Tag: Sundress Publications

Sundress Reads: Review of Silent Letter

On a clear, promising morning, the words of Gail Hanlon’s Silent Letter (Cornerstone Press, 2023) can be slipped into like donning affirmations. Hanlon’s exploration of the intricacies of life caters to every possible reader; newcomers will find themselves “fizzling”, human, “s/he”, searching, or forgotten (4, 23). She arranges figurines and postcards of life into poems that stand by themselves. She also explores key aspects of human life in an earthly and suggestive tone, leaving sparkling possibilities for divinity while admiring the wisdom of laughing birds in an underbrush. Interacting with each of Hanlon’s poems, I feel sure and comfortable in my humility. 

I love the metaphysical questioning of human place and purpose that permeates the poems in Silent Letter— there is something special about the intellectual humility and deference to so many different sources. The voice in her poems searching for answers about the human condition does not do so vainly or expectantly. Rather, her characters and scenes ask each other questions, play in nature, and leave room for interpretation. Hanlon asks, “why do we choose utterance / if the whole world is in flames … I open the window / thinking of a friend’s question / When are you going to live?” (14). In examples like this from “Not Yet Across,” Hanlon’s work drifts languidly, plainly, and obviously towards the searching and the existential. “Why do we choose utterance” is the simplest of questions, touching on a timeless human tendency to fill voids with language. What are we doing here? Why are we speaking? The musing then considers intention: how we can do these things like talk, when we choose to make talk life. I could ask myself when I am going to live a million times over for a million days. But Hanlon does not stop here, nor does she really attempt to find a solution. In “Eight Minute Essay,” the speaker is described as “looking for an answer in the intricate puzzle faces of blue and yellow pansies as I stand in line for the bus” (17). The question they are trying to answer could be what to do with a mortal life and could be any interpersonal anxiety of the day. Either way, it seems flowers can help – and the simplest answers may be found in nature. It is this careful, artful melding of the complex and the quotidian that makes Hanlon’s poems not only stand, but shine.  

The buried themes and questions of Hanlon’s pieces are exposed through precise and deliberate literary devices, rendering each piece an actor in a beautifully orchestrated conversation. In “A Step Nearer to Them,” phrases repeatedly begin with “that” as a relative pronoun, suggesting a preceding phrase that we do not see. The result is that the poem waits, dangling, perhaps ontologically relational. The speaker celebrates: “that I’m still fizzling, shaken, / sugared, and bright even as I am / failing the I-am-not-a-robot test on a regular basis” (4). The use of such adjectives to prove humanity is almost comic, as they seem to describe something like a soda— but they certainly lend to personality and vibrancy, something perhaps artificially tainted but far from robotic monotony. As well as demonstrating strong diction and phrasal choice, Hanlon employs powerful lyric moments in her poems. The final lines of “End Now or Cancel” slow down and change in rhyme scheme, shifting the focus of the piece to the details and the author’s surprise. Lyric moments come in changes of speaker tense, too. In “Running Brush,” Hanlon convinces the reader that “You want to see / your body in front of you. / You want to see it float” (24). There is power in the directness of speaking to an unnamed recipient, because each reader is pulled to adopt the words themselves. I want to see my body in front of me, and to see it float. In this way, Hanlon writes the questions of my mind and places them in front of me, urging their apprehension. 

The poems of Silent Letter are to be enjoyed by each of us. Even in her epistemic humility, Hanlon universalizes story and theme. She does not suggest sureness but allows all kinds of readers to pull their own truth from the pages and apply it to a sister, a brother, or a friend. In “Small Gold Figure,” the speaker admits that they now “cannot think / of anything significant / to say,” and then asks “How to read— / left to right or right to left? / Sunwise or moonwise?” (31). In her appraisal of humanity’s condition, Hanlon does not leave out the curse of time— perhaps the most primary thing to a human. Reconsidering basic functions like what to say and how to read, and the ways these can become more taxing and confusing with age, Hanlon breaks against the shore of a bigger question: what do we do with what we learn? Here an earlier poem echoes again, as does its eternal plea: “when are you going live?”.  

