12 or 20 (small press) questions with Jeff Alessandrelli and Bret Shepard on Dikembe Press

Dikembe Press makes and sells chapbooks, primarily ones poetic in origin. Dikembe’s first two chapbooks are Emily Pettit’s BECAUSE YOU CAN HAVE THIS IDEA ABOUT BEING AFRAID OF SOMETHING and Matthew Rohrer’s A SHIP LOADED WITH SEQUINS HAS GONE DOWN. Check out Dikembepress.com for more information.

Dikembe Press editor Jeff Alessandrelli lives in Portland, OR. This Last Time Will Be The First, his first full length collection of poetry, is forthcoming from Burnside Review Press in early 2014. The name of his dog is Beckett Long Snout. 

Bret Shepard, editor of Dikembe Press, is currently in the graduate program at the University of Nebraska, where he also teaches writing and writes poems. Recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Diagram, FIELD, ILK, Whiskey Island, and elsewhere. 

1 – When did Dikembe Press first start? How have your original goals as a publisher shifted since you started, if at all? And what have you learned through the process?
Fall of 2012, we published versions of a chapbook by Graham Foust and Gina Myers for a reading in Lincoln NE. We wanted a trial run to test our ability to actually publish something. The whole process seemed daunting, but we ended up liking the basic layout and design of the books. This summer, 2013, we published our first two for-sale chapbooks, written by Emily Pettit and Matthew Rohrer. Our main goal was to publish work from our favorite contemporary poets. That goal hasn’t shifted. So far we’ve been really lucky to have wonderful poets say “yes” to us.

2 – What first brought you to publishing?
We love chapbooks and poems and chapbooks of poems. We would sit around at a bar with friends discussing poems and writers and presses. We were doing this so often that it just made sense to enter the larger conversation in a different capacity as chapbook makers.

3 – What do you consider the role and responsibilities, if any, of small publishing?
There is a great responsibility to the authors. For example, we’re fans of Emily Pettit and Matthew Rohrer, which are the first two books we’ve published. Publishing their work means a great deal to us, so we want the books to look cool and be available for readers. We’re pretty sure other people want to see new work from these poets, as well.

4 – What do you see your press doing that no one else is?

We really like incorporating visual art into the chapbooks. We work with an artist named Ian Huebert who is super-talented. We were really lucky to have Emily Pettit bring Bianca Stone into the mix for Emily’s book. Bianca’s artwork accompanies the poems. That was Emily’s idea and we’re grateful that she had it. Other chapbook presses are doing this type of thing, too. But Matthew Rohrer’s book has a wizard on the cover. That’s pretty awesome. Are there any other books of poems with a wizard on the cover? Possibly. We’re having fun with the visual element.

5 – What do you see as the most effective way to get new chapbooks out into the world?

Publishing interesting work by talented writers really helps. Books are like music, movies, etc. in that sometimes you’re really desirous for new work from your favorite writers/musicians/filmmakers/whoever. If you can get someone excited to see a new title released, you touch on that feeling. That makes getting the word out via social media easier to do. The same goes for discovering new writers that then become your favorite writers that you share with others. Chapbooks are great for that.

6 – How involved an editor are you? Do you dig deep into line edits, or do you prefer more of a light touch?
We’re still figuring this bit out as we develop as a press. But, generally, we trust the work of the writers. So unless it’s something in the way of a typo, we let the work be, as given by the writer.

7 – How do your books get distributed? What are your usual print runs?
We’ve done print runs of 100. We distribute them through our website, dikembepress.com. People can buy them using paypal. Other promotional aspects aim to direct people to ordering from the website.

8 – How many other people are involved with editing or production? Do you work with other editors, and if so, how effective do you find it? What are the benefits, drawbacks?
We have only two editors, Jeff Alessandrelli and Bret Shepard. I mentioned Ian Huebert earlier; he’s our friend and a great artist. We have other friends that have great ideas, which always helps.

9– How has being an editor/publisher changed the way you think about your own writing?
Not quite sure that it has changed. We’re a pretty new press, so changes are bound to happen to us as individuals down the line. Right now we’re just excited and energized to be part of the work-sharing process.

