Category Archives: Chapbooks

Elephants I didn’t Ride — New Poetry from California Poet, Peter Marti

Posted on by

Image

Virgogray is proud to present a new publication of poetry by poet, Peter Marti. Elephants I Didn’t Ride is an exciting collection of photography and verse, that takes readers on a trip to the far East and the lands of Hong Kong, Thailand and Laos. Marti provides poetic snapshots of his journey, a nod to the art of “sketch”style poetry. Elephant’s I Didn’t Ride is almost a poetic diary describing the poet’s encounters all along the way with crisp and sometimes laughable experiences in the unknown. Peter Marti is a veteran of the California post-beat and neo-beat scenes and has had his work published in a variety of mentionable venues, including City Lights Journal and the Beatitude Golden Anniversary issue. Marti also studied at Naropa University and has read alongside poets like Dianne Di Prima and Allen Ginsberg. To share this collection with a hard working and recognized poet as Peter Marti is indeed privelege, and we are sure readers everywhere will be excited by this latest literary work to be added to the underground and independent body. 58 pages. B/W photographs by Bernard Ries.

ELEKTRA’S MOUTH: Smashing New Collection by Suzi Kaplan Olmsted

Posted on by

Elektra's Mouth front cover

            Suzi Kaplan Olmsted returns to Virgogray Press with a stunning new collection, Elektra’s Mouth. Suzi offers readers her follow up to 2009′s Institutional Wallet that pushes the boundaries of her own cannon in its few pages. Elektra’s Mouth contains poetry and prose,  exhibiting Olmsted’s versatility all while redefining the limits of he own canon. Elektra’s Mouth is on par perspective of the human experience, an exhilaration from the first piece, a poem, “Touch Down Jesus” to other entries like “The Russian” or “The Milk of Human Kindness.” A few poems are coupled with illustrations by the poet’s husband, author and teacher, Marc Olmsted. Elektra’s Mouth resonates as a unique volume in the voice of the new underground from an author waiting to be read. Though surrounded by a finer class of post-beat, cut-up, post-modern phenomena, Suzi Kaplan Olmsted  presents the delicate, the common place, the obscene and personal, with a candid candor, a vocal perspective, a cadence in poetic stride, through eyes which speak the the literature spilled from Elektra’s Mouth. This publication is 38 pages, soft cover, perfect bound and illustrated by Marc Olmsted. Purchase at the following link: purchase Elektra’s Mouth. This title will soon be available at Virgogray Books. More information will soon be available about Suzi Kaplan Olmsted and news.

Homeless Sacrament

Reading Harpers
lovely sad piece
about a guy with a parking lot
who doesn’t drive -
homeless people
camp there
the police come up with
reasons
excuses
possible ordinances
so they can kick the
people off

Back to Vegas, Baby: Vegas Implosions Re-Issued and Expanded

Posted on by

Today is a great day for Virgogray Press as we re-issue Vegas Implosions by poet and musician Chris D’Errico. We are proud to re-release this publication, blossoming from a saddle-stitched, home-made chapbook to a professionally bound and expanded edition that includes new text, as well as a few revisions to the first release. Vegas Implosions is a new book, for a new time in the expansion of our press. Author, Chris D’Errico, was one of the first to contact Virgogray Press in regards to publishing their work and was the first fully realized chapbook we put out back in 2008. Vegas Implosions is a script of poetry that is humourous, surprising, and well-written.

Vegas Implosions by Chris D'Errico

Chris D’Errico’s collection of poetry Vegas Implosions is (other than a down-right, damning indictment) an examination of the sordid city of sin from this Massachusetts born poet, but seeing as this is Vegas, we’re talking about, that’s okay.  Now in this new expanded edition that includes the ‘script The Exterminator Chronicles, D’Errico has broken down and recreated a new volume that is a macro and micro cosm of sin city itself, both as a citizen and as an exterminator. D’Errico’s unique visual/graphic poetry, intermixed with his snapshot/sketch type style plays a role as anew generation of beat-flavored poetry captures the Vegas landscape. D’Errico is no-holds-barred as he takes you from the airport, to the gas station, to the seedy, cheap hotels at the Southern end of the Strip, all with the narrative voice that is colloquial and captures the essence of a semi-jaded residents “cleaning up / after celebrities, frat boys, call-girls & family men.” It is the wit and wisdom of this collection that keeps people coming back, and really one that makes Vegas Implosion a kind of hitchhiker’s guide through sin city. In the mix of new poems such as “777,” “Tireless Vector of the In Between,” “Mojave Meditation,” ” Terminal Afflictions (Scenes from the Airport)” and “Pawn Shop Tattoo” readers will find revised or remixed verse scrambled into new order that remains true to the original vibe of the first edition chapbook. The Exterminator Chronicles presents a bounty, a look into the secret life of an exterminator–and surely, we’ve yet to find exterminator poetry, at least none written so keenly. Very funny verse ensues (the poem “Black Flag” is a real kicker) from rats to roaches, to pigeons and vinagaroons and cats (!?! — you gotta read to find out!)– The Exterminator Chronicles will surely entertain, but reader be warned: “Small vermin were harmed in the making of these poems!” A highly unique look into the life of a poet unlike most, Vegas Implosions and the Exterminator Chronicles is sure to refresh the tired, poetry reader. And so it is, this new tome from poet Chris D’Errico now available from Virgogray Press. Be on the look out for Ministry of Kybosh, also by Chris D’Errico, coming soon!