Gail Hanlon’s Silent Letter is available from Cornerstone Press

Isabelle Whittall is pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in combined Philosophy and Political Science at the University of British Columbia (UBC). She co-hosts the radio show Hail! Discordia! on CITR 101.9fm, and is an Editorial Board Member of UBC’s Journal of Philosophical Enquiries.  

Lyric Essentials: Ashley Hajimirsadeghi Reads Kim Hyesoon

Welcome back to Lyric Essentials, where we invite authors to share the work of their favorite poets. This month, Ashley Hajimirsadeghi (former Lyric Essentials editor and an all-around Sundress staff contributor!) joins us to discuss the work of Kim Hyesoon and the importance of female poetry, translation, and how everyone needs a break at submitting to marinate in ideas. As always, we hope you enjoy as much as we did.

Ryleigh Wann: When was the first time you read Kim Hyesoon’s work? Why did it stand out to you then?

Ashley Hajimirsadeghi: The first time I read Kim Hyesoon I was a freshman in college. I’d just moved back from South Korea after studying Korean at Ewha Womans University, and to curb the sadness of leaving behind a country I really loved, I was finding all of these ways to stay connected to the culture. I purchased a copy of Kim’s Autobiography of Death on a whim after reading about how she was one of the leading female poets in Korea–and one of the few who gets translated and brought into broader international discussions of literature made by Korean women.

What struck me then–and still strikes me–is how experimental Kim is with her work, and how unapologetically female it is. Autobiography of Death is specifically a reaction to the Sewol tragedy in 2014, but Kim generally uses the grotesque in a way that reminds me of abject theory, of artists like Meret Oppenheim and Cindy Sherman. It’s something I began to realize as an eighteen-year-old and now study today.

Ashley Hajimirsadeghi reads “H is for Hideous” by Kim Hyesoon

RW: How has her writing inspired your own?

AH: I really do believe reading the work of women writers like Kim Hyesoon really helped hone in this instinct to focus on women’s stories. It was by consuming stories like these that I realized as a writer I was more comfortable anchoring pieces in narratives versus abstract concepts–and because of that, I began to lean more into documentary and ethnographic poetics. Reading Kim’s work also reminded me of translation and the power behind who and what gets translated–I wanted more from Korean women writers, and while we’re going through quite a bit of a Korean culture renaissance recently, it made me realize I wanted to read more broadly and translate myself. So I do Bengali poetry translations in my free time with books I sourced from a Bangladeshi bookstore owner in Jackson Heights, Queens. You learn a lot about language, power, and intentionality when you do this kind of work.

Ashley Hajimirsadeghi reads “Mailbox” by Kim Hyesoon

RW: Your chapbook, Cartography of Trauma, has a beautiful cover and title. What does this collection explore and what was your writing process like?

AH: Ironically, a lot of these poems are from high school and beginning of college. When it comes to exploration, I was in the beginning stages of thinking about how trauma is a ripple effect across periods, and I wanted to really hone in on women’s experiences. I have a tendency to blur fiction with reality, while delving into history, but I want to be really intentional and careful with the work I’m doing. Some of it is personal, some of it is research, but with fictional bends. I say I’m an accidental poet; I was a devoted fiction writer who kind of fell into this.

RW: What have you been up to lately (life, work, anything!)? Got any news to share?

AH: Right now I’m in my third semester of graduate school and preparing for my thesis. It’s going to be on colonial Korean women’s literature, so writers like Kim Myeong-sun, and this concept of hybridity as a form of self-expression for those suffering from the double colonization involved with the patriarchy. I’m trying to turn this into a digital humanities project, so maybe I’ll open it up to broader Asian feminist writers like Qiu Jin (if I have the energy). 

Besides that, I’ve been taking a cute little break from submitting to marinate in my ideas and writing. I find it so liberating to step away from the submitting grind and just write. I’ve been doing this a lot more lately, and I think it’s helped my practice as a writer.

Read more from this interview on our Patreon

Kim Hyesoon is one of the most influential contemporary poets of South Korea. She is the first female poet to receive the prestigious Midang and Kim Su-yong awards, and her collections include I’m OK, I’m Pig! (Bloodaxe Books, 2014), Poor Love Machine (Action Books, 2016), and Autobiography of Death (New Directions, 2018). Kim lives in Seoul and teaches creative writing at the Seoul Institute of the Arts.