10– How do you approach the idea of publishing your own writing? Some, such as Gary Geddes when he still ran Cormorant, refused such, yet various Coach House Press’ editors had titles during their tenures as editors for the press, including Victor Coleman and bpNichol. What do you think of the arguments for or against, or do you see the whole question as irrelevant?
We’ll probably never publish our own work through Dikembe Press. The reasons for this refusal are multifaceted. However, the most direct reason is that we’re just more interested in other poets. Dikembe Press is a way to engage with people that we respect and genuinely want to read. I don’t mean this to sound like a moralistic argument. We write poems and publish them separately. It’s just really nice to get away from our own work, rather than be further mired in it.

11– How do you see Dikembe Press evolving?

We like the Jay-Z model of evolution. That guy seems to really be around for the long haul.

12– What, as a publisher, are you most proud of accomplishing? What do you think people have overlooked about your publications? What is your biggest frustration?

We’re most proud of following through with formation of the press. It’s so easy to talk yourself out of projects. As we’ve moved forward, and because we’re so new, the response has been really great from people. Maybe this is another question that changes over time, but publishing chapbooks should be, and is, really fun.

13– Who were your early publishing models when starting out?

There are some really amazing chapbook presses publishing poems. Presses such as The Catenary Press, Octopus Books and its chapbook imprint Poor Claudia are examples of the “amazing” I mention. So many others publish poets that we read—Horseless Press, Greying Ghost, and other presses that work with the chapbook. I’m leaving too many out to have a fair, representative list. We have stacks of chapbooks that have influenced us.

14– How does Dikembe Press work to engage with your immediate literary community, and community at large? What journals or presses do you see Dikembe Press in dialogue with? How important do you see those dialogues, those conversations?
The question describes exactly what we hope to do, which definitely includes the presses previously mentioned. It also includes all the journals, online and print, publishing some of our favorite poems. Whether loud or quiet, we want our voice to be involved. It seems equally important keep our ears engaged, as well. That’s really the only way a conversation can happen.

15– Do you hold regular or occasional readings or launches? How important do you see public readings and other events?

We do not. But we love it when other presses do this and haven’t ruled out the possibility.

16– How do you utilize the internet, if at all, to further your goals?
Social media reflects and expands the interests of people in various communities. For the poetry community, as well, it clearly functions as a great way to connect with people and share projects and other information. We know that much. It can really increase people’s awareness.

17– Do you take submissions? If so, what aren’t you looking for?
We’ll be having an open submission period this winter. So, yes, we do accept them within a time frame. This will be our first submission period, so there really isn’t an “aren’t looking for” at this point. We are looking for chapbook manuscripts that are exciting and provoke us as readers in various ways.

18– Tell me about three of your most recent titles, and why they’re special.
Emily Pettit and Matthew Rohrer’s chapbooks are incredibly interesting. If you’ve encountered their work before, these books will stimulate you in new ways. Emily Pettit’s poems contain moments that leave you stunned, reflecting on the world/relationships that are happening at the very moment of reading. Bianca Stone’s artwork is special, as well, in that it compliments the poems without closing them. Whole new readings come from their combinations. Mathew Rohrer’s book is a strange, wonderful journey. Its parts accumulate to turn fragment into an almost-picture. That’s what I love about them: everyone walks away with their own picture after reading both of these books.

12 or 20 (small press) questions;

Ongoing notes: late late June, 2013

[evil sleepy Lemonade, sleeping upon his new perch, across on my black jacket]

I presume you’ve been properly checking out the above/ground press, Chaudiere Books, ottawa poetry newsletter and dusie blogs for their various updates? I don’t always have space to tell you everything here (I mean, really). But watch for an upcoming reading by Jessica Smith, Amanda Earl and Marilyn Irwin on July 13 as part of The Factory Reading Series, and another collaborative reading by myself and Christine McNair (our second annual, after last year’s appearance at The Dusty Owl Reading Series) at the In/Words Reading Series on July 31st.

Philadelphia PA: Some of the most attractive chapbooks I’ve seen out of the United States have to be Brian Teare’s Albion Books, the most recent of which, the first volume of the fifth series, is a double-binding, including Rachel Moritz’ “ELEMENTARY RITUALS” alongside Juliet Patterson’s “DIRGE.” There doesn’t seem to be any obvious reason why these two texts are paired, perhaps the authors are collaborators or close friends, writing poems in tandem? Or simply the editor/publisher has joined the two. 

