Black Widow Press

I'm Farguing away! No one I know studied his poetry in school. Why? Pourquoi?

Since you asked what I was reading...! Fargue has made himself at home on our guest room bed. More can be found on our kitchen chairs! So far, my favorite is his collection of short essays on the twenty arrondissements in Paris. Where's my croissant?

The guest room bed is covered in Fargue books! The dude covered social life in Paris as well as writing essays on writers, artists and musicians. He hung out with Satie until they fought and the threat of a duel came up. Fargue chose the weapons and his pick: spelling!

In stock and available to order, Valvular Ash, the new collection from Heller Levinson, and Even the Wicked Get Worse than we Deserve, the new novel from P. Curran. Available directly from us at www.blackwidowpress.com, or you can order from your local brick and mortar shop or from your online bookseller of choice.

If Fargue were still alive, I would meet him at Le Boeuf Sur le Toit for an apéro, and ask him a few questions. Would he trust me enough to talk a bit about his time with Jarry?

Coming soon from Crescent City Books, the sequel to P. Curran's cult besteller Stay Out of New Orleans, Even the Wicked Get Worse than we Deserve.

A pile of sand accreted round a bend in the Mississippi. Eons of too-rich silt in a concave too unstable to farm. A jungle shunned by all but the worst species. A Spanish wreck the French refused to admit couldn’t be saved. A monument to man’s inhumanity, its streets named to honor music and the Muses and a slave exchange. End of the line for the almost-rans. If you can’t make it here…stay anyway.

Set in New Orleans during the 1990s, the books function as an accidental time capsule after a 2005 levee breach demolished the city. Since their release, readers have commented on the odd continuity between the books and how they seemingly map out a lost corridor through the city’s secret past.

Sometimes called “The 90s Trilogy” or “The Stay Out Trilogy”, the first three P. Curran books lay at the intersection of brutal crime & supernatural occult fiction, detailing the grind of living in a place celebrated for its culture and hospitality while maintaining a reputation for being, at various times, the world’s murder capital. This sequel, another sly web of genre-defying tales, weaves characters and places from those earlier books into the treacherous new flora that sprung up in the flood’s wake.

P. Curran is a strange storyteller. As one of the pen names of Peter Orr, P. Curran has found their work in the hands of readers via merch table, guitar case, record shop, table at the French Market, & beyond. Originally from New York, Peter has barely scraped by or lived high on the hog in New Orleans since the early 90s. Oh and sure he's been to the university and edited magazines and what have ye. He used to edit magazines, then for twenty-five years played music in New Orleans nightclub.

Coming soon from Black Widow Press, a new exploration of Hinge Theory from Heller Levinson: Valvular Ash.

Valvular Ash pulls out all the stops, both hinges & unhinges, floats & burrows, clasps & heaves, -- an unfettered blitzkrieg juggling infinities across incandescent Vastnesses.

This latest Heller exfoliation shimmers forth ‘Oscillation,’ probes deep into the ‘Abyss,’ features ‘Gardening at the End of the World,’ ‘You,’ an extended treatment on ‘Tree,’ a meditation on Van Gogh’s Cypresses, further development of the ‘Crossfall’ module, plus hinges to the artist Helen Frankenthaler among others.

With each additional Heller emanation, our world becomes more complex, more curious, more alluring.

Three poems from the archives were picked up by Sequestrum and Lou brought home peach muffins from Rugby.

Big Ears poetry gig was wonderful! Loved every second, reading with Black Atticus, Rhea and RB! Thanks to all our friends who turned out, despite the complicated entry stuff. And we were honored that Mayor Indya Kincannon came to our show!

For your enjoyment: an analysis of Heller Levinson's work appearing recently in Sulfur.

https://sulfur-surrealist-jungle.com/2024/02/27/the-wild-poetics-of-questioning-in-heller-levinsons-work-by-mohsen-el-belasy/

Here we go! Thursday night at the start of Big Ears, free and open to the public!

Knoxville Poets Laureate: The Fearless Sun Cypher - Big Ears R.B. MORRIS: KNOXVILLE’S FIRST POET LAUREATE Writer, musician, and playwright R.B. Morris – whose poetry often reflects on East Tennessee culture and history – served as Knoxville’s first Poet Laureate 2016-2018. Morris, a Knoxville native, created new works and performed readings in celebra...

Here we go! Hope to see you on the 21st! https://bigearsfestival.org/event/knoxville-poets-laureate-the-fearless-sun-cypher/?fbclid=IwAR3FNMhLNX-nRPkf82inQaWqO_aAUR5OuagY-G_jPGKi6Ecp3dGpgMZBV40

Knoxville Poets Laureate: The Fearless Sun Cypher - Big Ears R.B. MORRIS: KNOXVILLE’S FIRST POET LAUREATE Writer, musician, and playwright R.B. Morris – whose poetry often reflects on East Tennessee culture and history – served as Knoxville’s first Poet Laureate 2016-2018. Morris, a Knoxville native, created new works and performed readings in celebra...

