Alan Squire Publishing

A Small Press With Big Ideas

New Review of Girls Like Us: The Collection "Bulges with Debilitating Last Lines" "The surprise-suplex-onto-concrete, knock-the-air-out-of-you kind of debilitating. Hazen is even dastardly enough to look the reader in the eye, then hook them with the very first last line: 'We've been called so many things that we are not, we startle at the sound of our own names.'" In Lannie Stabile's new review of Elizabeth Hazen's second collection Girls Like Us, she raves about the effect of Hazen's "last lines." Girls Like Us, she says, is "bulging with debilitating last lines." Like this one in … [Read more...]

New Poem by Elizabeth Hazen "Panic Attack" Lands in Failbetter A new poem by Maryland standout Elizabeth Hazen has been published in the 62nd volume of Failbetter literary journal. The poem, titled "Panic Attack," is dark and violent featuring images of fire, anxiety, and this evocative extended metaphor which crawls under the author's skin, "a banshee with curled fingernails; a gorgon, green and merciless; a girl with a loaded gun trapped inside a woman with her tongue cut out." Elizabeth Hazen's latest collection of poems, Girls Like Us, was released in March 2020 just … [Read more...]

Attending AWP? Check out Katherine E. Young's Panel on Women in Translation "This panel of poet-translators working in Catalan, French, and Russian focuses on the systems of exclusion that permeate the literary culture in this country and the role of translators in amplifying these voices." Join professional translators Katherine E. Young, Aviya Kushner, Nancy Naomi Carlson, Sharon Dolin, and Andrea Jurjević as they discuss "systems of exclusion which permeate literary culture." This panel at AWP is an important one for Katherine E. Young who has historically translated … [Read more...]

Listen to Katherine E. Young on the Badass Women-Folk Podcast Christine Sloan Stoddard hosts the Badass Lady-Folk podcast produced by Quail Bell Press. Badass Lady-Folk is a podcast about "socially engaged women & NB femmes kicking buns big & small." On the most recent episode, Katherine E. Young discusses several new projects including a poetry anthology composed of poems from Arlington County, VA and an English translation of a controversial (in Russia) Russian novel. … [Read more...]

"Woman Dinking Absinthe" Now Available! Katherine E. Young's evocative new collection of poems, Woman Drinking Absinthe, is now available from Alan Squire Publishing. Katherine E. Young's second collection follows up the critically acclaimed Day of the Border guards and was written during her tenure as Arlington County Poet Laureate. The poems in Woman Drinking Absinthe probe the extremes of passion and transgression, desire and its aftermath. The mood is Paris, the morning after a debauch: bitter hot chocolate, a croissant, and a strong aftertaste of the previous night. The setting … [Read more...]

TEMA TOWN BABY Written in May 2020 As a kid, my Uncle Ron made a big impression on me. At the time, I lived with my family in Ghana where my father worked as a medical researcher. In the middle of our four-year stay, Uncle Ron joined us in West Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer. He taught in a small village, Anum, a few hours east of the capital, Accra, where we lived. Curious about his life in Anum, I decided to spend my spring break with him shortly after I turned nine. My parents dropped us off by the side of Accra's motorway and, thumbs out, we were soon picked up by a yellow … [Read more...]

Caring for my Husband During the Pandemic Written Dec 31, 2020 Image by Emily Jay (emily-jay.com) Unless you lived with him, you'd not know  anything were wrong.  He forgets what day it is,  then what he planned to cook. In the middle  of the pandemic he can't go out, so he never has to panic, search for where he parked the car.  My job is to protect him. He's 76 years old  and has diabetes. I'm watching over him, won't let him take any risks. I double check  the shopping list, won't let him go to the market and pick among the beef ribs, which is his delight.  I, who've only done … [Read more...]

SELECTED WAR STORIES Written Aug, 2020 Another war starts. Living men fold open the dirt.   *   1st war put feet on the map, saying, Here are tickets to the rockets.   Most common word was millions. Example: millions of poets.    2nd war flashed its rictus. Done with horses. Ironed unhealed fields.   War barked. We came. Piano and flag every room.    Shocked naked. Someone must kill these already-dead.    *   Then little wars: smoked mountains, blind jungle, tiny skirmish.   Busy snakes in secret photos - postcards of … [Read more...]

Inventing a Vaccine Written Dec, 2020 Painting by Grace Cavalieri I toss towels into the washing machine / once each week as if the world / will suffer without the certainty / of my routine / world suffering until a vaccine is invented / inventors make progress / each day one step further / my dryer knows only the routine / of sheets tumbling once each week / world trembling as it awaits / an end to staying at home / scientists work in laboratories searching / for answers to the mystery / of a novel virus unknown / to the world a year ago / I know only repetition / staying home / … [Read more...]

Speaking with Strangers While Shopping Written Sept, 2020 They still don't have paper towels here. Even Costco was rationing them, two to a customer.   I just want my assorted olives, healthy you know. I haven't been able to find half the things on my list.   There're fires on the west coast. I expect I won't find the greens I usually buy.   Wonder how long we'll get oranges from Florida. The floods from the hurricanes have been horrible.   The best time to go shopping is in the morning when you can still get ahead of the crowds.   Have you looked at the … [Read more...]

