Bøker utgitt av Spartan Press

"In one of Melvin Litton's stories in his latest book of short stories Son of Eve and Other Tales, a still-born child is buried without ceremony in a back yard and foreshadows a murder in an old house years later, maybe in the same place. There is cinematic sudden violence, Kansas-centric tales of careworn nuclear families fierce with promise and love, forbidden darknesses of wind, longing and the chill of regret that seeps through generations. These stories come from the resurrected flatlands of Charlie Starkweather's ghost. They remind me of the "Dirty Realism" of Raymond Carver and Carson McCullers, and not to wring the obvious out of a reference, Sam Shepard. Litton is able to scour the horizons of his tales with scathingly simple phrases: "(the sun) drops like an empty bottle beyond the tall weeds." The spirit of place is in every story. The final chapter is an eloquent paean to his past working life and his perspective belongs to not only the retiree, but the writer who assembled his bones throughout the long years. He worked construction, he made things, it gave a rhythm and ritual to his life that is reflected in every sentence." -John Macker, author of Atlas of Wolves (2019) and The Blues Drink Your Dreams Away, Selected Poems, 1983-2018 (Finalist for an Arizona/New Mexico Book Award)"Melvin Litton's brilliant, eccentric Son of Eve is both transcendent and awash in forbidden depths. There's a beauty to his language, and also a darkness that at times gives pause; a folksiness that belies the stirring volatility and complexity just beneath the surface. Some phrases stop you with their beauty and insight: "ghostly, erratic, yet real as a heartbeat in pause" describes a neon sign above a subterranean bar in the title story. In some ways, Litton's work calls to mind authors as unlike as Allen Ginsberg and Jim Harrison. Idiosyncratic, earthy and unearthly, gorgeous and forbidding, there is no "less is more" in this collection of stories, only a fearless, and occasionally elegiac telling that will stay with you long after you have closed the book." -Patricia Traxler, In the Skin (Spartan Press, 2020)

"J.T. Knoll''s book, Counterpart, is a breath of fresh cut grass and peaceful like a summer night. He leaves us wanting to know more about the small-town pool hall owner who watches over the high school kids and the neighbor lady who shares her peonies. He finds mercy in the elderly mother who has grown kinder as her memory grows softer. Like William Stafford and Carl Sandburg, Knoll writes clear and subtly insightful poems that draw on precise descriptions of the natural world. The big Kansas sky, the beloved dog, and the train run throughout the book. Knoll loves Kansas like one might love "cheerios," and "dandelion bracelets." Anyone viewing Kansas through his eyes will love it, too."-Beth Gruver Gulley, The Sticky Note Alphabet          (Alien Buddha Press)"The poems in J.T. Knoll''s excellent collection Counterpart manages to pull off the minor miracle of being both Kodachrome-saturated snapshots of memory and timeless. Shifting between a blue collar Kansas that may no longer exist and the present, Knolls creates a personal mythology of experience. This is poetry on a very human level, delivered at a time when we might desperately need it the most."-Troy Schoultz, author of No Quiet Entrances and         co-author of Remnants."J.T. Knoll''s poems consistently find the remarkable within the mundane; the spiritual, if not religious, within the secular. Some poems are lyrical, both humorous and ironic, songs to the living; others are hardscrabble from the coal mines, the railroad, the corner black market fireworks stand, alive with people, those we''ve known and possibly forgotten. Counterpart connects the ordinary to the extraordinary. Each poem is a tribute to our everyday communion with the transcendental. It''s a book for the nightstand and for tomorrow."- Al Ortolani, Swimming Shelter"With precise, evocative language J.T. Knoll captures the essence of life in rural Kansas. Whether his subjects are coal miners, farmers, neighboring housewives or his own childhood, Knoll''s poetry reminds us that by looking at the everyday world around us, by listening to human stories and by connecting to nature, we can find the spiritual in the quotidian. He makes the ordinary extraordinary."        - Elizabeth Winthrop Alsop, Daughter of Spies:    Wartime Secrets, Family Lies

