The Cover Reveal for Lucky Bastard Press' Hysteria Anthology

Check out the exclusive cover reveal of Lucky Bastard Press' HYSTERIA anthology + enter to win a copy & bonus swag.

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BY LISA MARIE BASILE

As both editor of Luna Luna and a contributor to Hysteria (an anthology of writing by female and nonbinary writers about their biology and anatomy and experiences with the body) I thought doing a reveal of their cover would be a great way to create a dialogue about this amazing collection of works. When E. Kristen Anderson presented the idea, I thought Luna Luna would be the perfect home for this. 

Want your own free copy? Here's how!

1. Tweet or post a link to their fundraiser (or just write a super cute supportive tweet/post about the book).

2. Leave a comment below (with the link to your social post) + your email (so we can contact you!)

3. We'll pick a comment at random and send you the anthology, along with E. Kristin Anderson's gorgeous Lana Del Rey-inspired poetry collection (I've read it, blurbed it and adore it). 
 

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LMB: Who is the team behind Hysteria?

EKA: Allie Marini and Brennan DeFrisco gave me the platform to do this anthology when they green-lighted the project at Lucky Bastard, but it’s basically been me and the contributing authors. Allie and Brennan definitely helped with soliciting some fine voices I hadn’t heard of, and have been a great support, so I don’t want to be like, oh, hey, this was all me. But in a lot of ways it was. And it’s been both intense and rewarding.

I think what Hysteria does so well is take a topic that is hard to write about successfully and inclusively (the body and notions of femininity, in many cases) and make it subversive; it's envelope-pushing. What sort of bodies did you want to include here?

It kind of started with me writing erasure/found poetry from tampon packaging. I’m not even kidding. And Allie and I got to talking about a tampon/period anthology and we expanded the idea out to other body-related themes. We went from there.

I certainly did want to push the envelope. But what I found interesting is that some poets that I thought would submit told me (before later submitting and being selected for the anthology) thought their work wouldn’t be edgy enough. And my answer to everyone asking “would my work be suited for HYSTERIA?” was “there are many ways to experience the female body/being female.”

So I wanted lots of bodies. Including nonbinary and trans bodies, which was a little harder because I know that many of these writers have been excluded from this type of project. We went looking, and we found some amazing work.

Tell me a little bit about what spoke to you when selecting content? 

Diversity of topic and voice was really important to me. I wanted—like I mentioned above—lots of experiences to be represented. There was a point at which I think I posted on my original call “no more period poems, we’ve got that covered!” But it wasn’t just about topic. It was also about style. There’s some experimental work in HYSTERIA that I don’t know I would have read or picked up if I were shopping in a bookstore, but that I’m glad showed up in my inbox because it spoke to me within the context of this project. 

And diversity of cultural background was important to me, too. And by cultural background I mean race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender identity. I really wanted pieces about wearing a hijab. About bat mitzvahs. About non-hetero sex. I hope I did a good job with this.  I hope I found authors and pieces that people enjoy and relate to and learn from.

What do you think the anthology speaks to in the climate we're in right now – as women, as creatives?

You know, every day it feels like there’s something else going down that I want to throw this book at. Women being told their dreadlocks are unprofessional. Women’s tough questions being written off as the result of PMS. (Looking at you, Trump.) Bills being passed that could undo years of work for women’s rights. People trying to tell me, personally, that “hysterical” is just a colloquialism and not a gendered hate word. Folks thinking that just because we’ve achieved parity in one little bubble of the lit world that sexism is over for all of lit. The VIDA counts for big magazines (hello, the Atlantic) and smaller magazines. Songs on the radio. Things I overhear kids say to each other when I write at the Starbucks that’s next to the middle school.

So often we think, well, it’s just a joke. It’s just one guy. It’s just one magazine. It’s just a handful of nut-jobs. It’s just the radical right, and their minds can’t be changed. But! But. Sexism is so ingrained in us that even you and I do sexist things every day without thinking of it. I think I’ve referred to a woman I didn’t like as a bitch even this week.