The first bridges were probably made by nature—something as simple as a log fallen across a stream.

The original base of the word, bruw, or ‘log-road.’

Through the window you think of these words standing in the blunt arms of morning: stage, landing, gangway.

*

Your father was found hanging from a concrete footbridge

a few miles from your childhood home. The bridge

twenty-seven feet high, stretched over a busy thoroughfare, linking

a golf course and a wooded park. (“DIRGE”)

Juliet Patterson’s striking sequence “DIRGE” works through a meditation on the death of her father (or, the narrator’s father; since I know nothing about Patterson, one should never presume) from suicide. Her “DIRGE” scrapes out the heart in long, languid lines. Why haven’t I heard of Juliet Patterson before this? On the other side of the same chapbook, Rachel Moritz’s “ELEMENTARY RITUALS” is another small meditative work, composed out of six longer poems that stretch the loveliest lines that take up small spaces but a large attention. Her rituals, one might say, are startlingly precise, one that is the perfect blend of lyric language and absolute clarity:

In a clearing between loss and literal day-

light, his frame stood empty.

Kudzu trailing the base foundation.

Gutters bedded in leaves.

We passed a threshold the key given

us at the funeral parlor            from his pocket, his wallet,

his coat.

Nevertheless, stirring lights how oddly they flared, as if

shy of inhabitants.

Then it was done, going through an event

so event became abstracted.

Further titles forthcoming in the fifth series include works by Frank Sherlock (5.2), Jean Valentine (5.3) and CA Conrad (5.4).

Mt Pleasant ON: From kemeny babineau’s Laurel Reed Books comes CHORTLING AMERICAN SHOW GOO: thirty three poems by Toronto poet, editor and small press publisher Daniel f. Bradley (2012). Bradley has been an active writer and small press enthusiast for years, author of numerous small press publications going back two decades, including publications by curvd h&z, BookThug, tapt, Outland, Produce Press, above/ground press and many, many others. Given his years of publication, it might be interesting to see someone attempt to wrestle with his years of output for the sake of either an essay on his ongoing work, or a selected poems, to get a sense of just what he has accomplished over the years, through dozens of small-run missives. The opening poem to the collection nearly gives a description of what follows, asking the question of what this might be, as though the author is learning through the same process as the potential reader:

i suppose i could hot wire this thing

flat bread their is no escape

perfect for your boneless

wings failed

your highness you were right

you were right about me

i love my loll pop separated

at the feet almost

empty ignition switch

light reflecting metallic

what’s this all about

everything in a bag

that feeds me a secret

life

The sequence of pieces that make up the untitled poems of CHORTLING AMERICAN SHOW GOO: thirty three poems feel akin to the poems of American poet Kate Greenstreet for their fragmented structure and collage-aspect that accumulate into something larger, yet difficult to articulate, as the form itself is less static than constantly shifting. As Nic Coivert writes in his review of the collection (included inside the back of the chapbook) from Canadian Poetry Previews Magazine, “These poems are like smashed dreams.” Bradley’s poems also have a dark edge of surrealism, perhaps one more abstract and less of the obvious humour than others in the informal “Toronto surrealists” group, whether Lillian Necakov, Stuart Ross or Gary Barwin. In some of the pieces, there’s something of the single line-breath, as though they’re meant to be read quickly, without break.

three thousand an hour upgrade your family

back into the vault the new death toll

in bad taste this is cronyism all the way

more comedy who grew my soup good bye

horse pills transformation my bathroom of

freedom scurrying people panic setting in

stories of survival washed away telling

the tale twisted areas scrap the idea more

more that not the bottom line two hundred

thousand homes and worth the cost who’s

ruining the economy he broke the door

good old fashion hard work all back

to back snow

Lincoln NE/Portland OR: To understand how much I enjoyed American poet Matthew Rohrer’s small chapbook A SHIP LOADED WITH SEQUINS HAS GONE DOWN (Dkembe Press, 2013), you have to experience the first poem I did in the collection:

He wrote amazing poems because he

was fucking a wizard. This perspective

mutilated all his expectations

and he was naked. The wizard threw him

a small thin towel to cover himself with.