Purchase Phantom Pain Wings

Ashley Hajimirsadeghi is an Iranian American multimedia artist, writer, and journalist currently pursuing an M.A. in Global Humanities at Towson University. Her writing has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Passages North, The Cortland Review, Salamander, RHINO, Salt Hill, and The Journal, among others. She is the Co-Editor-in-Chief at Mud Season Review, a former Brooklyn Poets Fellow, and a contributing writer and film critic at MovieWeb. She can be found at www.ashleyhajimirsadeghi.com // Instagram: @nassarine

Purchase Cartography of Trauma

Ryleigh Wann (she/her) hails from Michigan and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. She earned an MFA from UNC Wilmington where she taught poetry and served as the comics editor for Ecotone. Her writing can be found in The McNeese Review, Longleaf Review, The Shore, and elsewhere. You can visit her website at ryleighwann.com

Sundress Reads: Review of All Hat, No Cattle

“I tell them I love them because I do. Because I can,” (18) says the narrator of Mariah Rigg’s All Hat, No Cattle (Bull City Press, 2023), about a bunch of green onions she has been keeping alive on the sill above her sink. The use of can sparks a question that runs through this collection: what can we love? In six short essays, this chapbook packs a powerful emotional punch, exploring the complexity of love–romantic, familial, one-sided, long distance. Each relationship is presented in an honest and undramatic way, as no relationship is perfect, not even the narrator’s relationship with her green onions. She must leave some behind to build a new life in a different city, yet the memories are preserved and presented with love. They are not tainted by time or emotion. 

Throughout all six essays, Rigg’s narrator navigates her relationship with C (who is addressed by his initial or in the second person). In “Suspended,” the narrator is in love with C, and C is either blissfully unaware or ignorant of this reality as he casually shares stories about an ex-girlfriend. The narrator tries not to imagine this ex being attacked by a goose as she acknowledges that she “only knew he loved her and not me” (Rigg 3). Their relationship is fraught with guessing on the part of the narrator. Though the essay starts with C’s hand on her knee, the narrator “never knew when or if I had the right to touch him” (Rigg 5). This guessing continues in later essays and the constant push-pull in this relationship makes it painfully relatable. 

Rigg weaves beautifully from external to internal landscapes throughout All Hat, No Cattle. The narrator wishes time would slow, and then, “The breeze stopped, the cottonwood seeds stuck in the air, suspended… The breeze resumed and the seeds fell to the water, rushing away” (5). Readers are given listed descriptions, images that stand out and define the moment for the narrator, such as, “The last petals of June’s roses drop through the window’s glass. I smell the honey of the baklava you bought from the store on the corner, the sharp Parmesan you shred over spinach-swirled eggs. Fleetwood Mac is playing” (Rigg 7). Each essay feels like a frozen moment, a snapshot of this love before it rushes away, first to different cities, then to separate lives.

In the second essay, “Gut-Punching,” the narrator’s relationship with C has become sexual. Rigg makes it clear, however, that their bond goes beyond sex, acting as a source of comfort and familiarity. Rigg writes, “You stand behind me. My head rests on your thighs, the water flowing from you to me, warmed twice over by the heater and your body. It’s dirty, but it can’t be worse than our own piss, which we lay in for months, curled inside our mothers” (6). There is deep intimacy in this moment and yet, distance still lingers. C’s feelings, and at times, the narrator’s, remain a mystery. After sex, the narrator, addressing C, explains, “your face whispering I love you even as your mouth says That was fun. I wish I could blame you, but neither of us has learned how to say what we feel” (Rigg 7). Such withholding is mirrored in Rigg’s writing, as the emotions are not laid out explicitly. The writing does not tell us how the characters feel. Instead, it lets us feel it.

Memories of the narrator’s father are braided through scenes with C in the essays “Linger” and “All Hat, No Cattle.” In the latter, Rigg writes, “Like me, here and in love with C, who’s so much like Dad. Like Dad, going to rehab for coke, then alcohol, only to get addicted to Bikram yoga” (14). There is an added layer of complexity to the familiarity that the narrator experiences with C. In “All Hat, No Cattle,” C drives around his new town, Lubbock, TX, drinking a beer and shouting out to a neighboring car. The narrator remembers drives with her father before he went to rehab. They would yell out the car window and startle pedestrians. Rigg avoids judgment on behalf of the narrator for the behaviors of these characters. They are presented, like the scenery, matter of factly.

