and to see the moments of beauty, wonder, and grace that are present there if we pause and pay attention. Yet he also engages with harsher truths. This collection asks us to look squarely at the many forms of violence that surround us, but it does so not through dogmatism but by a quiet, attentive bearing-of-witness to the world in which we live. |
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Noh Place Poetry Anthology In an effort to avoid nostalgia and an aggrandizement of anyone’s “glory days,” while narrowing the selection of poets, we solicited work with the understanding that the poems may have been written before, during, or after the poets’ participation in the Noh Place Poetry Series. Thus, the scope of this anthology spans decades, rather than presenting a “freeze frame” on time. Each poet chose their own work for inclusion, and in the same spirit, wrote their own biographical statements, with the idea that such an approach would illustrate the variety of voices and experiences that were an essential component of Noh Place and its philosophy. We believe that this collection of poems, modified from its original, more inclusive plan, contains aesthetic value, poetic stylings, and/or socio-political relevance, and indeed, continues to stand on its own merits. The participating seventeen poets in the anthology were chosen for their local, regional, and/or national importance, and for their representation of the many styles and voices that exemplified the Noh Place Poetry Series. Five of the selected poets have passed away. We asked Noh Place founding member Stephen Campiglio to select their poems and write their biographical statements. We regret that all of the poets who read for the Series over the years could not be included. This exclusion does not reflect any editorial bias or taste. ReviewsFounded on the idea that artists can break barriers between artforms and encourage one another to experiment, the Noh Place Cooperative sponsored events featuring painting, poetry, and music much as the Japanese tradition of Noh Theater weaves music, dance, and drama. Put together from a wide variety of individual artists, The Noh Place Poetry Anthology embodies the mystery and miracle of creativity with amazing unity.
Imagine if a poet were to introduce a painter to the practice of writing. There might be a lot of barriers unless the poet were to adopt a light touch, a tentative, speculative way, avoiding stuffiness and pedantry. The poems in this anthology are very much in that mode.
It is said that fine poems teach their readers how to read them. What’s fascinating about these poems is how they reveal the way figures of speech are both triggers and products of the imagination. The anthology is both a tour-guide into the practice of poetry and a fountain of inspiration. This remarkable anthology shines a light on the literary, visual, and performing artists who came together to share their soul-nourishing gifts with the Worcester (Massachusetts) community in the 1980s and 1990s. The contributors comprise an impressive variety of racial, ethnic, and social class backgrounds. All are clear-eyed about the harsh realities of urban existence while at the same time steadfastly playful and life-affirming. The book features several nationally recognized poets, among them Chris Gilbert, Etheridge Knight, and Brother Blue, along with established regional poets such as Jonathan Blake, Stephen Campiglio, Eve Rifkah, Bill O’Connell, Jean Lozoraitis, and some talented writers whose work is published for the first time in these pages. Skillfully edited and creatively combining images and words, the Noh Place anthology celebrates those who contributed to a literary and artistic renaissance in the center of New England during the final decades of the twentieth century. Their voices remain powerfully resonant, relevant, and reverberant today, and deserve to be read, heard, and amplified. |
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Available on Amazon, EVENTS
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Bal Harbour Blues In 1991, John has a good life running the numbers racket In Brooklyn and Staten Island until his mob boss, Louie the Finger, pulls him out with a late-night phone call. New York state lottery is moving into the mob's turf, so The Finger is shifting business to crack and prostitution. In his mid-fifties and with no interest in the drug trade, John takes Louie's offer to retire on a mob pension to a tacky South Florida high-rise with his wife, Eleanor. Cast out of New York and adrift without purpose, John begins to dissipate in the heat. But Eleanor has other ideas and quietly begins making forays into the Miami underworld with one goal in mind - to develop the perfect crime to help her husband get his mojo back.
About the AuthorJohn Scheinman grew up on Long Island and is a writer and editor living in Baltimore. The last turf beat writer for The Washington Post, he is a two-time Eclipse Award winner for excellence in writing about thoroughbred racing. His piece, Memories of a Master, was named a notable sports story in The Best American Sports Writing 2015 anthology. His headline writing and general reporting has been honored by the Maryland-Delaware-D.C. Press Association and Society of Professional Journalists. His sketch comedy has been performed at the Warehouse and Source theaters in Washington, D.C. and Theatre Odyssey in Sarasota, Florida. He made his standup comedy debut in 2019 at the DC Improv Comedy Club. A graduate of American University, he studied writing with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Henry Taylor and improvisational comedy and performance at The Theatre Lab in Washington. He began his journalism career at The Ring, The Bible of Boxing. Listen to him on the podcast "Going in Circles" by Charles Simon. |
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Available on EVENTS |
Get Your Book Seen and Sold It is easier than ever to publish a book, but many authors find out too late about the actual work—the book marketing—that needs to be done to achieve sizable book sales. Instead of embracing the opportunities to promote their books, authors are intimidated and shut down. Those days are over. This is the book authors MUST HAVE to give their books the best chance to be seen and sold. In this essential, easy-to-understand guide, authors will work through the graphs, examples and exercises to learn: * The fundamentals of book marketing: Message, Audience, and Hook
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