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=784188947074247&set=a.222663903226757 Looking forward to performing with some of the most talented poets on the planet! They give me hope! Event is free and open to the public.

All four of Knoxville's Poets Laureate will be featured in a performance at the upcoming Big Ears Festival being held at multiple venues in downtown Knoxville March 21-24, 2024. Current Poet Laureate Black Atticus has brought together RB Morris, Marilyn Kallet and Rhea "Sunshine" Carmon for a performance titled "The Fearless Sun Cypher" on Thursday, March 21, 6:30 p.m. at Regas Square.

Learn more about the performance: https://bigearsfestival.org/event/knoxville-poets-laureate-the-fearless-sun-cypher/
Learn more about the City's Poet Laureate program: KnoxvilleTN.gov/poet.

The Knoxville Poet Laureates, today's and past, will perform at Big Ears. Thursday, March 21st, 7 p.m., at Regas Square Events, downtown Knoxville. RB Morris, Rhea Carmon, Black Atticus and yours truly. More details when I have them!

Pat Nolan with an excellent review of Andrei Codrescu and Vincent Katz's cycle of cantos, A Possible Epic of Care.

Journal of a Plague Year And A Half Pat Nolan Andrei Codrescu & Vincent Katz, A Possible Epic Of Care, Black Widow Press, 2023 A Possible Epic Of Care is a pandemic prompted project that began at its onset in early 2020 and concl…

Thanks to poet Diana Engel for this focus on my poetry!

Enter, Epigraph ... and Madame Kallet!

New review of Heller Levinson's latest, Shift Gristle and Query Caboodle

Steve Potter Reviews Heller Levinson's SHIFT GRISTLE & QUERY CABOODLE — Raven Chronicles Press Heller Levinson continues his Hinge Theory-fueled explorations of life and language in two new collections of poetry from Black Widow Press. He includes four epigraphs at the beginning of Shift Gristle which give an indication of the concerns he will engage with, and the modes of engagement in

More from Andrei and Vincent -

A Possible Epic of Care Codrescu Katz | theartsection Now is the moment of care it is Lynnea and all others struggling to care for those suffering those dying at the hands of this reprehensible disease which is the disease of our civilization

Audio of Andrei Codrescu and Vincent Katz's reading from last Thursday night.

A Possible Epic Of Care: Andrei Codrescu and Vincent Katz, November 30, 2023 The Milton Resnick and Pat Passlof Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to the exhibition, publication, and preservation of works by painters Milton Resnick (1917-2004) and Pat Passlof (1

Black Widow Press author Andrei Codrescu will be speaking tonight as part of the BEATITUDE exhibition at the Palm Beach Photographic Centre. More information here:

www.workshop.org Donations are appreciated; anyone making a donation will be invited to our private after party on the last night of the festival

Tomorrow evening, Black Widow Press author Mark Polizzotti will be part of a panel discussion on "the art and craft of translation" put on by the National Book Critics Circle. More information, including a link to register for the Zoom panel, can be found via this link:

Barrios Book in Translation Roundtable - National Book Critics Circle The NBCC is honored to bring together the translators of 5 of the 6 finalists for the inaugural Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize in a panel discussion about the

Congratulations to Heller Levinson for winning the 2022 Big Other Poetry Book Award for Lure.

Announcing the Winners of the 2022 Big Other Book Awards! Delighted to announce the winners of the 2022 Big Other Book Awards! All the books below are linked to their respective pages at Bookshop. Visit the Big Other Shop there. Without further ado, here …

Every seat was taken for our book launch Sunday at Union Ave Books! Even When We Sleep got a beautiful welcome at the store!

jus’sayn’ by Heller Levinson: AVAILABLE NOW!
jus’sayn’: Part epic poem, part social commentary, part jazz history, part instrument analysis, & very largely a cataclysmic whirlwind homage to John Coltrane’s tune ‘One Down, One Up.’

In this hybridic surge, Heller ramps-up , enabling language to converse, whir, & dive, with the longest & arguably the most thrilling Coltrane solo ever recorded.
ISBN: 9781737160373
80 pages $10.00

Heller Levinson lives in NYC where he studies animal behavior. He has published in over a hundred journals and magazines including Sulfur, Jacket, Hunger, Talisman, First Intensity, Laurel Review, Omega, The Wandering Hermit, Fire (U.K), Alligatorzine, The Jivin' Ladybug, Moria, Woodcoin, etc. His last publication, Wrack Lariat was also published by Black Widow Press. He is the originator of Hinge Theory.