The chapbook comes to a close as the relationship with C does. In the final essay, “Blessings,” the narrator is “rootless without C” (17) and therefore holding on to what she can: her green onions, a city that doesn’t suit her, her memories, etc. Here Rigg beautifully depicts our human need to attach to something. Though the onions have given their blessing, the narrator has not yet left Knoxville; she instead feels like she is drowning in the weight of the place. Though we readers aren’t directly told what has happened with C, the onions seem to say it all, “Be free, they tell me. Go forth, somewhere far” (Rigg 18). We can only assume C has done the same: set her free. 

So often the messaging around an ended relationship is to throw it out. Burn the photos. Move on. Paint the ex as a villain. The message of this collection is much more human, much more true. All Hat, No Cattle argues for honoring the relationship, the love, and the person. Rigg writes, “The green onions above my windowsill have become part of me through how they’ve nourished me. And though we will no longer be together, I will be grateful for that” (19). If the question of this collection is what can we love, the answer is whatever we please. Love cannot be taken from us when the relationship is. The nourishment stays. We can be grateful for that. 

All Hat, No Cattle is available at Bull City Press

Jen Gayda Gupta is a poet, educator, and wanderer. She earned her BA in English at the University of Connecticut and her MA in Teaching English from New York University. Jen lives, writes, and travels across the U.S. in a tiny camper with her husband and their dog. Her work has been published in Up the Staircase, Rattle, Jellyfish Review, Sky Island Journal, The Shore, and others. You can find her @jengaydagupta and jengaydagupta.com.

An Interview with Michael Meyerhofer, Author of What To Do If You’re Buried Alive

Following the republishing of his book What To Do If You’re Buried Alive this past month, Michael Meyehofer spoke with Doubleback Books editorial intern Camelia Heins about the choice behind the title along with reasons behind his references to religion, connections to the Midwest, and the use of comedy. 

Camelia Heins: Your title really hooks people in and the title itself is the name of one of your poems. What inspired you to name this collection of works What To Do If You’re Buried Alive? Why did this poem specifically stand out to be the name of the entire collection? 

Michael Meyerhofer: The original version of that poem was about three pages long and was inspired by research I did on actual people throughout the ages who’ve been inadvertently buried alive but lived to tell the tale. Gradually, though, I whittled it down until it ended up as the fairly short poem it is now. Since that one already felt like an allegory for dealing with depression—or, really, any kind of struggle that feels overwhelming and insurmountable, but probably actually isn’t—and a lot of my poems can have a bit of darkness or sardonic humor in them, it seemed like a fitting title poem for the collection.

CH: You section off the book into two sections, “Scars” and “Tattoos.” I think these words are particularly interesting, especially with how tattoos themselves can be seen as scars or as art. What is the significance behind sectioning off the book this way? Can you explain your reasoning behind choosing these two words? 

MM: To be honest, I actually have to credit my late friend and mentor, Jon Tribble, for that! Many years ago, I was at critical mass in terms of having way too many poems that I was trying to fit into manuscripts, and he kindly volunteered to take a look at what I had. It was his idea to arrange the manuscript in two sections, with “Scars” and “Tattoos” used to distinguish between formative events and later, more deliberate choices. I eventually added what became the title poem and tweaked a few small things, but overall, it’s still as he arranged it. Jon was a kind, brilliant man, and like hundreds of poets out there, I owe him a lot!

CH: Many of your poems include some sort of unexpected twist or may catch people off guard. What influences can you attribute this style to? What kind of impact do you intend to make with these twists in your poems? 

MM: I’m sure I’m far from the first person to say this, but I feel like there’s a lot of similarity between poems and Zen koans. I’ve always loved how koans end on a twist that makes sense in a way that’s wild and transcendent but can’t really be articulated—the way they tug our brains in directions we didn’t even know were possible. For most of my writing life, poetry has been an exercise in teaching myself to stop white-knuckling whatever story or meaning I’m trying to get across and just trusting the piece to end itself.