I hope HYSTERIA gives us a place to talk about uncomfortable subjects, to start and continue conversations with ourselves, our daughters, our peers—but I also hope it’s a place to find comfort and community. Maybe the patriarchy isn’t listening. But maybe we can rally anyway.

I was particularly thrilled to write for this anthology. I am alongside some amazing writers and also emerging ones. How did you vote for pieces? Was this about making a space for all voices, new and established?

I read and selected the submissions myself. Aside from the solicitation—which I did ahead of time, before sending out the call—I just wanted to make sure we had everything covered. I didn’t care if folks were famous or brand new, just that the work was good. And I’m super fortunate that we did get some big names for the anthology. People who said yes when we reached out and asked. But I’m also super fortunate to have new voices with new things to say. Because that’s what community is about and I think that, in a way, that’s what HYSTERIA is about, too.

What are the plans for the anthology? 

I’m hoping to set up a launch party here in Austin, TX when the book is ready. I think it will be a good time, and hopefully, as many contributors as possible can come and read. We’ll definitely be sending out review copies and doing our best to entice booksellers and librarians. We want this book in as many hands as possible. It’s a beautiful book if I don’t say so myself.

How will donations help?

The funds from the Indiegogo campaign are going to help us pay some of the up-front costs (like hiring our cover artist, Jodie Wynne, and the Adobe Cloud account we had to open to manage the many, many contracts for the individual authors) as well as printing. But the biggest reason we wanted to do an Indiegogo was so that we could pay our authors better. So if you can help us out with that, that would be amazing. Should we exceed our goal, any extra funds will go toward a launch and/or future anthology projects at Lucky Bastard Press.

Tell us what it's like to work with Lucky Bastard Press. 

Lucky Bastard was founded by Allie Marini and Brennan DeFrisco and somehow I tricked them into letting me do an anthology with them. They really gave me free reign, which was scary but also really thrilling. I’m now on board with LB as a full editor, but at the time it was just, here, EKA, make a book. So I did. And I’m really excited that it’s with a press that is all about the underdogs and the long-shots. Isn’t that how many of us feel, as artists, especially as women? Lucky Bastard is here to champion the weirdos. And, in this case, it’s the hysterical weirdos that we want to show the world.

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The writer list, as provided by
Lucky Bastard Press:

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E. Kristin Anderson

Gayle Brandeis

Allison Joseph

Christine Heppermann

Lynn Melnick

Lizi Giliad

Lisa Marie Basile

Kia Groom

Laura Cronk

Alison Townsend

Amy King

Kirsten Smith

Aricka Foreman

Dena Rash Guzman

Kate Litterer

Paula Mendoza

Sara Cooper

Kirsten Irving

Erika T. Wurth

Natasha Trethewey

Kelli Russel Agodon

Kenzie Allen

Rita Dove

Francesca Lia Block

Patricia Smith

Lesléa Newman

Erin Elizabeth Smith

Tatiana Ryckman

Janna Layton

Mary McMyne

Sarah Lilius

Jennifer MacBain-Stephens

Elizabeth Onusko

Katie Manning

Sandra Marchetti

Sarah Ghoshal

Ivy Alvarez

Heather Kirn Lanier

Jane Eaton Hamilton

Jessica Morey-Collins

Sally Rosen Kindred

Laurie Kolp

Gabrielle Montesanti

Sonja Johanson

Meghan Privitello

Deborah Bacharach

Juliet Cook

Sarah Henning

Trish Hopkinson

Alina Borger

Christine Stoddard

Hope Wabuke

Nicole Rollende

Roxanna Bennett

MK Chavez

Catherine Moore

Jesseca Cornelson

Karen Paul Holmes

Lisa Mangini

Shevaun Brannigan

Martha Silano

Jen Karetnick

Emily Rose Cole

Sarah Kobrinsky

Addy McCulloch

Mary Lou Buschi

Sarah Frances Moran

Ellen Kombiyil

Shanna Alden

Julie "Jules" Jacob

Ariana D. Den Bleyker

Sheila Squillante

Jeannine Hall Gailey

Randon Billings Noble

Mary-Alice Daniel

Sarah J. Sloat

Minal Hajratwala

Shikha Malaviya

Elizabeth Harlan-Ferlo

Leila Chatti

Sarah B. Boyle

Jennifer K. Sweene

Nicole Tong

MANDEM

E.D. Conrads

Samantha Duncan

Susan Rich

Kristen Havens

Judith Ortiz Cofer

Hila Ratzabi

Joanna Hoffman

Elizabeth Hoover

Letitia Trent

Camille-Yvette Welsch

Erin Dorney

Shannon Elizabeth Hardwick

Anna Leahy

Majda Gama

Erin Lorandos

Amy Katherine Cannon

Nicci Mechler & Hilda Weaver

Mary Stone

Jessica Rae Bergamino

Jennifer Givhan

Hilary King

Sara Adams

Bri Blue

Vicki Iorio

Natasha Marin

Tanya Muzumdar

Miranda Tsang

Jessica L. Walsh

Lucia Cherciu

Melissa Hassard

Nora Hickey

Dorothea Lasky

Siaara Freeman

Deborah Hauser

Suzanne Langlois

Eman Hassan

Amber Flame

Lisa Eve Cheby

Soniah Kamal

M. Mack

Teresa Dzieglewicz

Geula Geurts

Jennifer Martelli

Carleen Tibbetts

Katelyn L. Radtke

Cleveland Wall

Stacey Balkun

 

 

Interview with Poet Anthony Cappo on 'My Bedside Radio'

BY JOANNA C. VALENTE

If there was ever a poet who was dedicated to craft, it would be Anthony Cappo. Recently, his first chapbook “My Bedside Radio,” was published by Deadly Chaps Press--which is a collection that explores the nuances of family dynamics, and what happens when the family structure disintegrates. What makes the collection so unique is the fact that the poems rely on music, particularly '70s music, as a way to reflect the speaker's own mental state and time period.

I was lucky enough to interview him on craft, how he chose the soundtrack, and more:

JV: Why did you choose to tell the story through songs and popular music of your childhood? How did you actually choose the songs?

AC: Well, it kind of started accidentally. The first poem was one that didn’t even mention a song.  But it was a very early childhood memory of (mis)hearing a radio news report about guerillas escaping prison. I guess that got me in an early childhood space and thinking about the radio and all the songs I remembered listening to. Music has always been very important to me, and song lyrics and childhood memories are always popping up in my poems anyway. So, I started writing about memories directly associated with certain songs, and soon, I had a number of poems like that. Then, I realized it was a theme and just kind of went with it. After a couple of months, I had a draft of a chapbook-length work.

I didn’t choose the songs in any organized way. I just thought about songs that were important to me at the time. And I’m not in any way saying that all of these are good songs, or are ones I would choose to listen to now! But they were important or memorable to me then, and they really brought back the feelings of growing up. Some of the songs are associated with very specific memories, and others kind of more evocatively brought me back to certain places or times.

What is your writing and editing process like? I know you value editing tremendously. Would you say the poems come alive more after the editing process? How do you know when a poem is done? 

I’m a big editor of my work. I looked back on the early drafts of these poems and some are so different from the final versions, but one or two are surprisingly close. In general, I like to write as much as I can in the first draft, which can sometimes be as little as one or two lines if I’m rushing off to work in the morning. Then, after I’ve written a full first draft, I read it over, and look for things that are unclear or words or images that fall flat. And from there it’s just a process of chiseling away. After I feel like I’ve gotten as far as I can with the poem, I put it away for a while. Eventually, I come back to it and tighten it up even more.

I really do liken writing poetry to sculpting—chipping away until I feel like I’ve arrived at the “essential poem.” I know the poem’s done when some time has passed and I feel like there’s nothing else I can do to make it better—the rhythm fits, the images are interesting, and there aren’t any excess or leaden words. But I work very slowly; it can take months to get to that point and even then, I’m always looking to change a word here and there. I follow the old Orson Welles ad line: “We will sell no wine before its time”!

 Other than other writing, what influenced and inspired you during this time?

I went back and listened to some of the songs I remembered. I was listening to a lot of ‘70s songs on YouTube during this period. Not exclusively, of course, but I was allowing myself to indulge in a little nostalgia. 

