ABP Books
To Those Born Later: Selected Poems 2017-2020
Ken Fontenot
"To read Ken Fontenot is to travel, deeply, inside a truly original mind and vision, inside music, inside the small shining corners of the days, through radiant curiosity and questioning. His rich memory helps revive your own. Mysteriously, you too feel in better tune. I think his many gifts center in some luminous instinct for balance and image, for solitude and society—'Chairs face each other/the way employees do, but have nothing to talk about' or 'I feel I need company'—his poems are terrific, generous company in any season of life."
—Naomi Shihab Nye To Those Born Later by Ken Fontenot ISBN: 978-1943306237 |
Mississippi Milkwater
Sybil Pittman Estess
In her sharp memoir of growing up in 1950s Mississippi, Sybil Pittman Estess shares the history of her state and the lessons she's learned along the way, in pristine, beautifully rendered memories full of vivid characters who live and breathe.
Mississippi Milkwater by Sybil Pittman Estess ISBN: 978-1943306206 |
2018: Found Poems and Weather Reports
Lyman Grant
2018 is a poetic march through the stirring calamity of our times and its people in a single year, day-to-day. Real life problems of broken pipes, marriages, love, school shootings, higher education instructing, child raising, women's rights, racism, wildfires, politics and the force of nature show a dislocated nation in turmoil.
2018: Found Poems and Weather Reports by Lyman Grant ISBN: 978-1943306183 |
thealmoststories
Dorothy Ellis Barnett
"Whether Dorothy Barnett is contemplating a father’s indiscretions, sidestepping unpleasant youthful losses, or navigating scenes of a ten-year-old at a domino game free-for-all, her storytelling is the next best thing to living it. Her descriptions of bittersweet losses were enough to jog my own memories about the past. I read these fifteen stories (almost fiction and almost fact, as Ms. Barnett calls them) in one sitting at four in the morning. They are a wonderful teaser for what I hope will be many more stories to come. A must-read book!"
--Diane Wilson, author of An Unreasonable Woman and Holy Roller thealmoststories by Dorothy Ellis Banrett ISBN: 978-1943306046 |
Bly's Dust
Dorothy Ellis Barnett
"Dorothy Ellis Barnett’s savvy work mirrors a life lived in the service of art. Her fine diction and syntax, 'the best words in the best order' (Coleridge), reveal a poet who misses nothing remaking a world she has learned to see so well. Nor does she remain silent about being engagé in our political climate. And it is thedifferences in her poems—never a sameness—that propel her toward excellence."
— Ken Fontenot, author of For Mr. Raindrinker Bly's Dust by Dorothy Ellis Barnett ISBN: 978-1943306138 |
Austin: A Poem
Dave Oliphant
"Written with knowledge and sympathy, the poem contains a delightful tangle of details. Lyndon Johnson, Elisabet Ney, Peter Flawn, Custer, O. Henry, and Joseph Jones (the sage of Waller Creek)--public figures and personal friends interact in the city of Oliphant's imagination....A lengthy proem, set at the grave of Stephen F. Austin in the State Cemetery, contains a brilliant passage about Austin in prison.... The oblique narration is kept on track with masterful transitions....[T]he language is carefully crafted, with interesting and often beautiful sound-play in virtually every line."
--John Herndon, Austin American-Statesman Austin: A Poem by Dave Oliphant ISBN: 978-1943306107 |
Old Men on Tuesday Mornings
Lyman Grant
Lyrical poetry on the process of aging and the transition from one life-stage to another, on the passing of time and its relentless impact on masculinity and the male image, and on on the place of the solitary individual in 21st Century America.
Old Men on Tuesday Mornings by Lyman Grant ISBN: 978-1943306084 |
The Hero's Fall I Fell For: Jazz Poems
Dave Oliphant
With these poems devoted to jazz, Dave Oliphant offers a testament to the variety and significance of the art form and its artists. These poems are an attempt to pay homage to the art of jazz and to its musicians, whose lives and performances have long been a source of pleasure, inspiration, and solace.
The Hero's Fall I Fell For: Jazz Poems by Dave Oliphant ISBN: 978-1943306091 |
BACKYARD VOLCANO: AND OTHER MYSTERIES OF THE HEART
kathryn Lane
These stories help define the world of the Texas-Mexico Frontier--an explosive world where lives break, loves shatter, and healing happens. Kathryn Lane, a native of Mexico, explores this world, leading readers on a journey through time and geography with the promise of magic and transformation.
Backyard Volcano: And Other Mysteries of the Heart by Kathryn Lane ISBN: 978-1943306046 |
Between Two Gardens
Laura Quinn Guidry
A native of New Orleans, with deep roots in south and central Louisiana, Laura Quinn Guidry lived and worked as a healthcare administrator in Houston for years. Then tragedy changed her life and her amazing poems began. Grief and Gratitude are the "two gardens" this poet moves between. These are poems of love, loss, recovery, lived life, and abundant nature.
Between Two Gardens by Laura Quinn Guidry ISBN: 978-1943306053 |
U.S. AND THEM: THE RE-ENCHANTMENT
OF A COLD WAR CHILDHOOD
Patricia Bjorklund
In this memoir of growing up in the 1960s Cold War, Patricia Bjorklund narrates a girlhood filled with John Birch Society activism, racial tensions, concepts of sin and hell, and the ominous and omnipresent fears of nuclear apocalypse--and, conversely, the glowing redemptive powers of hope and happiness.