CH: It’s clear your work contains a touch of comedy and satire, seen in poems like “My Mother Sent Me” and “Dear Submitter.” Can you talk about how you use comedy and satire and what kind of effect these elements have on your work? 

MM: There’s something transcendent and almost spiritual about humor—how it can let the air out of the worst tragedy and remind us in an instant that there’s a touch of absurdity in all our struggles and grief. Some of that might also come from growing up in Iowa, a state that’s beautiful but also rather stark and isolating, where deadpan humor is a must for getting through harsh winters surrounded by icy roads and fallow fields.

CH: You make quite a few religious references in your work, mentioning Catholic school, confessions, and more. Are you religious? How does your own religious background, whether positive or negative, influence your work? 

MM: I grew up in a pretty religious small town and attended a Catholic school—I was even an altar boy, and spent many hours in a white robe seated at the impaled feet of a graphically carved Christ! As you might imagine, I was also dreadfully emo, pondering mortality and suffering from a very young age (inspired, I’m sure, by all the time I spent in hospitals because of birth defects and health problems). So I was fascinated by religious stories because they were the first places I went looking for answers. Later, I took every religion and philosophy class I could in college (I’m the annoying guy who could sweep the Bible category in Jeopardy). Ultimately, I came to realize that my religious interpretations weren’t Catholic so much as Zen Buddhist, and to really chafe at the sense of bashful shame and unnecessary guilt that seemed to permeate a lot of those early lessons—but those feelings and religious iconography will always be with me, I’m sure.

CH: As someone with a connection to the Midwest, I found it interesting and personal that you included many connections to the Midwest region and suburban/rural life. The poem “Suburbia” particularly stood out to me. How do you think a non-urban, more suburban/rural background shapes your work? What’s the appeal of focusing on suburban or rural life? 

MM: I’ve lived in cities (of various sizes) for pretty much all my adult life, and I’ve come to see California as my home these last 9 or so years—but if you cracked my skull open, you’d probably still find a lone farmhouse surrounded by fields and tree-covered hills. The beautiful starkness of the Midwest has always seemed to me to be the perfect illustration of what it means to be human—there are people who love us, sure, but ultimately we’re on our own, so you’d better start figuring stuff out.

CH: I love your poem “Strata,” especially the imagery of lying on someone’s grave to understand the universe. I just have to ask, have you ever done that? And whether you did or didn’t, what was your reasoning behind choosing to use an image like this? 

MM: Thank you! Yes, I have done that, actually. I don’t recall where the idea came from, but I’ve more or less always had the sense that if you want to reach any kind of understanding, you have to keep your lens clear and cast off as many inhibitions and taboos as you possibly can. That might be why I’ve always had a great deal of respect for spirituality and curiosity but almost none for ritual and dogma. I think irreverence can be an amazing artistic, spiritual, and intellectual tool, so long as it’s sincere and not just performative.

CH: Outside of your poetry work, I notice you also write fantasy novels. How would you say the idea of fantasy plays a role in your poems, if any? 

MM: I’m a terrific nerd in real life! I grew up reading science fiction and fantasy, so for me, there’s not that much difference between a poem, a novel, a short story, etc.—just slightly different attempts at the same thing. There are countless ways that I think fiction has helped my poetry, and vice versa—from imagery and storytelling to maybe a bit more awareness of how something actually sounds to the reader. Both sides also feed into my nerdiness too. When I’m not reading or writing, one of my favorite things is to watch documentaries about science, history, religion, etc. In fact, I love lifting weights (probably another thing tied to my childhood) and will often exercise while playing videos in the background on physics, mythology, and strategic analysis of battlefield tactics used a thousand years ago—it all gets thrown into the blender that is my brain for later use.

What To Do If You’re Buried Alive is available to download for free from Doubleback Books

Michael Meyerhofer is the author of five poetry books, six poetry chapbooks, and two fantasy trilogies. He has won the James Wright Poetry Award, the Liam Rector First Book Prize, the Whirling Prize, and other honors. He earned his B.A. from the University of Iowa and his M.F.A. from Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He grew up in Iowa where he learned the value of reading novels, lifting weights, and not getting his hopes up. He currently serves as the Poetry Editor of Atticus Review and lives in Fresno, California. For more information and at least one embarrassing childhood photo, visit www.troublewithhammers.com.