Americana songwriter and Kansas-City-based storyteller K.W. Peery is the author of twelve poetry collections. He is founder and editor of The Angel''s Share Literary Magazine. His work is included in the Vincent Van Gogh Anthology Resurrection of a Sunflower, The Cosmic Lost and Found: An Anthology of Missouri Poets and The Konza Poetry Project Presents: Somewhere Between Kansas City And Denver (Spartan Press). Peery''s work has been published in The Main Street Rag, Chiron Review, San Pedro River Review, The Gasconade Review, Big Hammer, Blink Ink, Rusty Truck, Mad Swirl, Veterans Voices Magazine, Outlaw Poetry, Mojave River Review, The Asylum Floor, Horror Sleaze Trash, Ramingo''s Porch, From Whispers to Roars, Fearless Poetry Zine, Culture Cult Magazine, Punk Noir, Mutata Re, The Beatnik Cowboy and Apache Poetry. Credited as a lyricist and producer, Peery''s work appears on more than twenty studio albums over the past decade.Website: www.kwpeery.com

"Pat Lawson's poetry draws the reader in and holds the reader in thrall. She has an astonishing gift for language, and The Little Book of Me proves it. Her subjects run the gambit from cats and foreign travel to weeds and weddings. Along the way, we see outstanding imagery, original and appropriate word choices. Describing bugs flying around a light, she says 'small, green insects flitted and crisped.' Never is a poem obscure. Her work exudes accessibility. Whatever the topic, she captures its essence, The reader enters 'Grandmother's Kitchen,' watches as young children at a wedding reception 'take to the floor,' learns about her past boyfriends through writing that is evocative and fresh. This is a book to finish at one sitting, a compelling book. Not all is serious here. Just when you think you know where the poem is going, she tosses in a humorous curve, sardonic and otherwise. This is a brilliant collection in which Lawson has captured 'the big wide waters of the world," hers and ours.'" -R. Nikolas Macioci, author of Why Dance? and Dark Guitar "Put on your bib and dig in. Discover yourself and fill your belly with Patricia Lawson's The Little Book of Me. This impeccably-crafted, strongly-narrative collection focuses on ten facets of life and create a delightful, lavish table. Her work sizzles, resonates, permeates, sticks to your bones. Her poetry toasts you. It says, "Welcome to your place at the feast." -Sandra Feen, Fragile Capacities: School Poems "The Little Book of Me is not that little, full as it is with the astute observations, wit, poignancy, and insight of the me in its title. Patricia Lawson lets us spy on a child who stars in a life she has made up; she reminds us of the self-absorption of adolescence so 'bent on losing . . . innocence' that others become merely backgrounds in their picture. She pulls the blinds wide open on midlife and marriage when the bride, who had once 'momentarily taken over the game' becomes she who 'keels the pots' while the rest of the family watches the game. Inevitably, old age opens its 'unwelcome portal' through which none of us runs 'thin as a thistle.' But life is way more than its arc. There are travels with heavy-drinking friends, and cats who may become so numerous as to be a 'carpet of cat' moving across the back yard. From moments of intense pique to a snowy afternoon so silent that 'If God spoke, he would sound like Edward R. Murrow,' this collection is a trip I'm so glad I took. I think you will love it, too." -Eve Ott, Album from the Silent Generation"Wry, witty, and often laugh-out-loud funny, Pat Lawson thoroughly entertains in this journey through childhood, adolescence, marriage, adulthood, aging, gardening, travel abroad, neighborhood life, and cats-a narrative of life. Though readers may chuckle reading these poems, throughout is an underlying current of acute observation and wisdom, and The Little Book of Me, becomes the little book of we as readers find both the personal and the universal." -Maryfrances Wagner, The Immigrants' New Camera

In The Words We Do Not Have, Steve Brisendine brings experience into sharp focus-a road trip with his son, evenings spent playing pool, an abused childhood classmate-along with meditative explorations of life, death, aging, and faith. The author employs as a title for each poem an unusual foreign word (along with its definition), a strategy that unifies the collection, while also yielding delightful and unexpected trajectories as the poems unfold. Brisendine's imaginative lexicon offers us a space where "a heart has/ spilled itself, where words bloomed/ into something past words." -Janice Northerns, author of Some Electric Hum"We have enough wind in Kansas," Steve Brisendine opens his excellent new book. "When you / walk into it, it pulls." Beginning with the language of wind, Brisbane reveals a dark world through a series of tongues. In "Mokita," a classmate is abused and silent, eventually dead. We learn the title's Kilivila meaning: "something everyone knows but no one talks about." Outlining a "slippery downhill way," these grave, sometimes minutial poems (as in "Qarba," the appearance of white hairs in a man's beard) highlight how life gives us "hope of reunion . . . but also the knowledge that such might never happen. Dark, global, nuanced in how it reveals a gritty world." -Tyler Robert Sheldon, Editor-in-Chief of MockingHeart Review and author of Consolation Prize (Finishing Line Press, 2018)