I’m sitting in a small bar in Brooklyn

discussing his next move: surely his wife

will climb the pyramid and leap off it

because she is a butterfly. He is

everywhere down there, in the air. Inside

a tiny black bean. It’s not necessary

to live like this, we decide. We crumble

into our highballs, the city outside

consumes things like an enormous creature. (“SONNET”)

In Rohrer’s six-poem chapbook, four of which are three-sonnet pieces, each titled “SONNET,” that twist the language of the first piece into the second two section, re-working the lines of the first to create entirely different poems with the same language, as here, the second part of the three-part “SONNET” (the first part is quoted just above):

I’m sitting in a small bar in Brooklyn

because she is a butterfly. He is

into our highballs. The city outside

mutilated all his expectations

to live like this, we decide. We crumble

everywhere down there, in the air. Inside

he wrote amazing poems because he

will climb the pyramid & leap off it.

Discussing his next move: surely his wife

was fucking a wizard. This perspective

consumes things like an enormous creature.

And he was naked. The wizard threw him

A tiny black bean. It’s not necessary.

a small thin towel to cover himself with.

Bookending the collection are two longer poems, each composed with short phrases that complete a single, fragmented, seemingly-endless and confused sentence, endlessly continuing. Throughout the poems here, is Rohrer attempting to shock, startle or confound? These poems require a shift in perception and perspective, one that playfully pokes at expectation and collision.

The Last Usable Hour, Deborah Landau

I’d rather watch you doing it

than do it myself.

I’d rather hear about it.

I want to be told.

I’d rather read about it.

I’d rather just sit here.

Hold the mask over my face

while you do it to me.

I’ll put on some music.

Now see how we grow aglow

so young and beautiful

our capillaries all lit up. (“All Else Fails”)

I first became intrigued by American poet Deborah Landau and her second trade collection, The Last Usable Hour (Copper Canyon Press, 2011), when I discovered this post she wrote about one of her methods of composition for this collection:

A few years ago I was in a writing group with some amazing poets—Noelle Kocot, Dorothea Lasky, Anthony McCann, Damian Rogers, Matthew Rohrer, Richard Siken, and Matthew Zapruder. The idea was we’d each write a poem every day for a month, and we’d take turns giving writing prompts. All of this was done by email, and there was a great pressure to get a poem done and sent out by the end of each day—pressure which turned out to be extraordinarily helpful to me in generating a lot of new material. One day Richard Siken gave the following rather cryptic assignment:

            Poison

            Get a drink and put it in front of you.

            Consider this:

            If I gave you poison, would you drink it?

            What if it made you stronger?

            Now drink or don’t.

            Now write in couplets.

I’m not exactly sure how I ended up writing the poem I did from this prompt, but am grateful to Richard for provoking me to do so. The poem ended up in my most recent book, The Last Usable Hour—a series of linked sequences set in a midwinter, perpetually-nocturnal New York City—and sits in the apocalyptic final section, “Welcome to the Future.”

In The Last Usable Hour, Landau writes a single, extended line in her self-described “ghost book.” Broken into four lyric sections, her “linked lyric sequences” are composed as epistolary love poems, and as Pessoa (referenced within), can her unnamed narrator be a hetronym of sorts, writing out to someone she can’t quite name? Or does the someone not entirely matter? There’s an odd voyeurism to Landau’s depiction of midwinter New York, writing Larkin dreams and Pessoa, as in the first section, where she writes, “Don’t cry, don’t kiss me either, and also don’t stop. / That’s the way he looks when he wants to watch.” Her poems twist and turn, shift the gaze and just who is watching whom, a last desperate hour that holds the uncertainty of the narrator into a plausible strength. Dear someone, she writes, and it almost doesn’t matter whom. Or does it?

I’m thinking of

you tonight Philip

Larkin groping back

to bed after

a piss

and yes

the moon

so cold

through the bars

on the window

the empty

southward

sky

(there’s so much

of it now)

and here

in my

narrow bed (“Blue Dark”)