Camelia Heins (she/her) is an undergraduate student studying English & Political Science at the University of California, Irvine. Born and raised in Orange County, California, Camelia has been active in her community through service, engagement, and both creative and journalistic writing. She enjoys reading and writing poetry, listening to several of her Spotify playlists, collecting plants, and playing with her cat, Moira.

Pre-Orders for Our 2023 Broadside Now Open

Sundress Publications is thrilled to announce that pre-orders for our 2023 broadside contest winner are now open. Kenzie Allen’s poem, “Love Song to the Man Announcing Pow Wows and Rodeos,” will be letterpress-printed at the Sundress Academy for the Arts as a limited edition 8.5” x 11” broadside.

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Kenzie Allen is a Haudenosaunee poet and multimodal artist; she is a descendant of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin. Kenzie is a recipient of a 92 NY Discovery Prize, the James Welch Prize for Indigenous Poets, the 49th Parallel Award for Poetry, and the Littoral Press Prize, as well as fellowships from Vermont Studio Center, Aspen Summer Words, and Indigenous Nations Poets (In-Na-Po). A finalist for the National Poetry Series, her work can be found in Poetry, Boston Review, Narrative, Poets.org, The Paris Review’s The Daily, Poetry Northwest, Best New Poets, and other venues. Born in West Texas, she is currently an Assistant Professor in Indigenous Literatures and Creative Writing at York University in Toronto.

The broadside edition combines Kenzie Allen’s work with an original piece by artist Lori Tennant. The poem “Love Song to the Man Announcing Pow Wows and Rodeos” first appeared in Narrative.

Order your copy today for $5 off the retail price!

Sundress Publications Closes on 11/30 for Poetry Broadside Contest

Sundress Publications is pleased to announce that we are now open for submissions for our annual poetry broadside contest. The contest will be open for submission until November 30th, 2023.

The winner’s poem will be letterpress-printed as an 8.5” x 11” broadside complete with custom art and made available for sale on our online store. The winner will receive $200 and 20 copies of their broadside. 

To submit, send up to three poems, no longer than 28 lines each (line limit includes stanza breaks but not the title), in one Word or PDF document to sundresscontest@gmail.com by November 30, 2023. Be sure to include a copy of your payment receipt or purchase order number (see below for payment of fees). Please make sure that no identifying information is included in the submitted poems. You can submit poems online here.

The reading fee is $10 per batch of three poems, though the fee will be waived for entrants who purchase or pre-order any Sundress title. Entrants can place book orders or pay submission fees at our store. Once the purchase is made, the store will send a receipt with a purchase code. This code should be included in the submission, or you may forward the email receipt at the same time as you send the submission. This fee is waived for all writers of color.

Previously published material is welcome so long as you maintain the rights to the work. Let us know in your cover letter if any of your submitted poems have been previously published. 

Poems translated from another language will not be accepted. Simultaneous submissions are fine, but we ask that authors notify us immediately if their work has been accepted elsewhere; poems accepted for publication are still qualified provided the author retains the rights to the work at the time of printing.

Submit poems online here.

This contest’s judge is Darren C. Demaree. Darren C. Demaree grew up in Mount Vernon, Ohio. He is a graduate of the College of Wooster, Miami University, and Kent State University. He is the author of twenty poetry collections, most recently Tongues Out in the Garden of Spectacle (August 2023, Newcomer Press). He is the recipient of a Greater Columbus Arts Council Grant, an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, the Louise Bogan Award from Trio House Press, and the Nancy Dew Taylor Award from Emrys Journal. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Best of the Net Anthology and Managing Editor of Ovenbird Poetry. He is currently working in the Columbus Metropolitan Library system, and living in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children. 

Sundress Publications is Open for Microgrant Applications for Palestinian Writers

Sundress Publications is open for submissions for grant applications from Palestinian identifying writers with a chapbook or full-length collection in progress. All eligible authors are welcome to submit during our application period which closes on December 31st, 2023. Applicants may apply for any genre.

The Sundress Microgrant for Palestinian Writers will award $500, a slot in Sundress’s reading series, a one-week residency at the Sundress Academy for the Arts in Knoxville, TN, and the potential for publication to one writer of Palestinian descent with a chapbook or full-length in progress to support the completion of said project. 