"Black Summer by Wayne F. Burke is more than a book of poetry. It is an experience to be lived and relived. Burke taps into our most shared experiences of humanity. His conversational verse entices the reader to continue following the exploits of this wandering everyman who searches, yearns for definition, only to find definitions lacking. But the road is all-encompassing. This book is for lovers of a good story, a good life, and is a roadmap for all of us who often find ourselves on the shoulder of life''shighway." - James Benger, author of From the Back"Poems as funny and as tragic as could ever be imagined-from a lifetime of REAL experience in the REAL world." -Howard Frank Mosher, author, A Stranger In The                              Kingdom.∩╗┐"Wayne F. Burke is 65 (going on 66) years old. He reminds me a little of Ed Galing, who wrote poems into his 90''s. When I used to see Galing in a publication I always read his poems first not because he was old but because I knew he wouldn''t bullshit me. I knew there would be no slickness or pretentiousness, no metaphors stretched out so far you forgot where they started, no look-at-me-being-a-poet, pat me on the head, junk. Just a sensitive, sometimes fucked-up, lonely person writing about the moments of his life."-Mather Schneider"Burke jolts his reader into a state of awareness-one of the high aims of all art." -Arthur Hoyle, author, The Unknown Henry Miller.

"You can almost smell the Brut cologne wafting through the pages as you read Scot Young''s new book of poetry, All Around Cowboy.  The book is filled with firsts: first rock gig, first ballgame, first love crush, first Dodge. He writes of his early dreams back home, Mom and Dad at the center, a child''s mind running wild with empathy, considering young mothers from strange towns he''s never met, wondering if they too blow bubbles in their dreams. The poems about his barfly father are crushing. Plainly said, brick by brick, the words lay out like a low budget 70''s cop caper. You see every move before your eyes, and it''s heavy at times. And it''s all there, beyond the tavern dust. And Young is never alone. Even when the poet is struggling through a sleepless night, he sniffs at the air and listens quietly for anything recognizable in the house - the smell of cigarettes, the squeak of linoleum - and it''s in those moments where the poets words are delivered so powerfully."  -Rob Azevedo, Turning on the Wasp (Kung Fu                       Treachery Press, 2020)"Scot Young may not want to hear this, but he isn''t a cowboy, not in the movie poster sense anyway. This book, his first, is the history of the man he''s become, stronger than his heroes Richard Brautigan and Charles Bukowski, educating young people, publishing countless others without thought given to personal reward, often helping them when they''re not in a position to help themselves, opening his heart and sharing a great love of literature, Scot Young is a great poet, but anyone can do that, he''s an even greater man, so I take it back, maybe he is a cowboy, but let''s be clear, John Wayne would never have the balls to be Scot Young."-John Dorsey, Author of The Prettiest Girl at the                      Dance∩╗┐"A beautiful, touching and often insightful journey that hits its mark, Scot Young''s All Around Cowboy is a country rock rodeo get down. A place suspended in time where Mickey Mantle meets Jack Kerouac on the cosmic baseball diamond with Hendrix on guitar and a lonesome Whippoorwill calling the play by play in the voice of Hank Williams singing my jukebox''s got a hole in it. A down to earth collection of first love, brotherly love and true love straight from the heart, these poems are life and death lessons swimming in a swirling beer while sitting in an old school bar called father''s office somewhere in the land of sky blue waters." - S.A. Griffin"When archeology digs up a book of poetry from this changing planet, it will reveal a bit of "Herodotus Americana" as Scot Young''s good cowboy rides into the sunset of the greatest generation and plays the last number on the jukebox. Like the songs, the poems of tragedy and joys, from mini skirts to baseball, grows up and glows up in the middle of the country''s golden era of post war years from the 50''s to 70''s. This all around cowboy knew the greats, from "Butterfly" to "Buk" while metaphorically herding the storm clouds out of the sky. Tragic, rough & rowdy, hip and cool, delicate for the heart and head, his poems, like Robinson, hits the balls and touches all bases, a book I surely dig and so will you, with "Hey good lookin''" on the cover times two. Plus, one can learn his great definition of poetry and discover the worst insult in Western idiom."- Charles Plymell