But really, I’ve been blessed (and cursed, haha) with a really good memory and have vivid recall of many things that happened during my childhood. And because I did listen to music so much during this period (and yes, I did have a bedside radio) it was easy to recall songs that went with the memories, and vice versa.

On the subject of writing honestly about childhood and family secrets, I’ve always been in awe of Louise Gluck’s “Ararat.” I read that book literally with my jaw open, thinking I can’t believe she just wrote about that. In some ways, I’d say that book was a permission-giver.

What part of you writes your poems? What are your obsessions?

My poor little battered heart! But seriously, I try to suppress intellectuality and rationality as much as I can when I’m writing first drafts. For me, poems are primarily an emotional expression (“Since feeling is first”!) and that’s what I want to convey. But, of course, on revision the head enters the picture in a much bigger way. 

Obsessions?  Well, I read an article once that recommended that in ordering a manuscript it was a good idea to group poems into different themes. I did this with mine and one of the biggest themes was “personality disintegration,” so there’s that. But I also write a lot about the search for love and intimacy/loneliness, God/childhood religiosity, and, of course, music and childhood memories.

 What are you working on now? What's a dream project for you?

I’m working on revising a full-length manuscript that started out as my MFA thesis, but has been through several iterations since. I’ve sent it out, to no success, and I really want to get it right. So I’m in the process of picking off my darlings, replacing them with newer work, and trying to come up with a manuscript that reflects the best work I’ve written.

I’ve also started on what might become another chapbook, which features kind of an alter ego character through whom I can make light of my obsessions and misadventures. I’ve started out on a handful of poems, but have been largely bogged down at the moment with other things.  But I plan to get back to them. Mostly, because they’re so much fun to write.

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Anthony Cappo is a poet living and working in New York City.  His poems have appeared in Prelude, Stone Highway Review, Connotation Press – An Online Artifact, Pine Hills Review, Yes Poetry, and other publications. His chapbook, “My Bedside Radio,” is published by Deadly Chaps Press.  Anthony received his M.F.A in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence College. 

Joanna C. Valente is a human who lives in Brooklyn, New York. She is the author of Sirs & Madams (Aldrich Press, 2014), The Gods Are Dead (Deadly Chaps Press, 2015), Marys of the Sea (forthcoming 2016, ELJ Publications) & Xenos (forthcoming 2017, Agape Editions). She received her MFA in writing at Sarah Lawrence College. She is also the founder of Yes, Poetry, as well as the chief editor for Luna Luna Magazine. Some of her writing has appeared in Prelude, The Atlas Review, The Huffington Post, Columbia Journal, and elsewhere. She has lead workshops at Brooklyn Poets.

A Review of Poetry Collection "In Leaves of Absence: An Illustrated Guide to Common Garden Affection"

In Leaves of Absence: An Illustrated Guide to Common Garden Affection (Red Dashboard Publishing) with poetry by Laura Madeline Wiseman and art by Sally Deskins, our capacity as women to thrive or wilt, is revealed through daily garden life. In between these detailed poems and exuberant paintings, there are paragraphs of facts and plant history, to teach and temper the budding words. It is a reminder that caring for nature, like caring for a person, is an investment. As Wiseman writes in “The Family of Magnolias,”

“planting the wrong tree or doing it in the wrong way is something better left undone.”

When one plants a tree from seed, it is a lifetime commitment or at least half a lifetime. The gardener is caregiver: watering a seed, protecting a sprig from frost, watching for signs of disease or insect invasion. After many years a tall sturdy tree is a crowning achievement while a failed plant can be heartbreaking. Like life is with relationships. Yet we plant again in the spring, measure out garden plants, look for new loves. To garden is to hope. All living things, however, die, or “leave,” eventually. But isn’t biting an apple or smelling a rose worth it?  Wiseman and Deskins explore this journey through these intricate poems and bursting water colors.

One of the first metaphors in the collection is “A Wrong Tree.” The tree is almost described as a stumbling Civil War soldier, suffering without anesthetic:

“Limbs are sawed off as amputated stumps and oozing wounds.

The canopy won’t shade you no matter where you stand.