All applications will be read by members of our editorial board. One writer will be selected, who will then work with Sundress’s reading series coordinator, residency team, and editorial board.

To apply, please send a sample of the work in progress along with a brief (no more than 500 words) artist/personal statement about what this grant would mean to the completion of said work. These items should be sent to our editorial board as DOCX or PDF files at sundresspublications@gmail.com. Please include the phrase “Sundress Microgrant for Palestinian Writers” in the subject line. There is no fee to apply.

Doubleback Books Announces the Release of Michael Meyerhofer’s What To Do If You’re Buried Alive

Doubleback Books announces the release of Michael Meyerhofer’s What To Do If You’re Buried Alive. The poems in this collection are tenderly masculine, self-deprecating and humorous. They are the poems of an adult male poet looking back at childhood and puberty with anything  but rose-colored glasses. He shows us how we see ourselves often through time—with a mixture of cringe and understanding.

Mary Biddinger, author of A Sunny Place with Adequate Water, writes, “With a compassionate eye, and his trademark sense of humor that hooks readers from the very first page, Meyerhofer sends us back to our earliest memories, and shows us a world of heartbreak and wonder.” And Jon Tribble, author of Natural State, adds “Through pain and loss, Meyerhofer’s poems are harrowing prayers searching for ‘the charms of language’ that might lead to forgiveness, to redemption, to love.”

Download your copy of What To Do If You’re Buried Alive today!

Michael Meyerhofer is the author of five poetry books, six poetry chapbooks, and two fantasy trilogies. He has won the James Wright Poetry Award, the Liam Rector First Book Prize, the Whirling Prize, and other honors. He earned his B.A. from the University of Iowa and his M.F.A. from Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He grew up in Iowa, where he learned the value of reading novels, lifting weights, and not getting his hopes up. He currently serves as the Poetry Editor of Atticus Review and lives in Fresno, California. For more information and at least one embarrassing childhood photo, visit www.troublewithhammers.com.

Sundress Reads: Review of Almonds Are Members of the Peach Family Review

Stephanie Sauer’s Almonds are Members of the Peach Family (Noemi Press, 2019) is a masterful multimedia project that weaves together prose and craftsmanship, bringing light to buried historical narratives. While this is her second traditional prose book, Sauer also has multiple art books that demonstrate her experience with a wide variety of mediums, such as quilting, archiving other’s works, and stitching, specifically of clothing. Her writing is skillful, untangling her family’s history, but it merely accompanies the quilt she crafts throughout the book, the true star of the show. This quilt serves as a work of healing as she begins to reconcile the history all around her. 

From the first paragraph, Sauer establishes the idea of quilting as suture, a word typically used for stitches used to hold a wound together. Her first chapter, “Patchwork” opens with pictures of the messy back stitching of something Sauer has sewed. Counterposing these images, Sauer moves readers to Rio, one of the many places the author has lived through her travels. She describes the city as hungry, its sharp mouths constantly searching for bones and blood. She writes, “I bump into one on the way to buy groceries and it slices my arm. I hold the cut with my opposing hand and an incision form from the inside of my skin, letting air in but no blood out” (Sauer 4). Sauer uses suture here to refer to her attempts to find healing via crafting. 

She returns to the concept again on page 103, acknowledging that she can not be the first woman to make this connection. Sauer always makes sure to credit those who came before, saying, “Education, I find, has less to do with knowing things and more to do with the crafting and recrafting of oneself” (Sauer 104). She references Dr. Gladys-Marie Fy’s Preface to Stitched from the Soul: Slave Quilts from the Ante-Bellum South, which documents how slave women would quilt their diaries due to being denied traditional educations.

As a whole, Almonds are Members of the Peach Family pulls historical vignettes through time. Sauer carefully intertwines the story of her grandparents with her own life. Their lives mostly exist in Nevada County, California, where readers are introduced to the version of her grandmother, or Billimae, that Sauer is most familiar with—the caretaker: “She ladles the brine into a bowl and serves it with oyster crackers. She spreads the heart with a butter knife on toast and tells the child to eat, to help herself to more” (Sauer 8). Sauer’s writing peels back these small, tender moments for readers to reveal their quiet intimacy. 