Got what I wanted Image by Emily Jay (emily-jay.com) I didn't want to go anywhere / now look at me / I was so sick of those coders who never got to be frat boys living out their lost bromances over the office ping-pong table and kegerator / Open office floor plans are the devil / I hated having to tell them to stop saying stupid shit to the female developers / like to the one black girl, how many times can I say don't say anything about your co-workers' hair, ever  / HR is not your friend / I didn't want to be any of their friends / now look at me / I should measure these … [Read more...]

Throwing Out the Fortune Cookies Written Oct 22, 2020 Painting by Grace Cavalieri You have two dozen in your kitchen drawers. They fold into mouths ready to speak. Baked to brittleness, they taste like sweet nothings and whisper sweet nothings. They aren't worth eating when you can't order anything deep-fried and must always say, "Hold the rice." Somehow it seems petty to say, "Hold the fortune cookies." You toss the little mouths into the big mouth of a trash bag. They make a sound between a rustle and a thud. Why read them? You know everything they have to tell you. Half of … [Read more...]

Great Mother Poverty Written Jan 10, 2021 Image by Jonah Giuliano The people start at the house and madly run to the water; Lonely One Chases us all, Before time expires when we are Instantaneously rewound To our starting positions - Whoever she caught now chases with her, And some run again. Poverty, child at the hip, heterochromatic eyes flashing blue and gray, Arguing stridently in the muddied lean-to, An institution never known to me, but Situated properly in the mulched ground beyond the grass Of the backyard of my childhood home - Arguing stridently "What? No, you can't," … [Read more...]

The Intermingling of Souls: Why I Write Letters Written Jan 2021 Photo by Sheba Amante (www.photosbysheba.com ig: @photosbysheba) "To write is human, to receive a letter divine." - Susan Lendroth "How wonderful it is to be able to write someone a letter," wrote Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami in his 1987 novel Norwegian Wood. "To feel like conveying your thoughts to a person, to sit at your desk and pick up a pen, to put your thoughts into words like this is truly marvelous." I know that feeling well. I have been scribbling letters since I was a kid. I moved around a lot during … [Read more...]

Despite the Pandemic, Art Model Photography Continues! But How? Patty Hankins and Bill Lawrence explain how their art model photography business works remotely, and the value of shooting art nudes during a global pandemic. Patty Hankins and Bill Lawrence are photographers living just outside of Washington, D.C. in the Bethesda suburbs. They met in college, Duke University, in 1982. Though Bill earned his degree in biomedical engineering and Patty hers in history and public policy, they share an avocational passion: art model photography. Art model photography is a form of portraiture … [Read more...]

3 Poems: Kanga, Poem Donkeys, and Cartography by Elijah Giuliano Photos by Jonah Giuliano Your eyes are stamped with the sidereal insignia of a kanga, my sweet celestial bureaucrat. You breathe beneath the scabs of scarlet stars, like a sprung diver's reflection, suspended, scraping clean the sand-footed surface. When autumn has burned its toast, poem donkeys will cart away firegolden fish, galloping joyously back to Gary. Hastily, they deposit their music in towers of sheer glass in which the leaves rise like mercury in thermometers. Their hearts shine the dragon of a diner by … [Read more...]

Rose Solari Describes Her Favorite Erotic Literary Scene in WIRoB Article "In Possession, the repressions of time and circumstance explode with a dazzling erotic force." "We're in England in the 1860s. Cristabel LaMotte is a poet of modest reputation and hermit-like tendencies, living with a female companion who is secretly her lover. Randolph Ash is a renowned poet stuck in a sexless marriage with a loving but frigid wife. What begins as a chance meeting develops into an increasingly passionate epistolary relationship. By the time they consummate their love - on a stolen seaside … [Read more...]

Rose Solari Reviews Three New Collections Exploring History and Identity The WIROB critic tackles collections by Steven Leyva, Miles David Moore, and Stanley Moss in the January roundup Rose Solari reviews three exemplar new poetry collections for Washington Independent Review of Books. In her ongoing poetry column, Solari takes great care to tie each of the collections she reviews together and the theme this month is history and identity. From the beautifully drawn New Orleans of Steven Leyva's The Understudy's Handbook, to the WWII of Miles David Moore's Man on Terrace … [Read more...]

Arlington Literary Journal Publishes New Katherine E. Young Poem "If There is a Hell" The former Poet Laureate of Arlington's new poem asks and answers the question if there was a hell, what would it look, feel, smell and taste like? The latest poem by former Arlington Laureate in the Arlington Literary Journal comes direct from the pages of Young's forthcoming collection, Woman Drinking Absinthe. Previously published in Tampa Review, "If There is a Hell" has been making the rounds as a teaser for the collection to come. Katherine E. Young recently read her poem "Women's Work" … [Read more...]

Grace Cavalieri Interviews Poetry Superstar Ocean Vuong Grace Cavalieri kicks off the new year and a new season of "The Poet and The Poem" with an interview of poetry superstar Ocean Vuong. From her website: "Ocean Vuong is the author of The New York Times bestselling novel, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, out from Penguin Press (2019) and forthcoming in 30 languages. A recipient of a 2019 MacArthur "Genius" Grant, he is also the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection, Night Sky with Exit Wounds, a New York Times Top 10 Book of 2016, winner of … [Read more...]