…Evenings on the lawn chair you slouch with cheap beer.

You gaze at the green lawns around you—

You imagine hopping the fence to a new home…

I could leave…”

We assume the underdog status through “A Wrong Tree,” judging it’s low hanging branches, it’s lack of leaves and structure. The tree is a symbol for living the wrong life: the wrong yard, wrong car, wrong house, wrong neighborhood.  We hunger for the other: the perfectly manicured lawn or mini barn shed. Even though disdain is present for this ugly duckling, there is some sympathy. The tree is surviving, it does not appeal to the masses, have “curb appeal.” But it is unique. These hiccups in nature reflect on our own quirks and flaws as humans. We must “go on” too, no matter what.

Deskins splatters her drawing of “A Wrong Tree” with the brightest colors imaginable: greens and blues, pinks, and oranges.  Her tree is a helpful reminder that beauty is found in unconventional shapes and places.

Likewise, another painting that shines with self-love is “Take Leave.” (There is lots of “leave” and “leaf” word play throughout the book and one can also not help but think of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass while reading these poems.) In the painting “Take Leave,” a curvy female shape stretches her limbs within a tree trunk.  She is proud, blissful to enrapture the tree’s magic, her torso blending into the bark. She is serene and one with the tree. It is powerful.

Today, with all women’s rights and freedoms  under attack this image is refreshing. If only all women could arch their elbows to the sky, strong: feel their power. This painting is a wish.

In the following two poems: “Leave off Husbandry,” and “Weeping Hawthorn, A Friend and Neighbor,” tree and woman blend but manifest that all allusions to trees are not beautiful. In “Leave off Husbandry,” Wiseman writes:

“you axed us in my dream. I awoke

to my heart scudding, a thicket of birds.

Your will to destroy left me shaken…

I was putting out roots, leafing at the base.”

Arms are swinging an imaginary ax., cutting off our limbs, our ability to run, our ability to flower. Giving something “the ax” is a synonym for finishing it. Wiseman uses the tree as a symbol in this relationship, the stress dream pulling intimacy’s roots out of the ground. The tree is powerless to the ax, does not see it coming, like anyone blindsided by an emotional trauma. (Again Deskins paints an effective image to be paired with this poem: a flesh colored woman, slumped by a tree, looking over her shoulder at the reader, forlorn.)

In “Weeping Hawthorn…” the natural world is a metaphor for assault. Wiseman writes:

“her limbs bent to his need, a hot, blind

forcing that once opened would scar.

She scratched at him to stop…”

“…Each of us wants

to blossom, grow, ripen, be

plucked—consent—never like that.”

Through representing the women as trees, the reader experiences not only how our environment cannot speak for itself, but also how women are silenced, how casual violence is prevalent. Like a new sapling, a girl, a woman should be cared for, should feel free to shout her voice to the world, not prove how her existence should just be tolerated. At least the trees have the forest.

Whether these poems are witnessing women’s plight, or a childhood memory (Wisemen playfully quotes “let the wild rumpus start,” from Where the Wild Things Are and there are allusions to a swing hanging from an oak tree,) or exploring word play, Deskins accompanies these fevered words with light and spirituality.

In “Common Prayer to Tree Gods and Goddesses,” the outlines of women are in a forest with the orange/reddish colors atop the tree canopy. One does not know if it is dawn or dusk and it doesn’t matter. These tree spirits are timeless.

Our tree lined streets or lone tree in a yard or tree standing tall in a park are us. Wiseman teaches us the mind might forget certain slings and arrows, but “…the body can remember what we carved.”  

This collaboration is a tour de force of word and color, a wonderful blending hybrid creation, as can only be found in nature.

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Jennifer MacBain-Stephens went to NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and now lives in the DC area. Her chapbook “Clown Machine” is forthcoming from Grey Book Press this summer.  Her first full length collection is forthcoming from Lucky Bastard Press.  Recent work can be seen or is forthcoming at Jet Fuel Review, Pith, Freezeray,Entropy, Queen Mob’s Teahouse, Right Hand Pointing, Cider Press Review, Inter/rupture, and decomP. Visit her here.