John Courtney

the issue of books

Hello everyone!!! We have been absent from the website, but not from the press. In fact, we have been very busy getting books ready to publish. Michael's third book is ready to order, it went live on Amazon March 21, 2020.

David's second book just went live today July 4, 2020.

This has been an exciting project; even though they didn't know it before, both David and Michael are both huge Guided By Voices fans, and the poems and the art found between these pages were created while Robert Pollard and his voices lead them to magical publications. Michael's poems in Natural Anthems were all written in 2005 and David's collage paintings were created in 2012. We are excited to share them with you now as a telepathic art project: they stand on their own but are best devoured together.

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We were very disappointed to have to postpone the May Day Reading, due to the Covid-19 shutdown, but hope to be able to reschedule before the end of 2020. We printed two broadsides to commemorate the date and those will be available for purchase at our next reading.

The next two books will be released in August to celebrate our one-year anniversary as a team and a small press. They are both small books (5x6), which allows us to get poetry into your hands for the low price of seven dollars.

And if you think we only publish our own work, that changes with the publication of our first book of poetry from a poet that is not us. We are delighted to be able to share Proctor of Sparrow by poet Jason Brown very soon. Jason is also a Guided By Voices fan, so you know he is a great guy; he is also a talented poet and short story writer. So stay tuned.

In other news, we are now accepting submissions for our blog. We will feature a poet, artist, or essayist each month. If you would like to submit something send us an email at auxarczen@gmail.com.

In the Time of Virus

Series of poems exchanged between poets via e-mail

# 8

When my wife and I first started dating 

it was long-distance

by phone, text, and Skype

often poems sent back-and-forth

Monthly opportunities for face-to-face

and limb-to-limb connection

enabled by hours spent entombed in airports and 

suspended strapped-in above the clouds

everything still

but for the soothing hum of jet engines 

I wanted no earphones, no distractions 

but a book of poems or a novel

and to look out at mountains 

of swirling meringue

and faintly hear 

the Music of the Spheres

Now we are together

alone in our desert home

with our cats

The world beyond we glimpse remotely

through phone, text, tv, Zoom

While out the window

spring bunnies

nesting quail

all manner of birds at the feeders

The occasional bobcat lopes through

silent, deadly as a virus,

magnificent 

—John Roche