U.S. and Them: The Re-Enchantment of a Cold War Childhood by Patricia Bjorklund ISBN: 978-1943306022 |
Maria's Book
Dave Oliphant
A book forty-one years in the making, written between 1975 and 2016, Dave Oliphant's MarIa's Book presents what Douglas Flaherty has called "a delicately passionate record of an internationally conspired love affair. Oliphant's poems to his wife are valentines for the ages."
Maria's Book by Dave Oliphant ISBN: 978-1943306015 |
For Mr. Raindrinker: A Novel of New Orleans
Ken Fontenot
Meet Kent Soileau, a young man from a Cajun-speaking New Orleans family. Kent lives an upside-down life as a professional job-hopper and as an inmate of a nut house. He has assembled an impressive resume of diverse and comical experiences, from being a driver for Mississippi River-boat pilots, to a French Quarter bartender, to a genetics research associate. Kent is a true searcher, whether searching for food, a place to stay, happiness— or the meaning of life. Thanks to his friendship with the indomitable Mr. Raindrinker, Kent’s life takes some amazing but good turns. Not since John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces have readers been taken on such a big and easy ride through America’s greatest city.
For Mr. Raindrinker by Ken Fontenot ISBN: 978-0990863274 |
ABWW14
Blood at the Root
Lee Meitzen Grue
Blood at the Root is a quirky novel set in southern Louisiana, a fly-on-thewall look at an aspect of New Orleans culture that borders magic, imagination, sex, and the sisterly bonds that stretch beyond death. If Blood at the Root feels authentic, that is because Lee Grue is a true authority on New Orleans, having been steeped in the pungent atmosphere of the city for most of her life. Lee Grue writes what she knows: a festinating tale betwixt Camilla Jane, High John the Conqueror, and Creeping Jesus.
Blood at the Root by Lee Meitzen Grue ISBN: 978-0990863236 |
Art Stronger than hate!
Issa Nyaphaga
In Issa Nyaphaga's new book, Art Stronger than Hate!, the former artist for the French magazine Charlie Hebdo offers a visual commentary on our current political, social, and economic world, arguing for Free Speech rather than Hate Speech. Art Stronger than Hate! is evidence that art can save lives and inspire the human spirit.
Art Stronger Than Hate! by Issa Nyaphaga ISBN: 978-0990863243 |
Like That: New and Selected Poems
Sybil Pittman Estess
In this collection of poetry, Sybil Pittman Estess takes
readers on an intensely personal journey, a deep exploration of life in
contemporary America. "These are poems of witness," says 2008 Texas
Poet Laureate Larry Thomas. "...of witness to a life fully lived, of
witness to birth, friendship, death, and the unforgiving pain of loss;
and of witness to a world rife with the wounds of global warming, the
violence of guns, yet a world still teeming with transient beauty."
Like That: New and Selected Poems by Sybil Pittman Estess ISBN: 978-0990863229 |
The Cowtown Circle
Dave oliphant
Dave Oliphant's thirteenth book of poetry, The Cowtown Circle, is divided into six sections, moving from an eclectic gathering of poems devoted to nature, topical issues, and the imprisonment of captured WWII German soldiers in Hearne, Texas, to a section of María Poems (a series begun in 1976) and to sections on grandchildren and a visit to New York City, on music (classical, jazz, and Indian), on U.S. Presidents, and on a group of modernist Texas artists active during the Second World War.
The Cowtown Circle by Dave Oliphant ISBN: 978-0990863212 |
Janie's Garden
Meeting
to discuss their work in a beautiful, quiet, bayside garden in
Seadrift, Texas, the instructors and participants of the 2014 Alamo Bay
Writers' Workshop resolved to write poems about their experiences.
This anthology is the result, featuring an Introduction by Diane Wilson and work by
Dorothy Barnett, Linda Caplin,
Linda Dane, Graciela Fleming, Lee Meitzen Grue, Gina Harlow, Julie J.
Johnson-Jones, Diane Kramer, Kathryn Lane, Barbara Williams Lewis, Bob Lindsey,
Jay Minton, Aubrey Parker, Sophie Rousmaniere, Janie Waghorne, Hazel Ward, and Lowell
Mick White.
Janie's Garden Introduction by Diane Wilson Edited by Lowell Mick White ISBN: 978-0990863205 |
ABWW13
Poetry, fiction, and memoir from the participants and instructors of Alamo Bay Writers' Workshop, Austin 2013. Featuring work by Rebecca Byrd Bretz Arthur, Linda Caplin, Lee Edwards, Grace Fleming, Ken Fontenot, Lori Spence Galloway, Lee Meitzen Grue, Larry Heinemann, Diane Kramer, Kathryn Lane, Barbara Lewis, Kathryn Millan, Stephanie Moore, Daniel Peña, Tomás Salas, Reji Thomas, Javier VanWisse, Claudia Voyles, Hazel Ward, Lowell Mick White, Diane Wilson
ABWW13 Edited by Lowell Mick White ISBN: 978-0615950570 |