APOSTROPHE BOOKS began as a discussion, not surprisingly, about the current conditions and circumstances of poetry publishing in America and internationally. Although there seems to be a proliferation of small presses—many of them interesting, complex, and compelling—we found a striking gap in work devoted to the hybridization and intersection of poetic discourse with theory, philosophy, cultural studies, and pataphysics. The potential to expand the definition of poetry—at this moment in time—to include these other modes of thought and representation seems crucial, urgent. Over the past 20 to 30 years, philosophical and poetic discourse has revealed an obsession with textual surfaces, consciousness in language, and the seeming instability (even dissolution) of the imagination. Innovation, the mantra of Modernism, has become suspect. Ironically, the subsequent responses to this crisis of imagination and representation, to human subjectivity itself, have often been extraordinarily innovative and imaginative. To bind or restrict these responses with pre-established forms and genres seems awkward, if not absurd. Therefore, we launch APOSTROPHE BOOKS to promote work that undermines generic categories and questions, explores, investigates, and/or challenges the very act of creative and imaginative language with creative and imaginative language. The looking glass reflects the looking glass.

 

Richard Greenfield is author of A Carnage in the Lovetrees (University of California Press, 2003). His poetry and criticism has appeared in Boston Review, Denver Quarterly, Electronic Poetry Review, Five Fingers Review, Fourteen Hills, Lit, Soft Targets, Volt, and others. He is an editorial adviser for Noemi Press and co-editor of the The Tusculum Review. Born in Hemet, California in 1969, he spent his early childhood in Southern California and later lived in the Pacific Northwest; he holds degrees in English or Creative Writing from Portland State University (BS), the University of Montana (MFA), and the University of Denver (Ph.D.). He currently lives in Eastern Tennessee, where he is Assistant Professor of English at Tusculum College.

 

Mark Tursi is the author of Shiftless Days (Noemi Press) and the forthcoming collection of poetry, The Impossible Picnic (BlazeVOX Books). He is also one of the founding editors of the literary journal, Double Room: A Journal of Prose Poetry and Flash Fiction. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Denver and his MFA from Colorado State University. He is Assistant Professor of English at New Jersey City University.