The descriptions are transparently honest, transitioning from the above heart-wrenching moment of connection between a younger Sauer and her grandmother, to her grandmother’s description of domestic abuse at the hands of her husband. The transition is jarring, laying out her Grandpa’s veteran status and referencing a friend once saying, “‘Where is my purple heart? My father got one in Vietnam, but what about the rest of us who still have to fight the war he brought back home?’” (Sauer 9). The audience isn’t spared her grandparents’ suffering, and by the end of the section readers are primed to see Sauer coping by way of the sound of her sewing machine. 

The collection expands as it continues, becoming less interdisciplinary and more plain prose as Sauer tells Billimae’s tale. Here, the writing is truly given a chance to breathe comfortably, showcasing every side of Billimae, even the uglier ones. “It is family shorthand to call Grandma crazy. The screaming, the secrets, the lies, the sneaking of sweet things into hidden places all over the house, into her mouth. The cussing at and blaming of Grandpa for everything,” Sauer explains (59). The family villainizes this woman in her old age, some waving away any mention of domestic abuse towards her as fabricated. Sauer writes, “Now, Grandma is crazy because calling her this is easier on us. Pinning it on the woman excuses our own complicity in the normalizing of her pain” (59). She criticizes this simplification of everything her grandmother is, recognizing the depth in her past that has shaped her into who she is now. 

Sauer is constantly reckoning with her history and family lineage, crafting and writing in an attempt to find some kind of answer. Between stories, readers watch her turn “pulp into pages… stitch linen thread between their creases and bind them to one another” (Sauer 71). Her language around the act is gorgeous, finding imagery in the household chores she idolizes through her words, reclaiming work that patriarchal society deems less than. For example, “I haul up bones from the river and sit, listen to the screaming left in them. I hold up each bone to the light, wipe it clean of debris, realign it back into its skeletal form” (Sauer 146). While her word choice turns morbid at points, it only adds to the passion behind her work and her desire to make something of it all.

Things do not end for Sauer here. After uncovering the bones from the graveyard, one can never truly be the same. Seams weaken over time, and eventually they’ll need to be reinforced: “I wake up late (6:50am), read for a few hours. I make coffee, toast a slice of bread, scrub the sink with borax, shoo away ants, re-hang the quilt, write in my slip, alternate between pushing back and suturing a heartache” (Sauer 149). In the face of it all, though, what Sauer has to do, and what we all have to do, is keep on living. 

Almonds are Members of the Peach Family is available from Noemi Press

Izzy Astuto (he/they) is a writer majoring in Creative Writing at Emerson College, with a specific interest in screenwriting. When not in Boston for college, they live in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. His work has previously been published by Hearth and Coffin, Sage Cigarettes, and Renesme Literary, amongst others. He currently works as an intern for Sundress Publications, and a reader for journals such as hand picked poetry, PRISM international, and Alien Magazine. You can find more of their work on their website, at https://izzyastuto.weebly.com/. Their Instagram is izzyastuto2.0 and Twitter is adivine_tragedy. 

Sundress Publications Seeks Craft Chaps Fiction Editor

Sundress Publications is now open for applications for our Craft Chaps Fiction Editor. Craft Chaps offers substantive essays by contemporary writers on creative writing practice. Each chap focuses on one aspect of craft and contains a writing exercise and bibliography for further reading. They are freely downloadable on our website.

Our fiction editor’s responsibilities primarily include soliciting one author for the series each year, editing the author’s craft chap, delivering the final product to the managing editor in a timely fashion, and working with the managing editor to make sure that it is released and promoted.

We are looking for applicants with the following qualities:

  • Knowledge of contemporary fiction and prominent authors
  • Strong editorial skills including both line edits and proofing
  • Good communication skills
  • Ability to self-start on projects
  • Great time-management and attention to deadlines

Applicants are welcome to telecommute and therefore are not restricted to living in any particular location.

Sundress Publications is staffed entirely by volunteers, so this position, as with all positions at the press, is unpaid. Craft Chap editors will receive a small honorarium for their work each year.

To apply, please send a CV and a brief cover letter detailing your interest in the position to Executive Director Erin Elizabeth Smith at erin@sundresspublications.com. Applications are due by December 1, 2023.