"I once included Harley Elliott in a group I referred to as "Poets of the 6th Principle Meridian" (the north-south line used as a base for the Public Land Survey System that laid out the hatch-work of green and brown quadrangles we see as we fly over heartland America). He has lived for many years within a stone''s throw of that meridian and his poems often speak as straight as a section-line road about the beating hearts of prairie denizens. The forms of the poems on the pages of Creature Way put me in mind of that characterization; short line lengths make the poems on their pages into graphic depictions of prairie perspectives; apparently simple words put together in what appear to be simple ways are revealed by attentive reading to express insightful truths as inter- twined and intense as the tillering subsurface webs that sustain prairie grasses through drought and fire and flood. You owe yourself this conversation with Harley Elliott."-Roy Beckemeyer, Author of Mouth Brimming           Over (Blue Cedar Press, 2019)"Few poets can meditate on a prairie scene (or any scene) with Harley''s wicked, intelligent wit. For instance, when climbing through a barbwire fence following a lovely woman, Harley writes, "If she turns and / parts the wires for you / call the preacher." That''s all Harley: voice and smarts and humility and romance, all at once."-Kevin Rabas (Poet Laureate of Kansas, 2017-         2019), All That Jazz∩╗┐"Harley Elliott is a homespun philosopher with a gifted earand the heart of a laughing scavenger."-Steven Hind"Harley Elliott is the poet who made me want to be a poet. His new book of revelations, Creature Way, continues to interrogate the relationship between humans and other living beings--including stones. The poem "Turquoise" asserts, Some say it looks like sky. / Some say it is sky." Artifice collapses. This is an essential book about the cosmos from the poet who changed my life. "-Denise Low, Kansas Poet Laureate

"Like the Ginsberg he quotes as an epigraph, the energy here is loose, long-limbed and anachronistic. The poems move like dreams and myths, their recurring themes and actions subtly linking them into a satisfying whole. And then just when you think you know where you are, the poems veer - L''Ecuyer has a facility with any and all styles, and a love of chance, and something else that almost always gets forgotten these days: a love of fun. Reading these poems is a pleasure. Imagine that!"-Matthew Rohrer

Each poem in Carmel Morse''s debut collection, Bloodroot, opens fully in the sun of memory. And just like the plant from which the book takes its name, each poem blooms with paradox: delicate and enduring; simply designed yet emotionally complex. Even though ghosts of grandmothers, mothers, wives, daughters, aunts, and sisters travel through dreams and darkness when the flowers close, and even though "I am a woman in an inkwell, drowning / because she did not answer me," Bloodroot pulls down strength from the sun and sinks it into its juiced-red roots. Morse doesn''t obscure the shimmering details of pain, but names and wonders and challenges. In doing so, this sharp poet transforms memories of abuse and regret into art.-- Christine Stewart-Nu├▒ez, South Dakota Poet Laureate and author of Bluewords Greening (Terrapin Books, 2016)ε£ÆIn Bloodroot, Carmel Morse''s poems capture the experiences and the people that have shaped her life. The poems are made of concrete words and images. They also have a deeper level that captures the emotional and spiritual depth at the root of the experiences. The first poem, "Onyx," is charged with striking images and it tells a story. The father rejects his child because it is a girl; however, he gives the narrator a beautiful necklace. Sixteen years later, when she prepares to deliver her second child, the father cannot accept that the baby is a girl. He leaves no gift and two years later he leaves for good. The narrator''s life is so hard she almost sells the necklace, but she cannot. In order to remain strong, she "would unwrap the necklace/from the tissue paper/and fondle the stone." Here is Eliot''s Objective Correlative written with striking force, forging the experience in the reader''s mind. - Gary Pacernick, author of Memory and Fire: Ten American Jewish Poets (Peter Lang, 1989) Bloodroot, an apt title for this collection, delves deep through family and personal history to explore what is has meant, and continues to mean, to be an independent woman in America, even though "jagged threads shriveled/into cables of dried blood/and snapped off at the roots years ago."  Carmel Morse''s poems seek out "staples that attempt/to gather my...loose ends" and in so doing, she provides a full pantry.  She exposes how American culture has held women "to a tent/of beauty as surface perfection", delving beneath that surface to find both flaws and inner beauty.  Ultimately, this collection pays tribute to the human capacity, despite torment and tragedy, to survive and to nourish its bloodline and dance the Charleston at a granddaughter''s birthday party. - Will Wells, author of Unsettled Accounts (Ohio University Press, 2010)