P H O T O G R A P H Y
by J E F F B L O O M E R
Long time Detroiter, now Toledo based artist and film-maker, Jeff Bloomer’s works are many over the years, but for being an accomplished film-maker, praised for his furniture making and home restoration, shown painter and sculptor, as well as be a full time instructor, Jeff has somehow managed to shoot a pile of photographs over the last 20 years. Shot with vintage manual cameras, developed and printed in the dark room by Bloomer, this book collects sixty photos from the straight to the abstract within the binding’s ten inch square format. Bloomer is one of our favorite living artists and we’re proud to present this small portion of his great many and varied works.
T H E N A K E D M Y O P I A & O T H E R P O E M S
by D R E W B A R D O
marks the first published collection of poems by writer and musician Drew Bardo. Our friend, Jeff Milo was kind enough to pen a few words on this book:
Myopia describes the “chimera of cruel fate.” There is disappointment for what man has become, what man has done to this world, which results in expressed longing to transition to the next “birth.” He sounds repulsed as he paints the apocalyptic imagery on display, whether across the montage pages of history or, live, daily, in front of the gas station down the street; and he bemoans the murderous greedy missteps of mankind
T H E S E A A S T H E S K Y / S C O U N D R E L
by R A N D Y F O R E M A N
is a printing of two short volumes of poetry by Randy Foreman comprised into one book. Nearly since I’ve met him, I’ve been recieving poems from Randy and this collection is the first batch of them. Scoundrel contains poems from 2005 through 2007, while The Sea as the Sky contains 2007 through 2009. Initially, I intended on printing these as two seperate volumes, but economically it is more affordable to print them as one. I also feel the presentation of one, thick volume, works better than two very short volumes. The work remains consistent between the two, but something makes each different . . . be it growth or disposition, I know not which.
E X P L O R A T I O N S O F A P A G E :
a S T O R Y o f L o v e S p a c e a n d F o r m
by R I C H I E W O H L F E I L
is a chapbook of verse that braids romantic love with the author’s adoration for poetic device, for myth and for those poets who’ve preceded him. And there’s sex too. Sex is too often bastardized in poetry, left limp on the page like porn tripe, and it’s a fine line for the writer, and even the greats cross it. Voltaire once wrote to his niece: My soul kisses yours; my prick, my heart, are in love with you. I kiss your beautiful ass. Wohlfeil at least engages it head-on: This is a LOVE story . . . have you heard that one before? — that you’ve already spread my thighs bit? — anyway, that’s another story, another time, another page — anything to provide Kicks Now In This Womb — any sort of dialogue between a page and its place — and if you really loved me, you’d do right to stay inside my s p a c e. Other poems (like one typed in the shape of an hourglass model that celebrates the womanly form more explicitly) are easier to swallow because there’s as much to say about the pleasure the author gets out of writing it as he does its subject. Explorations uses devices with vigor, but when Wohlfeil’s not taking the time to contour stanzas, his is a spontaneous torrent of thought, broken up by long, yielding dashes.
